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Some Kantian Reections on a World

Republic

Otfried Höffe

Kantian Review / Volume 2 / March 1998, pp 51 - 71

DOI: 10.1017/S1369415400000194, Published online: 27 September 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/

abstract_S1369415400000194

How to cite this article:

Otfried Höffe (1998). Some Kantian Reections on a World
Republic. Kantian Review, 2, pp 51-71 doi:10.1017/
S1369415400000194

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Some Kantian Reflections on a
World Republic

OTFRIED HOFFE
University of Tubingen

Liberal democracy has long been recognized 'in principle' as the

political project of modern times. This is not a political philosophy of
which we can say that it has followed the words of Hegel and taken
flight only with the falling of the dusk. Rather it is a philosophy which
observes the Aristotelian maxim that 'the end aimed at is not
knowledge but action', and therefore concerns itself with a perspect-
ive from which the thought of its own recognition is still in question.
This thought is the one of international order. Here the figure of Kant
steps forth in the role of philosophical and political avant-garde.
If we consider the dominant thinkers of law and the state from the
Enlightenment period, we find remarkable approaches to a theory of
war, for example in Locke's Second Treatise (ch. 16), in Adam Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiment (part iii, ch. 3) and in Hegel's Philosophy
of Right (§§326, 333-5 and 338-9). But only in Kant, by contrast, do
we find a theory concerned with the problem of how to overcome the
danger of war, in favour of a world-wide order of law and peace. And
in the case of Kant this theme is of much greater importance than a
mere response to an occasion. It forms a basic motif not only of
Kant's political thought but of his entire thought, as we see in the
essay on Perpetual Peace (1795) and also in his writings on the
philosophy of history {Idea, 1784, theses 7—9), in the Theory-and-
Practice essay (1793, §3), later too in the Doctrine of Right (1797,
§§53—62 and Conclusion) and The Contest of Faculties (2nd section,
9), and even in the Critique of Judgement (1790, §83) and in the essay
on religion (§1, iii). World-wide peace has no less a status in Kant than
the highest political good, and in the Doctrine of Right it lays claim to
no less than two of the three sections of the second part on public
right. In addition to this, it appears as a motif in the Critique of Pure

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Reason, as the battlefield of metaphysics (Aviii-ix) which is to be

overcome through peace in midst of reason. In general, then, conflict
belongs to the conditions for the application of Kantian philosophy
(the 'circumstances'), and it is law which constitutes the basic form of
their resolution.
Over and above its interest from the point of view of the history of
philosophy, Kant's approach carries a special relevance for the
question of international coexistence today. First, through his
rejection of 'enthusiasm' (Schwarmerei), Kant identifies a basic
element of political life, namely conflict. And he situates peace not
simply in freedom from conflict, 'where vain love and friendship have
their rule', but above all in the form with which conflict is to be
treated, i.e. in law. Second, the independence of his notion of reason
of law from arguments which are culturally specific or religious has
enabled it to satisfy some of the essential conditions for the success of
political theory today. For only when all arguments dependent on
socio-historical considerations are put aside and appeal is made
purely to general human reason, only then can there be an obligation
upon states to obey common principles in spite of their differences
from one another. Third, the manner in which he proceeds from the
reason of law leads to principles which, though there is no valid
alternative to them, remain nonetheless open in their more concrete
manifestation with respect to experience, prudence and all relevant
circumstances. Indeed, what Kant offers is a convincing alternative to
the overwhelming disjunction from which we suffer today, the
disjunction between globalism on the one hand and com-
munitarianism on the other. However - and this is my thesis - we
must, with Kantian arguments, question one of Kant's central state-
ments. We must question that part of his theory of peace which was
most dear to him, the statement that there should be a federation of
nations. For the statement clearly stands in contradiction with the
bridging principle which leads from relations within states to relations
between states: the analogy of states with individuals. I shall first
sketch the significance of this analogy (1), then defend the idea of a
world republic as a minimal state (2), then consider an alternative to
the world republic, namely global democratization (3), and finally
conclude with some suggestions for qualifying this character of the
world republic as minimal statehood (4).

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I. League of Nations or World State?

