Kant’s Political Theory (1): Preliminary Articles

The full subtitle for this posting is “Introduction and Six Preliminary Articles en route to the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace.”  This posting is the first of three installments reviewing Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace, A Philosophical Sketch, written in 1795.  An introduction and Kant’s six preliminary articles for perpetual peace are provided in here.  Subsequently, there will be one posting for the three definitive articles and one posting for the guarantee of perpetual peace.

Starting Perpetual Peace with a rhetorical flourish, Kant asks whether a painting of a cemetery is more emblematic of people in general, of heads of state who can never be satiated with warfare, or of philosophers who view death as a sweet dream.  Kant then proceeds to his Section (Abschnitt) 1, which discusses six “preliminary articles” or empirical principles that, if universally instantiated, would ensure perpetual peace among states.  Next, Section 2 presents a political theory from which derive three “definitive articles” or rational principles that would likewise ensure perpetual peace.  Finally, a section labeled “Addition” (Zusatz) presents a teleological theory in which perpetual peace is guaranteed: A mechanism of nature will inexorably establish perpetual peace even if mankind allows competing inclinations and dispositions to overshadow its moral imperative to extirpate warfare. [Some editions of Perpetual Peace contain a second “Addition” that we shall not consider; nor shall we consider Kant’s pair of Appendices (Anhänge).]

Kant’s six preliminary articles for perpetual peace are: No peace treaty should be concluded with secret reservations that could cause a future war.  No existing state should be acquired by another state by inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation.  No standing armies should be tolerated.  No national debt should be incurred to fund war chests.  No state should interfere in the constitution and government of another state.  No state should commit wartime acts of such hostility that all future, post-war relations would be poisoned.

Kant’s political theory starts from the principle that the natural state of individuals or peoples who live in proximity to one another is either actual or threatened warfare.  Some type of civil law and enforcement power must be established to prevent hostile acts among persons, defined as individuals within a people, who aspire to create a well-defined nation-state; or as nation-states themselves within the international community; or as cosmopolitan “visitors” seeking “hospitality” from peoples or nation-states within a universal, abstract state of mankind.  

As Kant notes in the first footnote of his Section 2, if another individual in my neighborhood deprives me of my security by not subjecting himself to a common constitutional arrangement, then I can force him either to enter into a legal relationship with me or else to disappear from my neighborhood!  (Ich kann ihn nötigen, entweder mit mir in einen gemeinschaftlich-gesetzlichen Zustand zu treten, oder aus meiner Nachbarschaft zu weichen.)  Such enforced agreement to form a constitutional system is the so-called original contract, which leads a group of interacting persons reciprocally to renounce some natural rights for the sake of mutual peace.  There are three types of constitution corresponding, respectively, to civil law (Staatsbürgerrecht) for individuals, international law (Völkerrecht) for nation-states, or cosmopolitan law (Weltbürgerrecht) for individuals interacting with foreign peoples or nation-states.

Kant’s three determinative articles for perpetual peace will be discussed in next month’s posting.

Was Kant an Imperialist?

Today, in 2019, one can well imagine the state of profound perplexity arising in well-meaning bureaucrats of the European Union, who see great resistance to their supra-national rule in the phenomena of the Brexit revolt in Great Britain and the immigration-policy mutiny in Italy, Hungary, and elsewhere.  In order to understand this opposition to supra-national rule, one would do well to consult the “continuous coastline of experience” available to Immanuel Kant himself.  Why did Kant seemingly come to the conclusion that supra-national rule would lead to rational, enlightened, and progressive government?  Would it be fair to call the Kantian political vision imperialist?

In 1784, the 60-year-old Kant must also have experienced profound perplexity while surveying the lack of political progress during his own lifetime in the supposedly enlightened and progressive eighteenth century.  Instead of widespread peace, prosperity, and human flourishing he could only see dozens of actual or threatened wars, including the British-Spanish War (1727-29); the War of the Polish Succession (1733-38); the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48); the Seven-Years’ War (1756-63), which was a true “world war” among all European states and their colonies; the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-79); and most recently, the American Revolutionary War (1775-83).  These wars were facilitated by an ever more efficient European bureaucracy and taxing power, leading to burgeoning standing armies.  

