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Kant, the Republican Peace, and Moral Guidance in International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Cecelia Lynch
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Just as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes became etched into the minds of international relations scholars as the oracles of realpolitik during the Cold War, Immanuel Kant appears to be well on his way to becoming the prophet of “progressive international reform” in the post—Cold War era. Not only has Kant's thought provided the underpinnings of one of the major traditions of international law, but there is a groundswell of interest among international relations scholars today in the question of whether contemporary events, particularly the proliferation of republican states and attempts to create them, signal the march forward to the Kantian ideal of republican peace. Yet, prior to asking what contemporary events signify for the attainment of the Kantian ideal, we should analyze the conflicting interpretions fo Kantian political thought so as to understand the meaning and implications of the ideal itself. Such a task is not merely pedantie—it is necessary to determine the utility of political philosophy for providing understanding and guidance in the real world.

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Articles
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Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 8 , March 1994 , pp. 39 - 58
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Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1994

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References

1 On the “Kantian Tradition” in international law see David R. Mapel and Terry Nardin, “Convergence and Divergence in International Ethics.” in Nardin and Mapel. eds. Traditions of International Ethics (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 1992. 297- 22.

2 Gleditsch, Nils Petter, “Democracy and Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (November 1992), 369CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Levy, Jack, “Domestic Politics and War,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18 (Spring 1988), 662CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Those who to varying degrees refer explicitly to Kant include Doyle, Michael, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 1,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Summer 1983)Google Scholar, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Fall 1983)Google Scholar, and “Liberalism and World Politics,” American Political Science Review 80 (December 1986)Google Scholar; John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1988); Jack Levy, “The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence,” in Philip E. Tetlock, Jo L. Husbands, Robert Jervis, Paul C. Stern, and Charles Tilly, eds., Behavior, Society and Nuclear War, vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York; Basic Books, 1992); Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and David Lalman, War and Reason (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Kegley, Charles W. Jr., “The Neoidealist Moment in International Studies'? Realist Myths and the New International Realities,” International Studies Quarterly 37 (June 1993)Google Scholar; Weede, Erich, “Some Simple Calculations on Democracy and War Involvement,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (November 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sorensen, George, “Kant and Processes of Democratization: Consequences for Neorealist Thought,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (November 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russett, Bruce and Antholis, William, “Do Democracies Fight Each Other? Evidence from the Peloponnesian War,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (November 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Starr, Harvey, “Democracy and War: Choice, Learning and Security Communities,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (May 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morgan, T. Clifton and Schwebach, Valerie, “Take Two Democracies and Call Me in the Morning: A Prescription for Peace?” International Interactions 17 (1992), no. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Levy, “Domestic Politics and War.”

5 See Tesón, Fernando R.. “The Kantian Theory of International Law” Colombia Law Review 92 (January 1992)Google Scholar.

6 Examples following from this criticism are discussed by, among others, Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: ()n the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989) 131–35:Thomas Donalson, “Kant's Global Ratienalism.” in Nardin and Maple, Tradition, 149–49.

7 In this vein. Gabrie Negretto has compared the use of force sanctioned by, respectively, the Kantian project for international peace and twentieth-century collectivee security schemes in “Kant, and the Illusion of Collective Security,”Journal of International Affair 401Winter 1993

8 Much of Kant's political and historical writings is found in a series of essays, including but not limited to “Perpetual Peace” (by far the most popular for contemporary theorists). These include: “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,”“What is Enlightenment?”“The End of All Things,” and “An Old Question Raised Again: Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing?” In addition to these essays, a few international relations theorists base their analyses of Kant's political thinking on the discussion of private and public right in The Metaphysics of Morals and The Philosophy of Law. Although some of his political thought can also be found in his work on the philosophy of religion, this is rarely cited by students of international relations. Editions and collections consulted for this article include the collection of political essays listed above found in Lewis White Beck, ed., Kant on History, trans. Lewis White Beck, Robert E. Anchor, and Emil L. Fackenheim (New York: Macmillan, 1963); Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Thomas K. Abbott (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949); The Metaphysics of Morals, intr. and trans. Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); The Philosophy of Law, trans. W. Hastie (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1887); and The Moral Law, Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, intr. and trans. H. J. Paton (London: Routledge, 1991). My interpretation of the relationship of politics, history, and duty/morality in Kant's thought owes much to Lewis White Beck.

9 Kant takes pains “not to confuse the republican constitution with the democratic (as is commonly done).”“Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck, ed., Kant, 95.

10 Charles W. Kegley. Jr., sees recent international events as providing the backdrop for a reassessment of Wilsonian idealism, itself “rooted in Kantian liberalism.” Kegley. “The Ncoidealist Moment,” 135. Also see Starr, Harvey, “Democracy and War: Choice, Learning, and Security Communities,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (May 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Russett, Bruce. “Can a Democratic Peace he Built?” International Interactions 18 (1993). no. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Negretto. “Kant and the Illusion of Collective Security”: Harold K. Jacobson. Networks of Interdependence, International Organizations and the Global Political System, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984). 21–29.

