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From ‘Perpetual Peace’ to ‘The Law of Peoples’: Kant, Habermas and Rawls on International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Thomas Mertens
Thomas Mertens
Affiliation:
Nijmegen University
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Extract

It is hardly surprising that the two greatest Kantian philosophers of the twentieth century's second half would, at some point of time, reflect and comment on one of the most famous writings of the Königsberg sage, namely on Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Of course, in recent decades, and especially around the celebration of the 200th anniversary of its publication, many commentary articles and books have been published on Kant's little essay, but it makes a difference when Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls make an effort to get to an appropriate understanding of Kant's text in the present-day world. Here I will describe some of the main features of their understanding of Kant's peace proposal. I will first briefly recall the main scheme of Kant's essay, anticipating the writings of Habermas and Rawls by employing their new vocabularies and schemes in describing Kant's position. The main purpose of my outline of Kant's essay is to investigate how much of Kant's proposal has remained alive in Habermas and Rawls.

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Articles
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Kantian Review , Volume 6 , March 2002 , pp. 60 - 84
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Copyright © Kantian Review 2002

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References

Notes

1 Kant, I., Zum ewigen Frieden, Ak. 341–86Google Scholar (tr. as ‘Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch’, in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Reiss, H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 93–130;Google Scholar and as ‘Toward perpetual peace: a philosophical project’, in Kant, Immanuel, Practical Philosophy, tr. and ed. Gregor, M. J., introd. Wood, A. (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 313–51Google Scholar.

2 For an overview of parts of the literature see Cavallar, G., ‘Annäherung an den ewigen Frieden: Neuere Publikationen über Immanuel Kants Friedensschrift’, in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 46 (1998), 137–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCavallar, G., Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Clovell, C., Kant and the Law of Peace (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaufmann, M., ‘Kein ewiger Friede für Kant: ein Riickblick auf einige Literatur zu 200 Jahren Zum ewigen Frieden’, in Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 25 (2000), 271–80;Google ScholarOrend, B., War and International justice: A Kantian Perspective (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

3 Habermas, J., ‘Kants Idee des Ewigen Friedens - aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren’, in Kritische Justiz, 28 (1995), 293–318;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also idem, Die Einbeziehung des Anderen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), pp. 192-236; and also as ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace, with the benefit of two hundred years' hindsight’, in Bohman, J. and Lutz-Bachmann, M. (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 113–53.Google Scholar I will refer to the English version.

4 Rawls, J., ‘The Law of Peoples’, in Shute, S. and Hurley, S. (eds), On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures (New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 41–82;Google ScholarRawls, J., The Law of Peoples (London: Harvard University Press, 1999).Google Scholar Unless explicitly mentioned, I will refer to Rawls's latest version of The Law of Peoples.

5 Howard, M., The Invention of Peace (London: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 31.Google Scholar

6 See Williams, H., ‘Kant, Rawls, Habermas and the metaphysics of justice’, in Kantian Review, 3 (1999), 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 356; Kant's Political Writings, p. 104; ‘Toward perpetual peace: a philosophical project’, inGoogle Scholar, KantPractical Philosophy, p. 327)Google Scholar.

8 , KantDie Metaphysik der Sitten. Rechtslehre (Ak. 6: 350–1;Google Scholar, Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 171Google Scholar; also ‘The metaphysics of morals’, in , KantPractical Philosophy, pp. 487–8)Google Scholar.

9 For example, , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace‘, pp. 117–18;Google ScholarMertens, T., ‘War and international order in Kant's legal thought’, Ratio Juris, 8 (1995), 296–314;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCavallar, G., Kant and International Right, pp. 113–31Google Scholar.

10 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 36Google Scholar; , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 367)Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 113Google Scholar; ‘Toward perpetual peace: a philosophical project’, in Kant, Immanuel, Practical Philosophy, 336)Google Scholar.

11 , KantZum ewigen Frieden, Ak. 8: 346Google Scholar (, Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 96Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 319)Google Scholar; interestingly enough Rawls is very cautious about the question of the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention too: , Rawls ‘The Law of Peoples’, in On Human Rights, pp. 55–6;Google Scholar, RawlsThe Law of Peoples, pp. 81, 93–4nGoogle Scholar.

12 See also Mill, J. S., ‘A few words on non-intervention’ (1867),Google Scholar in Collected Works, xxi, p. Ill vv.

13 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 344Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 94Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 318).Google Scholar, Rawls agrees here: The Law of Peoples, pp. 37 (5th principle), 91Google Scholar.

14 , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 118.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 134; See also: Mertens, T., ‘Cosmopolitanism and citizenship: Kant against Habermas’, European Journal of Philosophy, 4 (1996), 328–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 ‘Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality’; , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 357Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 105Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 328)Google Scholar.

17 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 343Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 93Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 317).Google Scholar Kant probably refers here to Leibniz, see The Political Writings of Leibniz, ed. Riley, P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 183, 166Google Scholar.

