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Perpetual Peace by Immanuel Kant

- Immanuel Kant published his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" which established the idea of perpetual peace and significantly influenced modern politics. - In the essay, Kant outlines conditions necessary for achieving perpetual peace, including republican forms of government, a league or federation of free states operating under a shared system of public law and justice, and the idea that states will gradually form a community that embraces all of humanity. - Kant argues that unless security is guaranteed between neighbors, each state will view others as enemies, and that the spirit of commerce is incompatible with war and will ultimately prevail, leading nations to unite out of mutual interest.

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Theodor Iacob
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254 views2 pages

Perpetual Peace by Immanuel Kant

- Immanuel Kant published his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" which established the idea of perpetual peace and significantly influenced modern politics. - In the essay, Kant outlines conditions necessary for achieving perpetual peace, including republican forms of government, a league or federation of free states operating under a shared system of public law and justice, and the idea that states will gradually form a community that embraces all of humanity. - Kant argues that unless security is guaranteed between neighbors, each state will view others as enemies, and that the spirit of commerce is incompatible with war and will ultimately prevail, leading nations to unite out of mutual interest.

Uploaded by

Theodor Iacob
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Perpetual peace by Immanuel Kant

Perpetual peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a
certain area.
The idea of perpetual peace first came up during the 18th century, when Charles-Irne
Castel de Saint-Pierre published his essay "Project for Perpetual Peace" anonymously while
working as the negotiator for the Treaty of Utrecht. However, the idea did not become well
known until the late 18th century. The term perpetual peace became acknowledged when
German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical
Sketch".
Perpetual peace has had significant influence upon modern politics. Perpetual peace has
been the foundation for peace and conflict studies, a relatively newly laid field which started in
Europe around the 1950s and 1960s.

-The natural state is one of war. A state of peace must be therefore be established

-Unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor, each may treat his neighbor from
whom he demands this security as an enemy

-The civil constitution of every state should be republican

-The republican constitution gives a favorable prospect for perpetual peace

-A declaration of war in a republican constitution is very hard to decide on because of the


required personal and financial costs. In a constitution that is not republican, a declaration of war
is easy because the ruler makes no sacrifices and may declare war for trivial reasons
-The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states

-People/states should, for their own security, demand that others enter with it into a
constitution similar to the civil construction to avoid violent state of nature

-Law cannot have the least legal force in war because states as such do not stand under a
common external power

-It is the prerogative which nature has given the strong, that the weak should obey him

-States do not plead their cause before a tribunal; war alone is their way of bringing suit

-The obligation which men in a lawless condition have under natural law that requires them to
abandon the state of nature does not apply to states because they already have a constitution and
have outgrown the need to submit to a more extended, lawful constitution according to their
ideas of right

-There must be a league of peace which would be distinguished from a treaty of peace by the
fact that the latter terminates war while the former seeks to make an end of all wars forever

-This idea of federation should gradually spread to all states and thus lead to perpetual peace

-States must give up their savage (lawless) freedom, like individual man, and adjust
themselves to the constraints of public law to establish a continuously growing state consisting of
various nations, which will ultimately include all the nations of the world

-The guarantee of perpetual peace is nature. As nature saw to it, men could live everywhere in
world.

-War requires no special motive but appears to be engrafted in human nature. Often war is
waged only in order to show valor

-The problem of organizing a state is requiring laws for presentation of states which secretly
want to exempt himself from them. To establish a constitution so that although private
institutions conflict, they check each other with the result that their public conduct is the same as
if they had no such intentions

-A state of peace is established in which laws have force

-Nature unavoidably wills that the right should finally triumph; what we neglect to do comes
about by itself, though with great inconvenience

-Nature employs two means to separate people and prevent them from mixing languages and
religions. These differences have a tendency to involve mutual hatred and pretexts for war, but
the progress of civilization and mans gradual approach to greater harmony in their principles
finally leads to peaceful agreement

-Nations which could not have secured themselves against violence and war by means of the
law unite because of mutual interest.

-The spirit of commerce, which is incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the upper hand
in every state. The power of money is perhaps the most dependable of all the powers

-States are forced to promote honorable peace and by meditation to prevent war whenever it
threatens to break out

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