Kant uses the analogy not in a comprehensive organicist sense but

only in that legalistic sense which he sees as essential to the question
of peace. It can be reconstructed in two steps. According to the first
step, individual states are not, as one champion of global statehood
has feared (Beitz 1979: 81), organic totalities, but rather collective
subjects capable of action and decision-making. Individual states
make binding decisions concerning their own internal affairs,
concerning laws for example, and conclude treaties with other states.
According to the second step of the analogy, they only behave as
natural individuals in so far as they lack any common order of law
and therefore live in a condition of lawlessness, 'which does not just
consist in open hostilities, but also in the constant and enduring
threat of them' (Ak 8: 349, tr. 111).
Kant's concept of the state of nature is in many respects the same as
Hobbes's (Leviathan, ch. 13). Unlike Hobbes, however, and also
unlike Locke and Rousseau, Kant introduces a new dimension, the
dimension of a state of nature between states. What holds for this
second dimension is the same as what holds for the first: in order that
'even the smallest state [can expect] its security and rights' (Idea,
thesis 7), all states are obliged to overcome the condition of nature.
Now the only means to this end is a condition of law, a condition of
statehood, which for Kant must take the form of a republic. Here,
Kant scholars from the field of political science often only think of
the separation of executive and legislature. Yet Kant specifies four
requirements necessary for the achievement of the type of liberal
democracy I mentioned at the outset. He begins with the three
principles: freedom (as man), dependence (on legislation), and
equality (under the law) (8: 349-50, tr. 112-13). Only as an after-
thought, and only as a way of distancing himself from (direct)
democracy, does Kant mention a fourth principle, that of the
separation of powers (8: 352, tr. 113). According to the analogy of
state and individuals, we would expect the relations between states to
be conceived after the fashion of republicanism. Instead of a mere
federation of republics, there ought to be a republic of republics, or a
republic of nations and states.
A modest degree of reason comes to the fore whenever war is denied
as a means to resolve conflicts, and when rules capable of realization
through public powers backed by coercive sanction are recognized

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OTFRIED HOFFE

instead. We can speak of a 'state of nations' (Volkerstaat) to the extent

that by 'nations' - as in the expressions 'international law'
(Volkerrecht) and 'national sovereignty' (Volkssouverdnitdt) what is
meant is not gentes, i.e. groups of the same descent, but civitates, the
citizenry of individual states. Reason in the more demanding sense
comes to the fore whenever the state of nations obliges the
establishment of human rights, democracy and the separation of
powers, in short, whenever it obliges the establishment of a republic.
In opposition to the idea of a state of nations, a cluster of
objections presents itself. These can be ordered into four groups. In
the first group of objections is the argument that conflicts between
states are thereby transformed only into conflicts within the state, into
intra-state conflict. The social-psychological importance of state
boundaries as a threshold of restraint would thereby disappear. The
human right of emigration from one individual state to another
would also be rendered void.
A second group of objections holds that a global state would be
distant from the citizen, and furthermore over-bureaucratized and
simply ungovernable because of its size, as Kant himself feared
(Doctrine of Right, §61). Indeed in the essay on peace Kant writes of a
'soulless despotism' and a 'graveyard of freedom' (first supplement, 8:
367, tr. 125). A weaker fear of despotism is expressed today by
communitarians. Communitarians hold that a state of nations can
undermine and perhaps even destroy the social and cultural integrity
of existing communities. In order to protect such integrity we need
'good fences', for it is these which 'guarantee just societies' (Walzer:
1983, 319). A third type of objection comes from the so-called realists
(Morgenthau 1960) and neo-realists (Waltz 1979) in the theory of
international politics. In their view, there is no peaceful path from the
running competition between sovereign states today to a world state.
Finally, in the fourth category of objections is the argument in favour
of an institution which can hardly be conceived within a world state,
namely a political public sphere, in which different groups and diverse
minorities can find an audience.
Although each of these worries is to be taken seriously, put
together they do not have the weight of a fundamental objection.
They also speak against even the legitimacy of individual states, but
in spite of this they do not discredit every possible kind of statehood.
They certainly point to the need for a number of protective measures
which must be handled carefully in view of the obviously much

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greater dangers of a world-wide state. For example, we might content

ourselves first of all with international organizations beneath the
threshold of statehood; and wherever larger state units are created,
these would be installed within the framework of regions which are
already large, such as Europe. The advantage of a step-by-step
approach is that new possibilities can be tested and modified against
experience; the world state can of course not be established blindly by
a sleight of hand. Above all, what must be rejected is the option
whereby individual states renounce their right of existence and allow
themselves to be sucked up into an entirely homogeneous world state,
world empire or superstate.
There is a second form of international relationship I would like to
mention but not to treat in any detail: since states are composed of
individuals, there is the relationship between, on the one hand, private
entities (be these individuals, groups or companies) and, on the other
hand, these and states to which they do not belong. For Kant, this is a
matter of cosmopolitan law, and here he sees no alternative to
customary civil law - one is not either a Briton or a cosmopolitan but
a composite of both. Because the earth is originally the common
possession of all human beings, then all human beings have the right
to visit all places of the world, although they do not have the right to
offer 'to engage in commerce with any other, . . . without the other
being authorised to behave toward him as an enemy' (6: 352, tr. 121).
This prohibits two things. The right to visit means that one may
neither refuse entry to a foreigner on one's own soil, nor treat the
foreigner arbitrarily and kill or enslave him. Rejection of the right to
hospitality is directed against all kinds of authority over a foreign
country, i.e. against imperialism and colonialism. This critique clearly
shows what Kant wants to exclude: when one compares the behaviour
of so-called natives with 'the inhospitable conduct of civilised nations
in our part of the world, especially commercial ones: the injustice that
they display towards foreign lands and peoples (which is the same as
conquering them) is terrifying' (8: 358-9, tr. 119).