12 Waltz, Kenneth, “Kant, Liberalism, and War,” American Political Science Review 56 (June 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 331–10.

13 Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs” (Parts 1 and II); Morgan and Schwebach, “Take Two Democracies”; Russett and Antholis, “Do Democracies Fight Each Other?”

14 Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman, War and Reason, 155.

15 Doyle often gives equal weight to the moral, economic cost-benefit, and acculturation arguments, sometimes collapsing them into one. For example, cosmopolitanism is defined primarily in accordance with liberal economic theory and the benefits of comparative advantage. For Doyle, this collapsing, or conflating, of categories begins with his choice of the term “liberalism” over “republicanism,” which gives equal position to market institutions, on the one hand, and individual civic freedoms and equality of opportunity on the other. Doyle, “Kant. Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Allah's, Part 1,” 206–9, 225–26, 231. See also Mueller, Retreat, 27. 34.

16 Maoz, Zeev and Russett, Bruce.. “Alliance. Contiguity. Wealth, and Political Stability: Is the Lack of Conflict Among Democracies a Statistical Artifact?” International Interactions 17 (1992), no. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sorenson, “Kant and Processes”; Morgan and Schwehaen. “Take Two Democracies.” A study that combines very nicely the notion of a Kantian insistence on institutions with his emphasis on reason is that of Pierre Hassner, “Concepts fie Guerre et de Paix chez Kant.”Revenue Française dc Science de science Politique 11., (September 1961). Hassner emphasizes the importance in Kant's thought of juridical institutions, however, on both the national and international levels, pointing out that Kant “never departs from the notion that practical reason requires states, as moral persons, to join together under a rule of law that both preserves their individual autonomy and proscribes war…” (p. 651; translation mine).

17 Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part I,” 229; Mueller, Retreat, 34; Levy, “Domestic Politics,” 658; Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman, War and Reason, 45, 153; and Sorenson, “Kant and Processes,” 397–98. The passage itself is found in “Perpetual Peace,” as part of the “First Definitive Article for Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck, ed., Kant, 94–95.

18 Weede, ” some Simple Calculations,” 377.

19 ”… since peace is our goal and since uniformity of regimes is the only guarantee for peace, we have a choice of designing a system of international law that would either require respect for human rights or require despotism. On any defensible theory of morality, if that is our choice, we would prefer an international legal system that required states to secure human rights and political representation and thus be uniform on the side of liberty” (emphases added). Also, “the protection against intervention is a consequence of domestic legitimacy” (emphases added), thus, “nonintervention holds only among liberal states…” (emphasis in original). Tesón, “The Kantian Theory,” 81, 92–93.

20 “The error of the naturalistie Enlightenment for Kant is that it sees rationality is having a purely instrument role.”“Kant's Theory of Freedom.” in Charless Taylor. Philosophy and the Human Science. Philospphical Paper 2 (New York: Cambridge Universily Press. 1988, 321

21 “What is Enlighitment?” in White Beck, ed. Kant, 3.

22 Maelntyre.4 Short History, 196.

23 Kant, Fundamental Principles, 5 5

24 Donaldson, “Kant's Global Rationalism,” 136. Waltz submits that “it is incumbent upon us to take Kant at his word and begin by briefly discussing his moral philosophy” (Waltz. “Kant, Liberalism, and War,” 331). He both begins and finishes his discussion of Kant in this manner, although, as indicated previously, in his view Kantian morality ends up as no more than a Sisyphean duty.

25 Michael Doyle, in “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,” refers more than once to the “inevitability” of the growth of the separate peace for Kant. See also Stanley Hoffmann, The State of War: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics (New York: Praeger, 1965), 83–84.

26 Kant's Fourth Thesis in the “Idea for a Universal History” asserts: “The means employed by Nature to bring about the development of all the capacities of men is their antagonism in society, so far as this is, in the end, the cause of a lawful order among men.” He goes on to say, “By ‘antagonism’ I mean the unsocial sociability of men, i.e., their propensity to enter into society, bound together with a mutual opposition which constantly threatens to break up the society” (“Idea for a Universal History,” in White Beck, ed., Kant, 15).

27 Kant. “Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck. Kant, 113–14.

28 Hoffmann, The State of War. 83.

29 Kant. “Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck. Kant, 12–13

30 Kant, Eighth Thesis in “Idea for a Universal History,” in White Beck, Kant, 21–22.

31 Kant, Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck, Kant, 100–1 (emphasis added).

32 Kratochwil, Rules, 256. Terry Nardin defines and applies the term in Law Morality and the Relations of States (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), passim.

33 For a recent discussion of the first problem, see Georgia Warlike, Justice and Interpretation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993): and Stern, Paul, “The Problem of History and Temporality in Kantian Ethics,” Review of Metaphysics 39 (March 1986)Google Scholar, passim; for the second, see Kralochwíl. Rules, 134.

34 MacIntyre, A Short History, 198. In acknowledging this problem. Maclmyre himself does not, however, see Kant's purpose as empty.