In his day, Kant could observe competing Weltreiche (world empires) existing in such concrete varieties as British, French, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, and Portuguese.  In contrast, his conception of a unitary rational political order was expressed as an abstract, weltbürgerlichen Zustand [citizen-of-the-world (cosmopolitan) condition]; which, if it could be brought into existence, would render the terms “imperial” or “kaiserlich” obsolete.  [Linguistic note: Zustand can refer to the state of an atom (excited or ground), the phase of a chemical (solid, liquid, or vapor), or the condition of a thing (the seaworthiness of the Yorktown).]

During the 1780’s Kant was working toward the view that everything in nature works according to laws, but that only a rational being has the power to act in accordance with his idea of law.  In order to overcome competing, non-rational inclinations, reason also provides a certain feeling, interest, or reverence that motivates the performance of duty.  Such reverence is “caused within the self” (selbstgewirkt) by a concept of reason.  The rational being exercises a free will, not because his actions are lawless but because they are autonomous, i.e., follow self-prescribed, “internal laws.” [See page 79 in the book An Initial View of Final Causes, described elsewhere on this web site.]

Kant published his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose in 1784.  He noted that the lawful behavior of everything in nature also implies that individual agents and nations alike are unwittingly guided in their advance along a course intended by nature or providence.  Kant maintained that it is possible to discover a purpose in nature behind the seemingly senseless course of human political events.  He enunciated nine propositions that would underlie such a purposive universal history.

Propositions 1 – 3: The natural capacities of rational beings will be developed completely in the long run, including political capacities that can only appear in the species, not in the individual.  Nature gave mankind reason and freedom of the will, facilitating progress in some individuals in some societies at some times from barbarism to technological development, to refinement of thought, and ultimately to true happiness and self-esteem.  Regrettably, however, nature does not seem to have been as concerned that man should live in agreeable political circumstances.  The species of rational beings - - which Kant considered to be immortal - - is meant to develop its capacities over long durations of time that far exceed the lifetime of any one individual.  

Propositions 4 – 6: Antagonism between individuals within society is the long-run cause of a law-governed social order.  The desire for honor, power, and property drives individuals to seek status in society and to progress from individual barbarism to culture, enlightenment, and basic political development.  Next, the theoretical problem arises of how to attain a perfectly just civil constitution, i.e., the framework for a government that administers universal justice and maintains the highest level of mutually non-interfering freedoms.  The well-governed civil society maintains freedom under its duly enacted “external laws” combined with irresistible police and military forces.  “Man is an animal that needs a master,” because he is misled by his self-seeking inclinations.  Where, however, can such a master (supreme authority) be found?  Kant thought that human beings always turn out to be unjust supreme authorities; hence, a perfect solution to this political problem is impossible.

Proposition 7: The challenge of establishing a perfect civil constitution is paralleled by the problem of establishing a law-governed external relationship with other states.  Antagonism between individuals is mirrored by the wars, devastations, upheavals, and exhaustion of nation-states, which constantly scheme to expand their borders and oppress their citizens.  Kant suggests that a Völkerbund (union or federation of peoples) would induce states and individuals alike to renounce their brutish freedoms and to seek security within a single, law-governed constitution.  Such renunciation would give rise to “a cosmopolitan condition of public political security” (einen weltbürgerlichen Zustand der öffentlichen Staatssicherheit).  As it is, mankind must endure great evils for the sake of illusory national advantages until it finally attains moral maturity and a union of states (Staatenverbindung).  Kant believed that “we [Europeans] are still a long way from the point where we could consider ourselves morally mature.” 

Proposition 8: The history of the human race reveals nature’s hidden plan to bring about a perfect political constitution over a long period of time and despite many human follies and caprices.  Human enlightenment and perfected natural capacities will eventually arise.  War itself will come to be seen as an artificial, and hence unjustified, undertaking; replete with dubious risks and overwhelming national debts; and ruinous of international trade and prosperity.  To counter these ill effects, Kant notes that some states are already offering themselves, albeit without any legal authority, as arbiters of disputes.  Such ad hoc diplomatic initiatives seem to presage the future existence of a great supra-national political body: The “highest purpose of nature, a universal cosmopolitan condition / state / phase (ein allgemeiner weltbürgerlicher Zustand) … will at last be realized.”