2.The World Republic as Minimal State

The idea of a world state had already established itself among

German philosphers by the middle of the eighteenth century.
Christian Wolff speaks of a 'civitas maxima', a 'greatest state' (Jus

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Gentium, 1749, 'Praefation'), and Justi (1761) speaks of a 'universal

monarchy'. Kant interprets this option in the same sense as con-
temporary globalists, in the sense of a world empire fusing together
all the individual states and even degrading them to the conditon of
provinces (cf. 8: 367, tr. 124f.). As I have said, he speaks in his critique
of 'ungovernability' and 'soulless despotism'. Remarkably, however,
he seems not to have made use of the much more rigorous argument
against this, namely that what is commanded by reason of law is not
international statehood tout court but rather only such statehood as is
necessary for that realm which has not yet been ordered according to
law, i.e. only for the realm of relations between states, not for the
realm of relations between individuals. To the extent that individual
states will have already attended to the primary assurance of law, the
world state only becomes necessary for a complementary and
secondary state order. Assuming that the individual states take up
their own rationally commanded task of law, the status they enjoy is
that of primary states. The state of nations, on the other hand, is
justified only as a secondary state, having jurisdiction only beyond the
realm in which law is upheld by the individual state. From the
standpoint of the universal commandment not to resolve disputes by
arbitrary force, only residual tasks accrue to the international legal
community, and these tasks correspond to the minimal state in its
minimal form. Let me call this the 'extremely minimal world state'
(EMWS). Questions of ordinary civil and criminal law, employment
laws and social legislation, rights of language, religion and culture,
and together with these the right to form affiliations and lasting
associations — these and other familiar tasks of state remain the
responsibility of the primary states. An extension of competences, in
the sense of a delegation from the individual states to the world
republic, may also be admissible, though at most only in a subsidiary
form.
The idea of the world republic as minimal state is generally
countered by contrasting forms of scepticism. The communitarians of
international law place doubt on the legitimacy of any kind of world
statehood. The globalists find objections with its restriction to the
status of a secondary state, the minimal state. Both forms of
scepticism, however, can be undermined with a variant of Ockham's
Razor, that is to say, with the political equivalent of an economy
principle, consisting of two steps. The first step of this principle states
that no political unit should be created unless it is necessary. The

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second step states that if new political units are necessary, then they
should not receive any competences which are unalterable. Using the
framework provided by this economy principle, let me now call the
communitarian option the option of an 'ultraminimal world state'
(UMWS). On the one hand, this option admits that a world organiza-
tion without coercive force may be an historically necessary inter-
mediary goal. However, since the very goal it envisages falls short of
being a world state, such an organization cannot guarantee the form
of universal law suitable for international coexistence. Yet the first
step of the economy principle demands a certain form of world
statehood. On the other hand, we have the option of the globalists,
who call for what I shall call the 'homogeneous world state' (HWS).
But in so far as this option sucks up all the individual states under the
banner of total sovereignty, it contradicts the second step of the
economy principle. So we now have only two middle-ranking options
available to us. We have either the extremely minimal world state
(EMWS), or we have the world state equivalent for liberal and social
democracy, what I shall call the social-constitutional world state
(SCWS). Because of the limited jurisdiction of a secondary state,
however, the stronger of these two last options drops out, so that we
have finally only the world republic as minimal state. Only this option
is the legitimate one.
In the first part of the second definitive article, Kant asserts that in
the concept of something which goes beyond a federation of nations,
i.e. the concept of state of nations, there lies a contradiction (8: 354,
tr. 115). Since, in the Doctrine of Right (6: 355, tr. 30), Kant calls
perpetual peace the highest political good, and since the concept of
the highest political good leads to the Dialectic of Pure Practical
Reason {Critique of Practical Reason, 5: llOff.), we should expect him
to mention in the essay on peace a corresponding subspecies of
dialectic, namely a dialectic of pure /ega/-practical reason. However,
no such corresponding reference is to be found. In a quite
unspeculative sense, the contradiction is supposed to reside in the
concept of the state of nations (354, 9ff., tr. 115). Since in a state of
this kind, many nations (read: states) find themselves subject to a
single legislator, they would then be fused together into a single
nation-state, which would contradict the task at issue, namely the one
of how to preserve the coexistence of many diverse nations.
What is right about this argument is that, in an international
framework, nations have a right to their own particularity and their

