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’.”