Extract
[...] Towards Perpetual Peace, Excerpt - Emmanuel Kant (1795) - The Theory of Democratic Peace In his work Towards Perpetual Peace", Emmanuel Kant considers that the relations between states, in the absence of a common legislation, are essentially bellicose. Following the theoretical tradition of the state of nature (which aims to think of man outside of all sociability, in order to extract its essential characteristics, in order to try to reconstruct a 'human nature'), Kant tries to think of a state of nature of states of law, that is to say a world in which states coexist without treaties, without international rules. [...]
[...] The second level, the jus gentium or "right of peoples of states, in their mutual relations », is the one that governs the behavior of individuals from a given State (from a particular civic-legal state) towards individuals from another State (from a different civic-legal state from the first). The third level, the cosmopolitan law, or "cosmopolitan law », concerns the relationships that exist between the different states (i.e. the authorities that maintain particular civic-legal states), in their representative and diplomatic function, as they are part of a common legal community, as they are subject to common rules without forming a single and same civil state. [...]
[...] The geographical proximity of men or peoples who are not subject to a common authority, as soon as it allows them to act on each other and thus to harm each other, is a threat that must be mitigated by the institution of a civic-legal state. In today's world, where most states are able to act reciprocally on each other, the need for a global community and legal state is observed in this sense. At a more local level, the European community seems to be in line with what Kant aims for in this text. [...]
[...] Kant then opposes to this situation that of the state of nature between men or between peoples, a precarious state in which each is, in the Hobbesian manner, the enemy of each, since it constitutes a potential threat, not being bound by common laws to respect the security of the other. This state of nature situation is observed, in the first state of nature, in the absence of any political State, of any 'civic-legal state'. But as Kant points out, this situation is also the one in which every individual of a particular State finds himself in relation to all those who are not part of it, including those who belong to another particular State, without these two States having themselves submitted to common rules. [...]
[...] Kant draws a radical consequence from this subsistence of a second, interstate state of nature: since the presence of a man, whose "the absence of laws of his state » meconstantly threatens » is enough to harm me, since this threat constitutes for me a form of insecurity, it is it legitimate for me toto constrain it to enter with me into a common community and legal state, or to step aside from my neighborhood. » The simple coexistence of individuals or distinct civic entities in a state of nature is enough to trigger a perpetual situation of threat and insecurity, and so Kant considers it legitimate to remedy this situation by any means possible: if one cannot convince others to enter into a common community and legal state, it becomes legitimate to expel them. From the preceding exposition, Kant draws a thesis that underlies his project of perpetual peace and which follows from the demonstrative character of the exposition that we have commented on up to this point:all men who can act on one another reciprocally must belong to some civic constitution whatsoever ». [...]
