Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay
whose interest they speak, and that it is the worship of might from
which they take their cue, as if in this matter they had a right to
command. In order to do this, we must first expose the delusion by
which they deceive themselves and others; then discover the ultimate
principle from which their plans for a perpetual peace proceed;
and thence show that all the evil which stands in the way of the
realisation of that ideal springs from the fact that the political
moralist begins where the moral politician rightly ends and that, by
subordinating principles to an end or putting the cart before the
horse, he defeats his intention of bringing politics into harmony
with morals.
In order to make practical philosophy consistent with itself, we must
first decide the following question:—In dealing with the problems of
practical reason must we begin from its material principle—the end as
the object of free choice—or from its formal principle which is based
merely on freedom in its external relation?—from which comes the
following law:—“Act so that thou canst will that thy maxim should be
a universal law, be the end of thy action what it will.”[150]
[150] With regard to the meaning of the moral law and its
significance in the Kantian system of ethics, see Abbott’s
translation of the _Theory of Ethics_ (1889), pp. 38, 45, 54, 55,
119, 282. [Tr.]
Without doubt, the latter determining principle of action must
stand first; for, as a principle of right, it carries unconditional
necessity with it, whereas the former is obligatory only if we assume
the empirical conditions of the end set before us,—that is to say,
that it is an end capable of being practically realised. And if
this end—as, for example, the end of perpetual peace—should be also
a duty, this same duty must necessarily have been deduced from the
formal principle governing the maxims which guide external action.
Now the first principle is the principle of the political moralist;
the problems of constitutional, international and cosmopolitan law
are mere technical problems (_problema technicum_). The second or
formal principle, on the other hand, as the principle of the moral
politician who regards it as a moral problem (_problema morale_),
differs widely from the other principle in its methods of bringing
about perpetual peace, which we desire not only as a material good,
but also as a state of things resulting from our recognition of the
precepts of duty.[151]
[151] See Abbott’s trans., pp. 33, 34. [Tr.]
To solve the first problem—that, namely, of political expediency—much
knowledge of nature is required, that her mechanical laws may be
employed for the end in view. And yet the result of all knowledge
of this kind is uncertain, as far as perpetual peace is concerned.
This we find to be so, whichever of the three departments of public
law we take. It is uncertain whether a people could be better kept
in obedience and at the same time prosperity by severity or by baits
held out to their vanity; whether they would be better governed
under the sovereignty of a single individual or by the authority of
several acting together; whether the combined authority might be
better secured merely, say, by an official nobility or by the power
of the people within the state; and, finally, whether such conditions
could be long maintained. There are examples to the contrary in
history in the case of all forms of government, with the exception
of the only true republican constitution, the idea of which can
occur only to a moral politician. Still more uncertain is a law of
nations, ostensibly established upon statutes devised by ministers;
for this amounts in fact to mere empty words, and rests on treaties
which, in the very act of ratification, contain a secret reservation
of the right to violate them. On the other hand, the solution of the
second problem—the problem of political wisdom—forces itself, we may
say, upon us; it is quite obvious to every one, and puts all crooked
dealings to shame; it leads, too, straight to the desired end, while
at the same time, discretion warns us not to drag in the conditions
of perpetual peace by force, but to take time and approach this ideal
gradually as favourable circumstances permit.
This may be expressed in the following maxim:—“Seek ye first the
kingdom of pure practical reason and its righteousness, and the
object of your endeavour, the blessing of perpetual peace, will
be added unto you.” For the science of morals generally has this
peculiarity,—and it has it also with regard to the moral principles
of public law, and therefore with regard to a science of politics
knowable _a priori_,—that the less it makes a man’s conduct depend
on the end he has set before him, his purposed material or moral
gain, so much the more, nevertheless, does it conform in general
to this end. The reason for this is that it is just the universal
will, given _a priori_, which exists in a people or in the relation
of different peoples to one another, that alone determines what is
lawful among men. This union of individual wills, however, if we
proceed consistently in practice, in observance of the mechanical
laws of nature, may be at the same time the cause of bringing about
the result intended and practically realizing the idea of right.
Hence it is, for example, a principle of moral politics that a people
should unite into a state according to the only valid concepts of
right, the ideas of freedom and equality; and this principle is not
based on expediency, but upon duty. Political moralists, however,
do not deserve a hearing, much and sophistically as they may reason
about the existence, in a multitude of men forming a society, of
certain natural tendencies which would weaken those principles and
defeat their intention. They may endeavour to prove their assertion
by giving instances of badly organised constitutions, chosen both
from ancient and modern times, (as, for example, democracies without
a representative system); but such arguments are to be treated with
contempt, all the more, because a pernicious theory of this kind
may perhaps even bring about the evil which it prophesies. For, in
accordance with such reasoning, man is thrown into a class with all
other living machines which only require the consciousness that they
are not free creatures to make them in their own judgment the most
miserable of all beings.