Proposition 9: Kant notes that it is indeed a strange idea to propose writing a universal history of how world events must unfold if they are to conform to rational, cosmopolitan ends and to display “a regular process of improvement in the political constitution of our [European] continent (which will probably one day provide laws for all other continents).” In contrast to Kant’s foreseen universal history, empirical history accumulates masses of detail that will be lost or misunderstood in the long run.  Hence, Kant believes that it is only universal history that will be treasured by readers in the distant future; because it is only universal history that portrays the political points of view, achievements, and failures that relate to the pursuit of cosmopolitan purpose, which is unitary, rational, and abstract.

One concludes that, based on his 1784 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, Kant was not an imperialist in the sense of advocating one or more world empires of the type existing in his day.  He could only be faulted for his principle that “the natural capacities of rational beings will be developed completely in the long run,” which seems to be empirically and decisively contradicted by the failure of all attempts to instantiate an abstract, cosmopolitan political system.  At some point, extending “the long run” to “an even longer run” loses its appeal.  In any possible world, it seems that only a system of national states, of varying quality, exists as an imperfect substitute for Kant’s utopian vision, which is an “imperialism of ‘no-place’.”

Identity Politics Torpedoes Yamamoto

In a First Things article of January 2019, Yoram Hazony has again written on the topic of contemporary Western liberalism and whether the nations under its auspices are thriving or deteriorating.  Hazony sides with those analysts seeing primarily deterioration.  Beyond his cited evidence, one notes that the hypothesis of disintegrating nation-states finds support in the existence of an opioid epidemic, homelessness, and declining longevity in the U.S.; in the existence of the originally rural “yellow vest” protests against higher, allegedly pro-environmental fuel taxes in France; and in the Brexit resistance to a loss of British national sovereignty to Brussels.  (As of January 2019, Brexit seems doomed to failure in its execution, but the resistance is genuine.)

Hazony sides with those analysts seeing primarily deterioration.  Beyond his cited evidence, one notes that the hypothesis of disintegrating nation-states finds support in the existence of an opioid epidemic, homelessness, and declining longevity in the U.S.; in the existence of the originally rural “yellow vest” protests against higher, allegedly pro-environmental fuel taxes in France; and in the Brexit resistance to a loss of British national sovereignty to Brussels.  (As of January 2019, Brexit seems doomed to failure in its execution, but the resistance is genuine.)

What type of government presides over this deterioration?  Humpty Dumpty held that words meant whatever he chose; and, after hearing his interlocutor, Alice, doubt that words could have such an arbitrarily large elasticity, maintained that the only question in the usage of words is “Who is to be master?”  In the case of contemporary Western politics, given the allotment of one adjective and one noun to characterize government, which terminology generates the greatest rhetorical advantage - - “liberal republicanism,” liberal democracy,” “conservative republicanism,” “conservative democracy,” “compassionate capitalism,” “progressive socialism,” or something else?  Hazony finds that the terminology of  “republican government” predominated through the 1960’s (Benjamin Franklin thought, after all, that the Constitutional Convention had approved a Republic), whereas “democratic government” has predominated since the 1960’s (“one man, one vote” seems like political nirvana).

Hazony contrasts the American and British ideas of liberal democracy (in the style of the Enlightenment) and conservative democracy (in the style of Edmund Burke and others).  Enlightenment liberalism is a type of rationalism based on the sufficiency of reason, the existence of perfectly free and equal individuals, and political obligation by individual choice alone.  In contrast, conservative democracy is based on individual freedom, limited executive power in the government, and tradition in the form of historical experience, nationalism, and religion.  One observes that both conservative democracy and liberal democracy emphasize the high status of “free individuals”; but that the idea of freedom varies radically between liberalism (featuring pure reason as the basis for each individual freely to choose his own group for the purpose of identity politics) and conservatism (featuring tradition and history as the basis for each individual freely to recognize his own group for the purpose of national politics).