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own form of legislation in the same sense as individuals within the

national framework. A melting together of nations and/or states is
not permitted. In this respect, one form of soi-disant universalism
defended today finds itself coming under fire from the very founder of
universalist ethics: in other words, it simply does not follow from the
morality of universal law that individual states (even when one tries to
refer to them polemically as mere 'nation-states') are to be dissolved
in favour of a world state and that there can only be a 'state of
humanity when it is free of nationalities', as Radbruch would say
(1932: §28).
What is also right about Kant's argument is that a state of nations
only arises when the individual states subject themselves to a certain
number of common legislators, and therefore to this extent transform
themselves into a common state. Anyone who believes that the
primary states will be thereby extinguished is thinking with too
simplistic an alternative in mind: either total sovereignty or no
sovereignty at all. In reality, however, between these extremes there are
many intermediate steps; and the state of nations describes a
statehood which, because of the extremely small degree to which
individual nations would be required to renounce their sovereignty, is
in fact not far removed from the total sovereignty of individual states.
Thus what lies in the concept of a state of nations is not a contra-
diction but rather something with which we have been acquainted for
a long time from the concept of a federal state: sovereignty graded in
steps — which of course here receives one more step.
The analogy of states and individuals makes available only two
possibilities. Either (1) the renunciation of freedom necessary for
departure from the condition of nature implies a contradiction
already at the level of individuals; in which case, one would have to
bring about the advantage of the assurance of peace without the
disadvantage of loss of sovereignty on the part of the participants;
some form of collective living based solely on contracts and without a
state would have to suffice. Or (2) the security of law becomes
possible only on the basis of certain renunciations of sovereignty on
the part of the state. In this case, however, the idea of an international
statehood is not a contradiction but an indispensable requirement for
the international condition of law that is morally commanded.
If he had thought that only a federation was legitimate for the
maintenance of coexistence, Kant might well have been an advocate
of that Utopia of freedom from domination which was upheld by

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other illustrious thinkers such as the young Burke (1756) and by

Schlegel (1796) - the Schlegel who even declared himself 'inspired by
Kant's essay on perpetual peace'. But Kant in fact argues against the
idea of freedom from domination upheld later by Proudhon, Marx
and the Frankfurt School, as when, in the appendix to the essay on
peace (8: 373, tr. 127), he holds any kind of state to be morally
preferable to none at all, since under a condition of anarchy all
protection of law disappears.
Kant speaks of a contradiction only in the introductory part of the
essay (8: 354, 9f., tr. 115). In the concluding part he sees the positive
idea as realized only in the world republic, only in the state of nations.
A federation of nations, on the other hand, he describes as a mere
'negative surrogate' (8: 357, 13ff., tr. 117). Thus, with this statement,
he makes it clear that anyone who expects peace to be secured through
a federation is declaring himself satisfied with a mere substitute,
which cannot fully bring about what it is supposed to do. Peace in this
case remains always provisional; and there is the constantly
threatening danger that 'the tendency of that hostile inclination to
defy the law' will break loose (tr. 118). But this danger is absent from
the concept of the eternally demanded unconditionality of peace.
Moreover, Kant declares:

Reason can provide related nations with no other means for emerging from
the state of lawlessness, which consists solely of war, than that they give up
their savage (lawless) freedom, just as individuals do, and, by
accommodating themselves to the constraints of common law, establish a
nation of peoples {civitas gentium) . . . (8: 357, 5 - 1 1 , tr. 117).

This solution even earns the status of the moral, when the text says
'Reason can provide . . .'; and moral status accrues to this alone ('with
no other means'). In short: erection of the state of nations is (in law)
morally commanded.
I now return to the world republic in its character as minimal
statehood. As is well known, the currently most important institution
of the international legal community demands more than this. The
Preamble to the General Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
specifies three tasks for the United Nations (UNO): (1) protection of
human rights; (2) encouragement of international cooperation and
'the development of cordial relations between nations'; and finally (3)
encouragement of social progress and better living conditions under