_Fiat justitia, pereat mundus._ This saying has become proverbial,
and although it savours a little of boastfulness, is also true. We
may translate it thus:—“Let justice rule on earth, although all the
rogues in the world should go to the bottom.” It is a good, honest
principle of right cutting off all the crooked ways made by knavery
or violence. It must not, however, be misunderstood as allowing
anyone to exercise his own rights with the utmost severity, a course
in contradiction to our moral duty; but we must take it to signify
an obligation, binding upon rulers, to refrain from refusing to
yield anyone his rights or from curtailing them, out of personal
feeling or sympathy for others. For this end, in particular, we
require, firstly, that a state should have an internal political
constitution, established according to the pure principles of
right; secondly, that a union should be formed between this state
and neighbouring or distant nations for a legal settlement of
their differences, after the analogy of the universal state. This
proposition means nothing more than this:—Political maxims must not
start from the idea of a prosperity and happiness which are to be
expected from observance of such precepts in every state; that is,
not from the end which each nation makes the object of its will
as the highest empirical principle of political wisdom; but they
must set out from the pure concept of the duty of right, from the
“_ought_” whose principle is given _a priori_ through pure reason.
This is the law, whatever the material consequences may be. The world
will certainly not perish by any means, because the number of wicked
people in it is becoming fewer. The morally bad has one peculiarity,
inseparable from its nature;—in its purposes, especially in relation
to other evil influences, it is in contradiction with itself, and
counteracts its own natural effect, and thus makes room for the moral
principle of good, although advance in this direction may be slow.
Hence objectively, in theory, there is no quarrel between morals
and politics. But subjectively, in the self-seeking tendencies of
men (which we cannot actually call their morality, as we would a
course of action based on maxims of reason,) this disagreement in
principle exists and may always survive; for it serves as a whetstone
to virtue. According to the principle, _Tu ne cede malis, sed contra
audentior ito_, the true courage of virtue in the present case lies
not so much in facing the evils and self-sacrifices which must be met
here as in firmly confronting the evil principle in our own nature
and conquering its wiles. For this is a principle far more dangerous,
false, treacherous and sophistical which puts forward the weakness in
human nature as a justification for every transgression.
In fact the political moralist may say that a ruler and people, or
nation and nation do _one another_ no wrong, when they enter on a war
with violence or cunning, although they do wrong, generally speaking,
in refusing to respect the idea of right which alone could establish
peace for all time. For, as both are equally wrongly disposed to one
another, each transgressing the duty he owes to his neighbour, they
are both quite rightly served, when they are thus destroyed in war.
This mutual destruction stops short at the point of extermination,
so that there are always enough of the race left to keep this game
going on through all the ages, and a far-off posterity may take
warning by them. The Providence that orders the course of the world
is hereby justified. For the moral principle in mankind never becomes
extinguished, and human reason, fitted for the practical realisation
of ideas of right according to that principle, grows continually in
fitness for that purpose with the ever advancing march of culture;
while at the same time, it must be said, the guilt of transgression
increases as well. But it seems that, by no theodicy or vindication
of the justice of God, can we justify Creation in putting such a
race of corrupt creatures into the world at all, if, that is, we
assume that the human race neither will nor can ever be in a happier
condition than it is now. This standpoint, however, is too high a
one for us to judge from, or to theorise, with the limited concepts
we have at our command, about the wisdom of that supreme Power which
is unknowable by us. We are inevitably driven to such despairing
conclusions as these, if we do not admit that the pure principles of
right have objective reality—that is to say, are capable of being
practically realised—and consequently that action must be taken on
the part of the people of a state and, further, by states in relation
to one another, whatever arguments empirical politics may bring
forward against this course. Politics in the real sense cannot take
a step forward without first paying homage to the principles of
morals. And, although politics, _per se_, is a difficult art,[152]
in its union with morals no art is required; for in the case of a
conflict arising between the two sciences, the moralist can cut
asunder the knot which politics is unable to untie. Right must be
held sacred by man, however great the cost and sacrifice to the
ruling power. Here is no half-and-half course. We cannot devise a
happy medium between right and expediency, a right pragmatically