Perpetual Peace · Immanuel Kant
APPENDIX II
CONCERNING THE HARMONY OF POLITICS WITH MORALS ACCORDING TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT If I look at public right from the point of view of most professors of law, and abstract from its _matter_ or its empirical elements, varying according to the circumstances given in our experience of individuals in a state or of states among themselves, then there remains the _form_ of publicity. The possibility of this publicity, every legal title implies. For without it there could be no justice, which can only be thought as before the eyes of men; and, without justice, there would be no right, for, from justice only, right can come. This characteristic of publicity must belong to every legal title. Hence, as, in any particular case that occurs, there is no difficulty in deciding whether this essential attribute is present or not, (whether, that is, it is reconcilable with the principles of the agent or not), it furnishes an easily applied criterion which is to be found _a priori_ in the reason, so that in the particular case we can at once recognise the falsity or illegality of a proposed claim (_praetensio juris_), as it were by an experiment of pure reason. Having thus, as it were, abstracted from all the empirical elements contained in the concept of a political and international law, such as, for instance, the evil tendency in human nature which makes compulsion necessary, we may give the following proposition as the _transcendental formula_ of public right:—“All actions relating to the rights of other men are wrong, if the maxims from which they follow are inconsistent with publicity.”
This principle must be regarded not merely as ethical, as belonging to the doctrine of virtue, but also as juridical, referring to the rights of men. For there is something wrong in a maxim of conduct which I cannot divulge without at once defeating my purpose, a maxim which must therefore be kept secret, if it is to succeed, and which I could not publicly acknowledge without infallibly stirring up the opposition of everyone. This necessary and universal resistance with which everyone meets me, a resistance therefore evident _a priori_, can be due to no other cause than the injustice with which such a maxim threatens everyone. Further, this testing principle is merely negative; that is, it serves only as a means by which we may know when an action is unjust to others. Like axioms, it has a certainty incapable of demonstration; it is besides easy of application as appears from the following examples of public right. 1.—=Constitutional Law.= Let us take in the first place the public law of the state (_jus civitatis_), particularly in its application to matters within the state. Here a question arises which many think difficult to answer, but which the transcendental principle of publicity solves quite readily:—“Is revolution a legitimate means for a people to adopt, for the purpose of throwing off the oppressive yoke of a so-called tyrant (_non titulo, sed exercitio talis_)?” The rights of a nation are violated in a government of this kind, and no wrong is done to the tyrant in dethroning him. Of this there is no doubt. None the less, it is in the highest degree wrong of the subjects to prosecute their rights in this way; and they would be just as little justified in complaining, if they happened to be defeated in their attempt and had to endure the severest punishment in consequence.
A great many reasons for and against both sides of this question may be given, if we seek to settle it by a dogmatic deduction of the principles of right. But the transcendental principle of the publicity of public right can spare itself this diffuse argumentation. For, according to that principle, the people would ask themselves, before the civil contract was made, whether they could venture to publish maxims, proposing insurrection when a favourable opportunity should present itself. It is quite clear that if, when a constitution is established, it were made a condition that force may be exercised against the sovereign under certain circumstances, the people would be obliged to claim a lawful authority higher than his. But in that case, the so-called sovereign would be no longer sovereign: or, if both powers, that of the sovereign and that of the people, were made a condition of the constitution of the state, then its establishment (which was the aim of the people) would be impossible. The wrongfulness of revolution is quite obvious from the fact that openly to acknowledge maxims which justify this step would make attainment of the end at which they aim impossible. We are obliged to keep them secret. But this secrecy would not be necessary on the part of the head of the state.
He may say quite plainly that the ringleaders of every rebellion will be punished by death, even although they may hold that it was he who first transgressed the fundamental law. For, if a ruler is conscious of possessing irresistible sovereign power (and this must be assumed in every civil constitution, because a sovereign who has not power to protect any individual member of the nation against his neighbour has also not the right to exercise authority over him), then he need have no fear that making known the maxims which guide him will cause the defeat of his plans. And it is quite consistent with this view to hold that, if the people are successful in their insurrection, the sovereign must return to the rank of a subject, and refrain from inciting rebellion with a view to regaining his lost sovereignty. At the same time he need have no fear of being called to account for his former administration.[153] [153] “When a king has dethroned himself,” says Locke, (_On Civil Government_, Ch. XIX. § 239) “and put himself in a state of war with his people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with them?” ... “The legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still _in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative_.” (_Op. cit._, Ch. XIII. § 149.) And again, (_op. cit._, Ch. XI. § 134.) we find the words, “... over whom [_i.e._ society] no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them.” Cf. also Ch. XIX. § 228 _seq._
Hobbes represents the opposite point of view. “How many kings,” he wrote, (Preface to the _Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society_) “and those good men too, hath this one error, that a tyrant king might lawfully be put to death, been the slaughter of! How many throats hath this false position cut, that a prince for some causes may by some certain men be deposed! And what bloodshed hath not this erroneous doctrine caused, that kings are not superiors to, but administrators for the multitude!” This “erroneous doctrine” Kant received from Locke through Rousseau. He advocated, or at least practised as a citizen, a doctrine of passive obedience to the state. A free press, he held, offered the only lawful outlet for protest against tyranny. But, in theory, he was an enemy to absolute monarchy. [Tr.]
