The Idea of Peace and the Idea of Humanity

Extract

There is a tendency today to substitute the affirmation of the absolute value of peace for an earlier, fully-formulated ideal of universal peace. This formula, if I am not mistaken, bears the mark of a new exigency: how to maintain the philosophical task, that is, give a basis to the idea of peace that does not arise solely from circumstantial considerations—however imperious they may be, since they come from the knowledge of the danger that a new world war would bring to entire populations—without again falling under Utopian illusions that have fed the projects of perpetual peace. However, some of the difficulties with which the present consideration will deal give a glimpse of the definition of peace as an absolute value. I think it would be wise to examine this definition briefly in order to clear a way for myself.