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greater freedom. A secondary state has jurisdiction over only the first
of these tasks, and even then the task has a restricted interpretation.
Given the secondary character of such a statehood, competences
required for the second and third tasks - i.e. the tasks of what is now
an international social welfare and perhaps even cultural statehood -
would be acceptable at most in subsidiary form. And in the case of its
only genuine task, the protection of human rights, those bodies which
earn the international protection it affords are not primarily
individuals or groups but rather those political units which are still
living with one another in the condition of lawlessness, i.e. the
individual states.
There thus arises a new human right, new not of course in content,
but one which, in respect of those entitled to it, gets called a 'human
right', and which, once made into positive law, becomes a basic right
of states. Clearly and narrowly defined, this right has essentially two
parts. First, just like individuals, states have a right to their own body
and life and a right to property, which means here above all else a
claim to territorial integrity. Second, they have a right to political and
cultural self-determination. Precisely because the primary states have
multiple tasks to discharge, including responsibility for the social and
cultural affairs of state, these tasks fall to the secondary state at most
in subsidiary form. In any area in which the secondary state were to
directly take over these tasks, it would be guilty of an arrogation of
rights.
Since it is the individual states which enjoy the ranking of primary
state, the world republic arises in its character as secondary state only
from below, through renunciations of sovereignty by the individual
states. This state of affairs is significant from the point of view of the
theory of legitimation, although it simply constitutes the equivalent
on an international plane to the concept of popular sovereignty
within the state: all power that the state of nations possesses comes
from its own people states, the communities of the individual states,
in so far as they surrender up a part of their sovereignty by their own
consent. On the principle of state subsidiarity, then, a delegation of
power takes place from the bottom upwards, and this act of
delegation is limited in its content. So if there is to be a state of
nations, then it is one which takes a concern in the security of the
individual states and their right of self-determination, but does
almost nothing else. In these respects, the state of nations gains not
partial but complete sovereignty; it has the highest power at its

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disposal, but is none the less restricted to a minimal area of

competence, being confined chiefly only to cases of conflict between
states, rather than within states.
Because of its character as a state, the minimal state has entitle-
ment to a competence-competence (i.e. a competence to empower
other bodies to exercise certain competences); and in view of this,
there arises the danger that, once founded, the world republic will
attach more and more competences to itself. This danger must be
taken seriously from the time of its very foundation. At least two
things should be anticipated: against Habermas (1995: 303), we
should be concerned for the inalienable basic rights of individual
states and for institutional precautions capable of watching over them
so as to prevent their subtle undermining by a world court keen to
pass judgements favourable to the world republic.

3. Global Democratization as an Alternative?

Kant's theory of international law reflects a celebrated thesis in

political sociology. This thesis is that republics, or in today's termino-
logy, democratically constituted states, or democracies, have little
inclination to initiate an offensive war (first definitive article).
Decision in favour of war would have to require 'the consent of the
citizenry'; and, as Kant writes,

it is natural that they [the citizens] consider all its calamities before com-
mitting themselves to so risky a game. (Among these are doing the fighting
themselves, paying the costs of war from their own resources [and] having
to repair at great sacrifice the war's devastation ...) (8: 351, tr. 113).

Kant does not see any immediate inclination to peace among the
democracies. In all sobriety, he assumes no higher moral quality, no
genuine disposition for law and no fundamental inclination against
violence in favour of the peaceful regulation of conflicts, be this in the
case of either citizens or governments or parliaments. Instead, what he
emphasizes are the free effects of pre- and extra-moral motivations.
The forces of democracy that encourage peace follow from their
ability to give free rein to the citizens' self-interest. To this is added an
empirical assumption: the citizens' perception of war as damaging to

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them. He believes, furthermore, that if war is to take place, then the

citizens must actually give their assent to it; though in the case of such
assent being granted, he does not assume there will be distortions of
self-interest at work here, such as distortions caused by powerful
interest groups or the media. Finally, thanks to his optimistic
interpretation of the republican revolution in France, he supposes that
as soon as a republic or a democracy has been formed, this will give 'a
focal point for the federal unification of other states'. Assuming a
principle of imitation, the republican form of state will be adopted by
other states which, by becoming democracies, will also acquire its
inclination to peace, so that a federation of peaceful states will extend
itself ever more widely.
Kant's political-sociological thesis is not a new one. Aristotle, who
today is seen as the diametric opposite of Kant, also defended a form
of it, although with an interesting twist: whoever seeks to conquer
foreign states inclines towards tyranny at home (Politics 7: 14, 1333b
29ff.); therefore, a policy of conquest will undermine the republic or
democracy of one's own country.
After state power, Kant considers the power of money to be the
next most reliable form of power, which is why he sees the spirit of
commerce as a further motivating force for the federation of peace
(first supplement, On the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace) - a second,
now ecoMom/c-sociological thesis. Indeed, 'the spirit of trade cannot
coexist with war, and sooner or later this spirit dominates every
people' (8: 368, tr. 125) and brings about a world market of lasting
duration. One more factor also comes into play: as Kant reminds us in
the first preliminary article on the banning of secret reserves, and in
the sixth preliminary article on the banning of 'such acts of war as
shall make mutual trust impossible during some future time of peace':
what is essential for peace is a basis of trust.
Recently, a further objection has been made against the state of
nations (e.g. Doyle 1983 and 1995), this time by appeal to the first of
the two motivating forces (the force of state power). Because, it is
argued, no danger of war stems from democracies, the state of
nations' most important task, the prevention of war, can be pursued
by a much simpler path: by means of the democratization of all
states. If this process, which in any case is already commanded by the
morality of law and state, were to be completed, if in other words all
dictatorial and totalitarian regimes were to be transformed into
democratically constituted states, then war would die out.