18 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 6.Google Scholar

19 On Kant's use of the concept ‘nature’, its connection to Kant's Critique of Judgement and its origin in Leibniz and Wolff, see the following classic studies: Weyand, K., Kants Geschichtphilosophie: Ihre Entwickling und ihr Verhältnis zur Aufklärung (Cologne: University of Cologne Press, 1963), esp. pp. 133–5, 140-2, 178-81Google Scholar; Düsing, K., Die Teleologie in Kants Weltbegriff (Bonn: University of Cologne Press, 1968), esp. pp. 209–37 (221-2). In so far as Kant reverts to the classical Stoic tradition, seeGoogle ScholarNussbaum, M., ‘Kant and cosmopolitanism’, in Bohman, J. and Lutz-Bachmann, M. (eds), Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, London, 1997), pp. 25–57;Google ScholarReich, K., Kant und die Ethik der Griechen (Tübingen: Mohr, 1935), esp. pp. 38–41Google Scholar.

20 For the sake of the argument, I deliberately pay no attention to Kant's distinction between determining and reflective judgement. I am, of course, aware that Kant's statements on nature in Perpetual Peace are based on teleological judgement only and do not point at some inevitable course of human history. See Mertens, T., ‘Zweckmäβigkeit der Natur und politische Philosophie bei Kant’, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 49 (1995), 220–40. Doubts about the ‘ruse of nature’ do therefore not affect the practical necessity to establish peaceful legal relations among nations and peoples, nor — as will be argued later — the need to make visionary images of a future peaceful worldGoogle Scholar.

21 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 351Google Scholar; Kant's Political Writings, p. 100; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 323)Google Scholar; Cavallar, G., Kant and International Right, p. 77Google Scholar.

22 See Howard, M., War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), chapter 6.Google Scholar

23 , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 120Google Scholar; Rawls underlines the same point, The Law of Peoples, p. 51, referring to Doyle's, M. well-known article ‘Kant, liberal legacies, and foreign affairs’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12 (Summer 1983), 205–35 and 13 (Fall 1983), 323-53. Rightfully - although I need not go into details here - Doyle's thesis has not remained uncriticized, seeGoogle ScholarCavallar, G., ‘Kantian perspectives on democratic peace: alternatives to Doyle’, Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), 229–48, esp. 238–9,247CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 On how this can be understood, see Pogge, T., ‘Priorities of global justice’, in Pogge, T. (ed.), Global justice, special issue of Metaphilosophy, 32 (2001), 6–24Google Scholar.

25 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 360Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, pp. 107–8;Google Scholar, KantPractical Philosophy, p. 330)Google Scholar.

26 , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 124.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. 130.

28 Ibid., p. 134.

29 Many references make it evident that Schmitt regards (neo-) Kantian philosophy as his ideological enemy. See Schmitt, C., Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1996; orig. 1932), pp. 55, 33–4 note.Google Scholar Most prominently perhaps in this respect: Schmitt, C., Über die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1934)Google Scholar.

30 See Lilla, M., ‘The enemy of liberalism’, The New York Review of Books, (15 May 1997).Google Scholar

31 Only after the Nazi take-over were the German people prepared to do so, see Schmitt, C., Staat, Bewegung, Volk (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1933), pp. 5, 17 (n.), 21, 25–6, 30,31,37, 43–: ‘Artgleiches und Artfremdes’Google Scholar.

32 , SchmittDer Begriff des Politischen, p. 45.Google Scholar

33 , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 142:Google Scholar ‘The classical form of such international law had already failed in the face of the total wars unleashed in the twentieth century’.

34 Ibid., p. 137; this argument is related to Habermas's widely disputed statement on the ‘Gleichursprünglichkeit’ in ‘Between facts and norms’. See Habermas, J., Faktizitdt und Geltung (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1992), pp. 131, 151, 155Google Scholar.

35 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 380Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 125Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 347)Google Scholar.

36 , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 144.Google Scholar

37 The importance of this challenge should, of course, not be overstated. As Dworkin, R. made clear in his recent Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000),Google Scholar the idea of human equality is a very complex one. Schmitt is plainly wrong when arguing that formal or legal equality would entail material or cultural equality. Kant does certainly not defend the latter: , KantÜber den Gemeinspruch (Ak. 8: 291Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 75Google Scholar; ‘On the common saying’, in , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 292)Google Scholar

38 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, pp. 10, 22.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., pp. 30, 32, 83.

40 , Rawls ‘The law of peoples’, in On Human Rights, p. 48Google Scholar; Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 64Google Scholar.

41 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 354, 356Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, pp. 102, 104Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, pp. 325, 327).Google Scholar On the double meaning of ‘free’ in ‘a Federation of Free States’ see Cavallar, G., ‘Kantian perspectives on democratic peace’, pp. 243–7Google Scholar.

42 See Pogge, T., ‘An egalitarian law of peoples’, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23 (1994), 205–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 On Rawls's, concept of a decent hierarchical society: The Law of Peoples, pp. 64–7.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., pp. 8, 25.