35 Kant. Ninth Thesis in “Idea for a Universal History.” in White Beck, ed., Kunt, 25.

36 White Beck, ed., Kant, xvii–xviii.

37 Kant, Ninth Thesis in “Idea for a Universal History,” in White Beck, ed., Kant, 24–25. Paul Stern distinguishes between notions of historical development of morality and that of a moral disposition, arguing that Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative precludes any notion of “historical development in the meaning of morality itself (emphasis added). As Stern points out. however, this does not preclude the idea of “progress in the attainment of a moral disposition,” although in his analysis the “conceptual problems Kant faces in grasping the evolution of a moral disposition within the temporal order” (emphases in original) are, in the end. insurmountable. Paul Slern. “The Problem ot 1 History and Morality in Kantian Ethics.” esp. :506–7; 520–22. Kant himself further explains how the “moral disposition” is developed: civil laws facilitate “the development of the moral disposition to a direct respect for the law by placing a barrier against the outbreak of unlawful inclinations…. Thereby a great step (although not yet a moral step) is taken toward morality, which is attachment to this concept of duty for its own sake and without regard to hope of a similar response from others…. But since even respect for the concept of right (which man cannot absolutely refuse to respect) solemnly sanctions the theory that he has the capacity of conforming to it, everyone sees that he, for his part, must act according to it. however others may act” (Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck. cd. Kant, 123, n. 2).

39 The primary example is perhaps Fukuyarna, The End of History).

40 Yet Gleditsch also acknowledges that a prodemocracy discourse that justifies intervention continues to influence the actions of liberal states in the post-Cold War period, and that it was “compatible with at least some of the rhetoric in the 1991 Gulf War” (Gleditsch, “Democracy and Peace,” 373–74).

41 Sorensen Kant and Processes,” 404. The problem here is that such a characterization of Kant can lead to a variety of prescriptions. Although Sorensen, following Doyle, recognizes that the attempt to promote democratic values abroad can lead to ethnocentric crusades, he interprets Kant as arguing “for the victory of democracy as the superior form of state” (399–400). In Fukuyama's reading of Kant, liberal states can do little wrong. The principle of the “sovereign equality” of states enshrined in the United Nations, for example, should be nullified. Instead, “If one wanted to create a league of nations according to Kant's own precepts, that did not suffer from the fatal flaws of earlier international organizations, it is clear that it would have to look much more like NATO than the United Nations—that is, a league of truly free states brought together by their common commitment to liberal principles. Such a league should be much more capable of forceful action to protect its collective security from threats arising from the non-democratic part of the world” (Fukuyama, The End of History, 281–83).

42 Tesón, “The Kantian Theory.”

43 Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Berlin Academy ed., vol. VI, 95–96, quoted in Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences, 327.

44 Kant. Second Preliminary Article lor Perpetual Peace Among States. “Perpetual Peace.” in White Beck. ed. Kant 86 Tesón must explicitly reject this assertion in order to arrive :1 his justification for interervention Tensón. “Kantian Theory.” 91–93)

45 Kant “An Old Question Raised Again” in White Beck, ed. 150.

46 Kant Fifth Preliminary Article for Perpetual Peace Among States. “Perpetual Peace in White Beck. ed. Kant. 89. This accords with Charles Beízs view that “One must understand Kant vies on political changein light of his view of history and from this perspective it seems more likely that he would have thought republican government would emerge through domestic conflict…than through external in-tervention what, is meonitestable is that he nowhere makes any explicit claim regarding the priority of republicanism over Donintervetion”! C'harles R Beitz., Politicall Theory and Relations [Princenton, N.J. Princenton University Press, 1979), 82, n.35.

46 Ibid P3

47 Kant. “Perpetual Peace.” in White Beck, ed., kant. 89.

48 Ibid

49 Hinsley had two reasons for criticizing this passage; the other, and in his view secondary, reason being that “it destroys the force of the distinction which Kant had tried to draw between a republican form of constitution and a democratic form of government—since in a democracy if the majority is despotic, it is also the majority that undergoes all the deprivations.” Thus, as Hinsley points out, Kant was not a democrat; indeed, populist majoritarianism was for him one of the worst forms of despotism “because it establishes an executive power in which ‘all’ decide for or even against one who does not agree; that is, ‘all’ who are not quite all, decide, and this is a contradiction of the general will with itself and with freedom“(emphasis added). Rather, Kant favored a republican, or representative, legislature divorced from an executive to ensure that all views be aired and despotism checked, presumably to encourage good decisions to be arrived at through a process of collective reason. Thus, if a “despotic” majority checks state action on the basis of being inconvenienced (the implication of much contemporary work on the “liberal peace”), such a check would be made in accordance with neither republican nor ethical grounds. F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 71.

50 Hoffmann, The State of War, 83 (emphasis in original in first sentence; emphasis added in second sentence).

51 In this way. Kant's “rational universalism” does pose a challenge to the concept ol' slate sovereignty in that it goes “beyond the earlier positions of Pulendorf and Vattel which accepted the absolute rights of sovereign states, the separation between publie and private morality, and thus 1 pragmatic view of international co-operation.” R. B.J. Walker. Inside/Outside International Relations As Political Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 71.

52 “Perpetual Peace,” in White Beck. ed., Kant, 117.125.