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While it is true that Kant speaks of several different motivations

working in favour of world peace, theorists like Doyle seem to view
democratization as a sufficient condition for peace, which, according
to our political variation on Ockham's Razor, would render the
existence of a world state unnecessary. Indeed it would be illegitimate
precisely because it is superfluous. So the slogan is thus: global peace
through global democratization, or replacement of the politics of
world peace by a politics of world democratization. Two lines of
argument can be pursued in opposition to this. The first is that
history has taught us to become sceptical. Already in the early years of
revolution, the French republic had made war the instrument of its
progress across Europe, pursuing thoroughly hegemonic and even
imperial interests (Kant himself alluded to the natural interest of
every state in global hegemony, even in world domination: 8: 367, tr.
124). Not much different was the slightly older American democracy.
The United States of North America moved westwards with almost
no consideration for the original inhabitants; moreover, they annexed
Texas, and it was through the war with Mexico that they aquired both
California and New Mexico. Another counter-example is provided by
Great Britain: her progression towards a republic in the Kantian sense
was certainly not hindered by plans for world power and extension of
the Commonwealth. Last but not least comes the example of
antiquity. Democratic Athens was anything other than inclined to
peace; Thucydides attributed the worst excesses of the Peloponnesian
War to the unpredictable passions of the (democratic) crowd.
The second line of argument is this. Whoever prefers not to rely on
their knowledge of history and to turn to more scientific, systematic
arguments will find confirmation in the relevant studies (e.g. Wright
1965; Singer and Small 1976; Garnham 1986). Seen within a longer
time-frame, democracies turn out to be just as susceptible to war as
non-democracies. At best, aggressive behaviour towards foreign
territories appears slightly diminished, but not significantly. So it is
not just with respect to historical facts but also against basic argu-
ments that we should feel sceptical. Kant sees democracies as inclined
to peace for the reason that, unlike princes, their citizens have to carry
the economic and social consequences of their own actions. Some-
what later, Tocqueville (1961) thinks in a similar way. But the different
parts that go to make up this argument do not completely match up
against 'really existing democracies'. For example, many wars are
decided upon not by parliament but only by the government or the

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president. Of course, one could object that the democracies in

question simply do not fulfil Kant's constitutional criterion of
'citizen's assent' (Doctrine of Right, §55; also Perpetual Peace, First
Definitive Article); after all, even Kant admits that the republican
constitution is the hardest to establish (Perpetual Peace, First
Supplement). But even when 'assent' is imperative for war, we still
have the problem of secret diplomacy, and foreign policy remains
shielded even more firmly against control through society. Moreover,
wars do not have to be waged at or over the borders of states, which
means that Kant's extra requirement about assent no longer applies.
Citizens feel the hardships of war much less acutely if the war is
taking place at a distance, and even less acutely if the enemy is clearly
weaker. The burdens and duties of war can also be unequally
distributed among citizens. Wars can also be influenced by wranglings
in domestic politics, to say nothing of the possibility of mass-
psychoses, induced by the media for example. In addition, there is the
temptation of access to the sea and to possible stocks of natural
resources. It is true, as recent experience has shown, that it is seldom
the aggressor who wins, and that even in the case of victory for the
aggressor, his losses are usually greater than his gains. (He can also
have to pay, sometimes even overpay, for the costs of allies, together
with their rise in power and prestige.) In spite of this, however, there
remains finally the incentive of making money from wars. The way
the weapons end up in the 'wrong hands' would have made even Kant
quite sceptical of the supposed inclination of democracies to peace.
Let us carefully draw up the balance. Neither the arguments
advanced so far nor our previous experiences of democracy give
sufficient confirmation to the political-sociological thesis of 'global
peace through global democratization'. The thesis increases its power
of conviction only on condition that Kant's criterion of citizens'
assent is fulfilled - 'as must inevitably be the case, given this form of
constitution', says Kant (first definitive article) — and that precautions
are made against political distortions (such as through interest groups
and the media). Even then, however, at least two arguments still speak
in favour of a state of nations. First, readiness for peace can change
just at that moment at which nearly all states have become demo-
cracies, and especially if aggravating economic and social problems
should arise. Potential for conflict even between democracies, such as
we see today in the area of ecology and the politics of commerce,
could then proliferate.