45 I ignore the differences here between the two versions of ‘The Law of Peoples’. Rawls incorporates the right to emigration into the list of basic human right, see , Rawls ‘The Law of Peoples’, in On Human Rights, pp. 63, 68.Google Scholar In the extended version Rawls puts more emphasis on a people's qualified right to limit immigration, The Law of Peoples, pp. 8-9, 39n. See also Universal Declaration, art. 14.1.

46 The main difference between Kant and Rawls is the latter's acceptance of what he calls the ‘Supreme Emergency Exemption’, which allows combatants to set aside the strict non-combatant status of civilians under certain special circumstances, see The Law of Peoples, p. 98. According to Kant, however, this sixth article is of the strictest sort and allows of no exception, see , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 347Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 97Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 320)Google Scholar.

47 Rawls, J., The Law of Peoples, pp. 128, 12–13.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., pp. 8, 37, 47.

49 Ibid., p. 106.

50 Ibid., p. 117; this statement in general and the absence of anything like an international ‘Difference Principle’ in the 1993 version of ‘The Law of Peoples’ has provoked fierce criticism. But Rawls has not changed his position in the 1999 version.

51 , KantZum ewigen Frieden (Ak. 8: 369Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 115Google Scholar; , KantPractical Philosophy, p. 338)Google Scholar.

52 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 97.Google Scholar

53 , KantIdee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher Absicht (Ak. 8: 20Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 44)Google Scholar.

54 Here we find an important difference between Rawls and Habermas, whose work is to a large extent influenced by these experiences, especially in his political writings.

55 See Rawls, J., Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 1996), pp. xxvi–xl.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. xli.

57 , Rawls ‘The Law of Peoples’, in On Human Rights, p. 72.Google Scholar

58 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 20.Google Scholar Elements of Rawls's earlier view can also still be found: ibid., p. 99.

59 Ibid., pp. 21, 22.

60 Ibid., p. 7.

61 In this regard now see Gross, R., Carl Schmitt und die Juden: Eine Deutsche Rechtslehre (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2000)Google Scholar.

62 Rawls correctly rejects Goldhagen's thesis (‘Hitler's willing executioners’) on the peculiar anti-Semitic mind-set of the Germans, The Law of Peoples, 100 n.

63 Schmitt, C., Verfassungslehre (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1965), p. 231:Google Scholar ‘A democratic state which locates the preconditions for its democracy in the national sameness of its citizens’.

64 These failings inspired Schmitt to write: ‘There are crimes against humanity and crimes for humanity. Crimes against humanity were committed by the Germans. Crimes for humanity were perpetrated on the Germans.’ Quoted in: , Habermas ‘Kant's idea of perpetual peace’, p. 143Google Scholar.

65 Habermas argues in its favour: ibid., p. 135.

66 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 65Google Scholar; Earlier on, basic human rights were called politically neutral, see , Rawls ‘The law of peoples’, in On Human Rights, p. 69Google Scholar.

67 , KantIdee zu einer Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (Ak. 8: 29Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 51)Google Scholar.

68 For example , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, p. 26Google Scholar; Political Liberalism, p. 18. Of course, this is a fiction, see Hoffmann, S., ‘Dream of a just world’, The New York Review of Books (2 November 1995)Google Scholar.

69 , RawlsThe Law of Peoples, pp. 121, 128.Google Scholar

70 This opposition is succinctly summarized in Forst, R., ‘Towards a critical theory of transnational justice’, in Metaphilosophy, 32 (2001), 161–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 ‘Lob des Nationalstaats’, Kersting, W., ‘Philosophische Friedenstheorie und internationale Friedensordnung’, in Chwaszcza, C. and Kersting, W. (eds), Politische Philosophie der internationalen Beziehungen (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 523–54, esp. 544–8, 552Google Scholar; ‘Globale Rechtsordnung oder weltweite Verteilungsgerechtigkeit’, in Kersting, W., Recht, Gerechtigkeit und demokratische Tugend (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1997), pp. 243–315, esp. 274–312;Google Scholaridem, ‘Weltfriedensordnung und globale Verteilungsgerechtigkeit’, in R. Merkel and R. Wittmann (eds), ‘Zum ewigen Frieden’ (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1996), pp. 172-212, esp. 191-206.

72 , KantDer Streit der Fakultaten (Ak.7: 85Google Scholar; , Kant'sPolitical Writings, p. 182Google Scholar; , KantReligion and Rational Theology, tr. and ed. Wood, A. and Giovanni, G. di (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 302Google Scholar.

73 Buchanan, A., ‘Rawls's law of peoples: rules for a vanished Westphalian world’, Ethics, 110 (2000), 697–721, at 716:CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘by peoples he means societies, peoples with their own states, not ethnic groups.’

74 For example, ibid., pp. 703-15.

75 For example, Pogge, T., ‘The international significance of human rights’, Journal of Ethics, 4 (2000), 45–69;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPogge, T., ‘Priorities of global justice’, Metaphilosophy, 32 (2001), 6–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.