Jason Willick has examined an example of identity politics in a Wall Street Journal article of 12/29/18.  Identity politics as a type of trench warfare is today embittering Silicon Valley: Fred Yamamoto was born in Palo Alto, California in 1918; was interned after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941; enlisted nevertheless in the U.S. Army in 1943; was killed in battle in France in 1944; and was chosen to provide a name for a Palo Alto middle school in 2018 on the centenary of his birth.  Regrettably for Fred’s memory, however, there was another individual, Isoroku Yamamoto, who both shared a last name with Fred and was the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.  (Fred was not related to Isoroku except in the theoretical sense that all human individuals have descended from a common ancestor.)  Moreover, Isoroku’s homeland invaded Manchuria in 1937 and perpetrated many atrocities in East Asia, starting when Fred was 19 years old and thousands of miles removed.  Today, pro-Fred and anti-Fred identity politics have enraged the Palo Alto community and left the school board back-pedaling, looking for an alternative school name.  “The objection to the Yamamoto name seems sadly characteristic of America’s balkanized culture.  Complaints of insensitivity and trauma have become distinctive marks of American-ness … [but] Fred Yamamoto’s name lives on as an aspiration to something greater.”  One surmises that a traditional nationalist would say that Fred’s life continues to be an inspiration for an American culture, now sadly interned.

Seasons’ Greetings, 2018

Once upon a time, extending best wishes to others on a holiday was unproblematic, despite any holiday’s being specific to a tradition: There was a limited number of tradition-bearing civilizations in the world, each clinging precariously to survival in a well-separated geographical niche; and it was not thought to be an insurmountable challenge to associate holiday references with their respective traditions or niches.  In England, an early “Merry Christmas” occurred on Christmas Day, 1066, when the coronation of William the Conqueror became so merry, or turbulent, that some nearby houses were burned down.  But, alas, time passes, meat spoils, pepper and spices are required, the Age of Exploration occurs, and now each tradition competes for attention in all geographical niches.  The words “Merry Christmas” have come to be seen, by many, as an expression either of illicit proselytization or of commercial speech.  Given this dichotomy, some maintain, it is far safer to endorse the commercial branch, in which hopes for a new Lego, “hung by the chimney with care,” elide into ambitions for a new Lexus, “parked by the curb while St. Nick was still there.”

In fact, however, it seems that Christians also express a second, parallel, non-economic meaning with the words, “Merry Christmas.”  This non-economic meaning divides into two branches: First, there is an invitation for the Christian faithful to recollect, and to reflect upon, the love, joy, peace, and hope arising from the advent of Jesus of Nazareth into the world at Christmastide.  Second, there is an invitation for the curious to investigate the doctrines embedded in the traditions underlying the historical Christian liturgies.  In practice, the words “Merry Christmas” express meaning not only as a wish for prosperity but also as an invitation for reflection or research.

The commercial interpretation of the words “Merry Christmas” finds some support among the tidings of comfort and joy (news of prosperity and joy) in the old English carol “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen.”  The meaning of the title is “May God continue to grant you prosperity, gentlemen.”  Some extra Christmas bounty for the householder and his family would be much appreciated by Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, et al. in the novel, A Christmas Carol.

The Crachit family members sought to survive at the margins of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Long before, there had been a Roman Revolution (133 - 31 B.C.) in response to wars of conquest, expansion of slavery, dispossession of small landowners, and concentration of land ownership by Roman aristocracy.  Economic anxiety continued during the ensuing Roman Empire with its embedded Christian communities. 

The classical scholar E.R. Dodds studied the ancient Roman Empire from the accession of Marcus Aurelius (161 A.D.) to the death of Constantine I (337 A.D.).  Dodds concluded that this period was a veritable “age of anxiety.”  One infers that this was an age well suited for producing legions of Bob Crachits.  Despite competing mystery religions, Gnosticism, and the Marcionite heresy, an orthodox Christianity was accepted by increasing numbers of anxious individuals within the Roman Empire.  Constantine seems to have accelerated this Christianization after receiving some vision or dream-like instruction to inscribe his army’s shields and battle standards with a “chi-rho” symbol (based on the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek); defeating his competitor, Maxentius, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 A.D.); and becoming a Christian himself.  Some Imperial coins and medallions from the post Milvian-Bridge era display the chi-rho symbol.  Theodosius I (347 - 395 A.D.) largely completed the Christianization of the urban parts of the Empire by rooting out most vestiges of cultural paganism.

Some professional historians find the preceding account of the Christianization of the Roman Empire to be defective, because, in their view, if Constantine had truly and sincerely converted to Christianity, then Theodosius would have been left with nothing more to do.  But Theodosius did find, and terminate, some residual pagan practices and institutions.  Hence, Constantine’s conversion must have been insincere or ineffective, consistent with his purported vision being a later invention by disingenuous clerics. 