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4. More than Minimal Statehood

It goes without saying that an international community of law and

peace involves a corresponding practical dimension for its operation.
Let me briefly summarize some of the consequences of this.
1. Because the assurance of law stands in need of public powers,
appropriate institutions must be directed towards the formation of a
sovereign power, consisting of a world parliament, a world judiciary
and a world executive. However, according to the argument based on
the formula 'legitimation plus limitation', cultivation of the form for
regulation is bound up with a certain modesty in the number of
acceptable competences of regulation. In order to be in agreement
with the rational concept of law, the global legal community requires
both more statehood, from the formal point of view, and yet fewer
state functions, from the material point of view. Thus we are
confronted with a strict tandem relationship: only when the relevant
fields of jurisdiction are considerably restricted do they appear
justified in having the form of a state. This, however, presupposes a
political will that regards war fundamentally with contempt (the sole
jxception to this being cases of self-defence). And yet, instead of this,
Kant speaks of 'the depravity of human nature, which is revealed and
:an be glimpsed in the free relations among nations' (second definitive
article), and which consists in an unwillingness to show 'immediate
respect for the law' (appendix I).
2. Pogge (1992: 61-9), and before him Beitz (1979: part iii) defend
:he view that a world state should have jurisdiction over minimal
iocial rights. Yet enforceable jursidiction appears objectionable here,
:ven when it involves a marginal condition unfavourable to richer
itates, i.e. even when the non-recognition of minimal social rights
vould permit 'starvation wages' having as their consequence the
nigration of jobs away from socially more responsible states. Eco-
lomically bothersome competition (from socially irresponsible states)
>rovides no right of intervention (in them). Moreover, in the countries
it issue, lower welfare standards can be a means toward their achieve-
nent of economic equality with other states, which is something no
me can take away from them. Even in questions of hunger and over-
>opulation, international arrangements may certainly be desirable,
>ut forcible interventions in other states are hardly permissible.
3. In one important respect, states do not in fact behave like
ndividuals; for they themselves consist of individuals and groups. Now

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reason of law forbids no one from taking his own life; suicide may
violate a duty to oneself, but it is not forbidden by reason of law.
Things are quite different for the international legal community. If we
were to speak of a state-individual as making an attempt on its own
life, what we would be referring to is not, as it were, 'collective suicide',
but rather one group killing another group. And since there is no
legitimacy in killing others, it cannot be a commandment to the world
republic to tolerate any massacre that takes place in the world,
especially when the groups most often affected are precisely those who
have not recognized the state in question as their own, perhaps not even
since its very beginning. Here, then, a right to intervention does arise, a
right at least to proceed against genocide. Once again, however, equal
treatment becomes imperative: one ought not to be responsive to some
genocides and indifferent to others. We also need skill of judgement
and discretion, for there are some difficult questions connected with
this. For example, at what point or degree of injustice should one
consider intervening: not until there is a threat of genocide, or in case
of slavery and commerce of human beings, or even in cases of racial
discrimination? What warnings should one consider giving before
intervening? What are the risks of creating new innocent victims?
4. As long as this function is fulfilled in a reliable and non-partisan
spirit, the world republic may adopt a second extension of com-
petences. This arises from the fact that individual states are legitimate
only if they do not incur elementary violations of human rights.
Wherever the individual states contradict this condition of legitimacy,
i.e. wherever they infringe their tasks of maintaining human rights in
a fundamental and outrageous manner, here the world republic will
have to engage in the protection of human rights within states
through monitoring organs, reporting procedures and through
defence of the right of individuals and groups to lodge appeals at the
organ of the world judiciary.
5. Further legal functions which surpass the area of action open to
individual states, and which consequently fall within the jurisdiction
of the world republic, include the struggle against international
terrorism, the international drug trade and the distribution of atomic,
chemical and biological weapons. Equally viable as a concern of inter-
national statehood would be the task of developing a right of
secession (in the objective sense of 'right'), i.e. of laying down condi-
tions under which parts of an existing state may secede and constitute
themselves as an independent state.

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6. Practical reason does not derive solely from reason of law, and
this truism holds no less in the case of international coexistence.
Humanity enjoins us to mix with justice the salt of love and to leave
room for charitability and even magnanimity as well. But since here it
is no longer a question of reason of law but rather something having
more to do with charity, the agencies responsible cannot come from a
coercively supported world republic but rather from the variety of
voluntary organizations and charitable institutions. These institutions
certainly require co-ordination, but not in the framework of a world
organization backed by sanctions. It is therefore recommendable that
there should be erected an independent world organization for the
distribution of developmental aid. Similar recommendations hold for
economic co-operation, and for scientific and artistic exchanges as
well. What belongs to the jurisdiction of the world republic are only
very precise legal functions, such as supervision of the compensation
duties incurred by the former colonial powers with respect to rules of
corrective justice. Because of the aforementioned competences, then,
the world republic is not quite as much of a minimal state as it first
appears. Tasks falling under Kant's doctrine of virtue, however, do
not belong to it.
7. With the argument that individual states have only a derivative
significance and that primordial right accrues only to (natural)
persons, globalists like Beitz (1979: 53, 181f.) accept the existence of
individual states only as historically transitional stages. In the long
:erm, individual states are supposed to lose their character as original
egal units and give up their monopoly of power entirely to the world
;tate. Against this view, we have the counter-argument that the
ndividual states will thereby be stripped of legitimate rights (of self-
letermination). That is to say, from the primordial right of persons
here arises the right to form collective identities, to give a legal form
o these identities and to ensure their existence in the form of states:
n short, a right to the formation of individual states and to the
•reservation of these states against the incursions of a world state. It
s true that some of the states drawn up on the world map of today
we their existence to quite fortuitous developments, and not a few of
hem meet with quite severe resistance from the individuals affected
y them. This alone is enough to establish the point that the existing
^dividual states do not possess the status of being a moral end in
hemselves. But from this it still does not follow that there is a right to
jse them all together into the single statehood of a world state, and