2.—=International Law.= There can be no question of an international law, except on the assumption of some kind of a law-governed state of things, the external condition under which any right can belong to man. For the very idea of international law, as public right, implies the publication of a universal will determining the rights and property of each individual nation; and this _status juridicus_ must spring out of a contract of some sort which may not, like the contract to which the state owes its origin, be founded upon compulsory laws, but may be, at the most, the agreement of a permanent free association such as the federation of the different states, to which we have alluded above. For, without the control of law to some extent, to serve as an active bond of union among different merely natural or moral individuals,—that is to say, in a state of nature,—there can only be private law. And here we find a disagreement between morals, regarded as the science of right, and politics. The criterion, obtained by observing the effect of publicity on maxims, is just as easily applied, but only when we understand that this agreement binds the contracting states solely with the object that peace may be preserved among them, and between them and other states; in no sense with a view to the acquisition of new territory or power. The following instances of antinomy occur between politics and morals, which are given here with the solution in each case.
3.—=Cosmopolitan Law.= We may pass over this department of right in silence, for, owing to its analogy with international law, its maxims are easily specified and estimated. * * * * * In this principle of the incompatibility of the maxims of international law with their publicity, we have a good indication of the non-agreement between politics and morals, regarded as a science of right. Now we require to know under what conditions these maxims do agree with the law of nations. For we cannot conclude that the converse holds, and that all maxims which can bear publicity are therefore just. For anyone who has a decided supremacy has no need to make any secret about his maxims. The condition of a law of nations being possible at all is that, in the first place, there should be a law-governed state of things. If this is not so, there can be no public right, and all right which we can think of outside the law-governed state,—that is to say, in the state of nature,—is mere private right. Now we have seen above that something of the nature of a federation between nations, for the sole purpose of doing away with war, is the only rightful condition of things reconcilable with their individual freedom. Hence the agreement of politics and morals is only possible in a federative union, a union which is necessarily given _a priori_, according to the principles of right.
And the lawful basis of all politics can only be the establishment of this union in its widest possible extent. Apart from this end, all political sophistry is folly and veiled injustice. Now this sham politics has a casuistry, not to be excelled in the best Jesuit school. It has its mental reservation (_reservatio mentalis_): as in the drawing up of a public treaty in such terms as we can, if we will, interpret when occasion serves to our advantage; for example, the distinction between the _status quo_ in fact (_de fait_) and in right (_de droit_). Secondly, it has its probabilism; when it pretends to discover evil intentions in another, or makes, the probability of their possible future ascendency a lawful reason for bringing about the destruction of other peaceful states. Finally, it has its philosophical sin (_peccatum philosophicum_, _peccatillum_, _baggatelle_) which is that of holding it a trifle easily pardoned that a smaller state should be swallowed up, if this be to the gain of a nation much more powerful; for such an increase in power is supposed to tend to the greater prosperity of the whole world.[154] [154] We can find the voucher for maxims such as these in Herr Hofrichter Garve’s essay, _On the Connection of Morals with Politics_, 1788. This worthy scholar confesses at the very beginning that he is unable to give a satisfactory answer to this question. But his sanction of such maxims, even when coupled with the admission that he cannot altogether clear away the arguments raised against them, seems to be a greater concession in favour of those who shew considerable inclination to abuse them, than it might perhaps be wise to admit.
Duplicity gives politics the advantage of using one branch or the other of morals, just as suits its own ends. The love of our fellowmen is a duty: so too is respect for their rights. But the former is only conditional: the latter, on the other hand, an unconditional, absolutely imperative duty; and anyone who would give himself up to the sweet consciousness of well-doing must be first perfectly assured that he has not transgressed its commands. Politics has no difficulty in agreeing with morals in the first sense of the term, as ethics, to secure that men should give to superiors their rights. But when it comes to morals, in its second aspect, as the science of right before which politics must bow the knee, the politician finds it prudent to have nothing to do with compacts and rather to deny all reality to morals in this sense, and reduce all duty to mere benevolence. Philosophy could easily frustrate the artifices of a politics like this, which shuns the light of criticism, by publishing its maxims, if only statesmen would have the courage to grant philosophers the right to ventilate their opinions. With this end in view, I propose another principle of public right, which is at once transcendental and affirmative. Its formula would be as follows:—“All maxims which require publicity, in order that they may not fail to attain their end, are in agreement both with right and politics.”