Any professional historian is entitled, if he or she so pleases, to a Weltanschauung of mortal antagonism between faith and reason.  In contrast, however, one notes that some philosophers of history, like Hegel, believed that religion is an attainment of consciousness during its progression towards absolute philosophical knowing.  “This incarnation of the divine Being … is the simple content of the absolute religion.”  (See the Phenomenology of Spirit, “The Revealed Religion,” Paragraph 759 of the A.V. Miller translation.)

But an alternative Weltanschauung has long been available in which faith complements reason, as in the “Credo ut intelligam” of Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – 1109 A.D.).  In this alternative approach, the Bible is meant to be a means for eliciting the reader’s response, not for fulfilling the historian’s demand for biographical data (as in the problematic 19th century quest for the historical Jesus).  Are we to evaluate faith and reason based upon the best surviving historical evidence or upon a vast conspiracy theory in which medieval monks falsified or suppressed inconvenient texts so comprehensively that only secular history is credible?  During this holiday season it seems preeminently reasonable to respond positively to the words of the Biblical author Luke, who relates that, at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, “a great company of the heavenly host [angelic choir] appeared with the angel [who spoke to the shepherds], praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace [not anxiety] to men upon whom his favor rests.’”

God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen … and Ladies and Children Alike!

(The next posting to this blog will occur on February 1, 2019.)

Philosophical Reflections for Election Day, 2018

The U.S. Constitutional Convention adjourned on September 17, 1787, which was the occasion for Benjamin Franklin to say that you, the people, now have “a Republic, if you can keep it.”  Nine states had ratified the Constitution by June 21, 1788, allowing plans for the first Presidential election to proceed.  The last of the thirteen ratifying states did so by May 29, 1790, when a dubious Rhode Island finally voted in favor of ratification.

Suffrage in the United States of America advanced in several steps towards the goal of universal political participation.  Property requirements were attacked early on, even attracting Benjamin Franklin’s satirical denunciation.  The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) to the U.S. Constitution prohibits denial of voting rights based on race.  The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) prohibits denial of voting rights based on sex.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforces previous suffrage amendments.

A judge on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has recently written that “popular sovereignty isn’t just a theory; it is a duty.”  In other words, the Constitutional system presupposes an enlightened citizenry exercising its rights of suffrage.  However, recent surveys show that 71% of Americans cannot identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and that 10% of U.S. college graduates think that the television personality “Judge Judy” is on the Supreme Court.  

Public ignorance of history and economics ensures that political debate degenerates into an uninhibited quest for unsustainable economic subsidies and social preferences.  It is assumed that this ignorance cannot be remedied by civic-competency tests of any kind, because of past, unhappy experience.  Other remedies for uninformed voting not springing readily to mind, a sudden, widespread outbreak of enlightened voting seems unlikely.

Voters in many states will soon be selecting Senators.  Among other issues for voters’ consideration are, surprisingly, Senatorial candidates’ positions on the right of an accused person to a presumption of innocence absent any corroborating evidence.  Some sitting Senators think that this right, seemingly implied by the due process provisions of the U.S. Constitution, ought to be suspended during confirmation hearings for appointments to the Supreme Court.  Suppressing such a fundamental right would dramatically alter the long-standing legal landscape.  In contrast, as the senior Senator from Maine said in a speech on the Senate floor on October 5, 2018, “certain fundamental legal principles about due process, the presumption of innocence and fairness do bear on my thinking, and I cannot abandon them.  In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be.  We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.”

Among the philosophical questions raised by current attempts to eviscerate due process provisions of the U.S. Constitution are “Who could make such a change?” and, ultimately, “Who is sovereign?”  According to its text, “we the People” ordained and established the U.S. Constitution and its method of amendment.  But what happens if 10% of “us the People” place Judge Judy on the Supreme Court, while 71% of “us the People” cannot identify the Constitution as the nation’s highest law?  Hypothetically speaking, if “we the People” become functionally illiterate or incapacitated, then what serves as the analog of the 25th Amendment (dealing with executive incapacities) for “us the People” as a whole?  Does sovereignty reside in the faction that can most loudly declare an emergency in sovereignty?  On the hypothesis of popular incapacity, it would appear that a Hobbesian state of nature must ensue, with a sovereign emerging from a primordial political soup.

Election day will soon be upon us.  One can only vote in the hope that the results will once again stave off the advent of a political order in which life is ever more “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”