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especially not if this is going to affect those states which enjoy the
overwhelming consent of their subjects. The issue of new state forma-
tions is not any different from this; they do not pose any great
difficulties in principle. It is problematic neither that parts of a state
constitute themselves as independent part-states out of what is
already a part-state (like, for example, the Canton of Jura out of a
part of the Canton of Bern), nor that a state like the Soviet Union
divides into new states, nor that the European states come together to
form a union. But no duty can be discovered such that every
individual state is obliged to dissolve itself as an individual state. On
the contrary, whoever attempts to abolish an individual state against
its own resistance offends against one basic principle of the global
order of law and peace: the proscription of violence, without
compromise and without exception.

Conclusion

The Kantian treatise Perpetual Peace is an outstanding contribution in

political philosophy. As well as being historically important it
remains one of the most promising approaches to problems of
international justice. In his time Kant was the only writer to develop a
systematic and normative theory of international relations. And it
must be emphasized that Perpetual Peace is not the only Kantian text
dealing with that problem so the treatise is firmly lodged within the
framework of Kantian philosophy.
There are several general reasons why the Kantian approach
remains important in the contemporary debate. (1) Kant avoids
Utopian images of a world without conflict; he acknowledges that
conflicts play a fundamental role in politics. Peace, then, is not the
complete absence of conflicts, but a specific manner of dealing with
conflicts by means of law. (2) He avoids using arguments which have
their validity only in pure and general reason alone. (3) He avoids
arguments which completely determine what is to be done in order to
realize the end. His universal justification refers only to general
principles, so that there remains sufficient room in their application
for experience and prudence.
One objection has to be raised against Kant, but it can be made on
Kantian principles. He argues that perpetual peace can only be
achieved by means of a federation of peoples. This contradicts the

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principle which Kant otherwise uses to justify the transition from

relations within states to relations between states: the analogy of
states and individuals. If this analogy is to be maintained the con-
sequence will be that it is not a federation of peoples we have to argue
for but a world state. Of course there are a number of arguments
against the idea of a world state. But it can be shown that these
objections do not lead to a complete negation of this idea. Neverthe-
less they have to be taken seriously and this can help to modify the
concept of the world state.
Since a primary legal order is already guaranteed by the individual
states the world state can justifiably only fulfil complementary tasks.
Beside the primary states the world state will only be a secondary
state with a strictly limited scope of functions: an extremely minimal
world state. This conception is a middle course between the com-
munitarian option of an ultraminimal world state, a state without
any coercive authority, and the globalist option of a homogeneous
world state, a state which completely absorbs the sovereignty of the
individual states.
If one compares this proposal, for example, with the programme
the UNO claims for itself it will become clear that the aims of the
world state conceived here are much more modest. Only one of the
three aims the UNO names in the General Declaration of Human
Rights can be accepted for the world state as secondary state, namely
the protection of human rights. But this task is now given a new
interpretation: the protection does not primarily aim at individuals or
groups but at states. The 'human rights' are respectively the basic
rights of states.
A thesis of Kant's treatise which has become very influential is that
republics presumably, for internal reasons, will not initiate offensive
wars. In contemporary political theory this thesis has been
generalized and turned into an objection against the conception of a
world state. Since democracies do not initiate wars against other
democracies the safest way towards global peace is not the world state
but democracy in as many states as possible. Against this it can be
shown that the thesis is historically not evident and that the argument
in itself is not conclusive.

Note

All references to Kant are from the Akademie-Ausgabe. Perpetual

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Peace appears in vol. 8, pp.341-86. The English translation is from:

lmmanuel Kant: Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, ed. and trans. Ted
Humphrey (Indiana: Hackett, 1983). The Doctrine of Right (Part I of
the Metaphysics of Morals) appears in vol.6 of the Akademie-
Ausgabe. All references to this work in translation are from:
lmmanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor,
intro. Roger J. Sullivan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996).

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