For, if these maxims can only attain the end at which they aim by being published, they must be in harmony with the universal end of mankind, which is happiness; and to be in sympathy with this (to make the people contented with their lot) is the real business of politics. Now, if this end should be attainable only by publicity, or in other words, through the removal of all distrust of the maxims of politics, these must be in harmony with the right of the people; for a union of the ends of all is only possible in a harmony with this right. I must postpone the further development and discussion of this principle till another opportunity. That it is a transcendental formula is quite evident from the fact that all the empirical conditions of a doctrine of happiness, or the _matter_ of law, are absent, and that it has regard only to the _form_ of universal conformity to law. * * * * * If it is our duty to realise a state of public right, if at the same time there are good grounds for hope that this ideal may be realised, although only by an approximation advancing _ad infinitum_, then perpetual peace, following hitherto falsely so-called conclusions of peace, which have been in reality mere cessations of hostilities, is no mere empty idea. But rather we have here a problem which gradually works out its own solution and, as the periods in which a given advance takes place towards the realisation of the ideal of perpetual peace will, we hope, become with the passing of time shorter and shorter, we must approach ever nearer to this goal.
Absolutism; of Hobbes, 43, 44; of Schopenhauer, 43; according to Kant, 43, 44, 125-128; to Locke, 44. Alexander I. of Russia; 80. Alexander the Great; 31, 103. Alsace-Lorraine; annexation of, 90, 92, 95. Ambrose, Saint; 15. Amphictyonic League; 16, 22. Aquinas, Thomas; on fighting clergy, 18; on war, 18, 19. Arbitration; as a substitute for war, 79, 81, 87; difficulties settled by, 80; where it is useless, 82, 83, 86. Aristotle; on war, 7, 8; and rights of an enemy, _ib._; 31; on the relation between politics and ethics, 162. Assyrians; war among the, 9. Augustine, Saint; 16. Balance of power; 26, 95. Bentham, Jeremy; 26, 79, 92. Bluntschli, J. K.; 41, 73, 74, 80. Caird, Edward; 3, 51. Calvin, John; 19. Carnegie, Andrew; 100. China; a danger to Europe, 92, 93, 140, 141. Cicero; on the conduct of war, 22, 41. Clement of Alexandria; 15. Clergy, fighting; Origen on, 14, 15; Wycliffe, 18; Erasmus, _ib._; Aquinas, _ib._ Cobden, Richard; 64. Corvinus, Matthias; 109. Cowper, William; 5, 38, 123. Crusades, wars of the; 16, 103. Dante, Alighieri; on mediation, 46; on universal monarchy, 68, 69. Disarmament; 88-93; Czar’s proposal of, 90; practicability of, 90-93. Dubois, Cardinal; 36. Empire; of Rome, 9, 20, 68; world-, spiritual, 23, 32, 69; of Alexander the Great, 31, 68; Frankish, 69; Holy Roman 69; of Napoleon I., 69.
Erasmus, Desiderius; and European peace, 17; on war, 18, 19; on fighting clergy, 18, 32. Farrar, J. A.; 18. Federation; Kant’s idea of, 60, 68, 69, 128-137; 88, 92, 93, 95, 97; probable results of, 98, 99, 100, 134. Fichte, J. G.; 69, 99. Finland; 92, 95. Fischer, Kuno; 62, 67. Fleury, Cardinal; 55. Frederick the Great; 66, 126. Gentilis, Albericus; 21, 32. Golden Age; 3, 41. Government; origin of, according to Plato, 5; according to Hume, 5, 52; to Cowper, 5, 6; to Hobbes, 40-42, 118, 119; to Kant, 51-54, 152-154; to Rousseau, 52; to Locke, 53; representative, 65-68, 120, 121, 124-128. Greeks; their attitude to other nations, 7; to an enemy, _ib._; their Sacred Wars, 16; the Amphictyonic League, 16. Grotius, Hugo; his _De Jure Belli et Pacis_, 24-27; and the _Jus Gentium_, 24, 25; and the Law of Nature, 25; on peace, 27, 32, 40, 131. Hague Conference (1899); 86, 90. Hegel, G. W. F.; 57; on war, 71, 72, 75. Henry IV. of France; 30, 32, 33, 36. Hobbes, Thomas; his theory of the state of nature and origin of government, 4, 40-42, 51, 118, 119, 133; 6, 26, 27, 28, 37; his influence on Kant, 40, 46; his views on revolution, 41, 188; of the relations between states, 43-46, 128, 131; on the conduct of war, 45, 89, 120, 124, 159. Holls, Fred. W.; 86. Hooker, Richard; 52; on the depravity of man, 173. Hume, David; on the origin of government, 5, 52; on the state of nature, 40, 41; on the original contract, 52, 108, 109, 162. International Law; the development of, 20-24; its connection with the Reformation, 21, 24; in Greece and Rome, 22, 23. Intervention; 64, 93, 94, 112, 113. Jews; war among the, 9-11; their dream of peace, 32. Justin; 15.
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