states would accept the status quo and promise not to try to change property rights. War could only be waged against a state that had been declared an enemy of the organization. With this sole exception, states were supposed to refrain from the use of force. Saint-Pierre realized that the structure of international relations had to be modified if the Hobbesian state of war and anarchy should be overcome. The federation was designed to enable states to replace one mode of interaction (namely war) by another set (namely majority vote and the rule of law).
Rousseau evaluated Saint-Pierre’s project twice, in the Extrait (1756/1761) and in the Jugement sur la Paix Perpétuelle (1756/1782).27 Like Saint-Pierre, he described the eighteenth-century European international system as a system of anarchy that lured countries into wars they sometimes did not want to wage, but that they thought they had to because of neighbours they perceived as enemies. For Rousseau, diplomacy was a tool of tyrannical rulers; war was one of its consequences. Similarly, trade among nations favoured dependence, inequality and thus conflict.28 Like Saint-Pierre, Rousseau advocated a permanent congress of deputies as the main instrument of an international organization. Going beyond Saint-Pierre, Rousseau’s Jugement was revolutionary. He attacked the European princes and their cabinets as the main causes of war. Princes were described as ruthless usurpers who wanted to expand their absolute rule at home and used wars to make themselves indispensable. In Europe, Rousseau saw ‘unfortunate nations groaning under yokes of iron, the human race crushed by a handful of oppressors’.29
Interpreters do not agree whether Rousseau saw a European international society as a desirable goal. According to one interpretation, his focus on the nation, his endorsement of patriotism and rejection of cosmopolitanism and the société générale demonstrate that he wanted to end international society: ‘Rousseau turns what Grotians and Kantians view as positive and desirable into a source of evil.’30 Others see Rousseau as a pacifist republican who offered a convincing outline of an international organization. According to this interpretation, he aimed at establishing some sort of ‘peaceful coexistence’ among economically independent, small republics. The states involved would share some common juridical principles and would thus be rather homogeneous.31 It is obvious that Rousseau developed different concepts in various writings; this may explain some of the divergent interpretations.
As far as we know, Kant had always cherished, admired and respected Saint-Pierre’s and Rousseau’s writings.32 Early references to Saint-Pierre go back to the period between 1752 and 1756 (XVI, 241). From 1760 onwards, Plato, Saint-Pierre and Rousseau were described as enthusiastic idealists who follow ideas that are true in themselves (XV, 210). In ‘Idea for a universal history’ (1784), Kant defended the concept of an international federation:
However wild and fanciful this idea may appear – and it has been ridiculed as such when put forward by the Abbé St Pierre and Rousseau (perhaps because they thought that its realization was so imminent) – it is nonetheless the inevitable outcome of the distress in which men involve one another. (VIII, 24, 28–33)
Saint-Pierre and Rousseau were ahead of their times. What they found out with the help of reason, ordinary humans learn by experience. Distress (Not could also be translated as ‘hardship’ or ‘adversity’) teaches us to renounce our ‘brutish freedom’ (VIII, 24, 34) and abandon the state of nature. The word ‘inevitable’ is highly problematical in the above quotation; it cannot easily be reconciled with Kantian criticism (see chapter 3 for more).
Kant admires Saint-Pierre and Rousseau, but he does not follow them blindly. Like Rousseau and unlike Saint-Pierre, Kant emphasizes the importance of domestic policy for international relations. Unlike Rousseau, Kant believes that absolutism is capable of reforming itself towards republicanism. Both Saint-Pierre and Rousseau favoured an international federation with coercive authority; Kant’s approach is different (see chapter 8). Saint-Pierre and Rousseau used the past to justify their projects. They referred to Henri IV, Sully and the Holy Roman Empire. Kant, on the other hand, is the philosopher of pure reason. Reason, not history tells us what we should do: ‘reason, as the highest legislative moral power, absolutely condemns war as a test of rights and sets up peace as an immediate duty’ (VIII, 356, 2–4). All three thinkers defend idealism in ethics and rights: the primacy of normative ideals over facts and figures. In addition, Kant sees his peace concept as part of a system of rights. He provides basic juridical principles, leaves out utilitarian considerations and tries to present a coherent system. Kant goes beyond international legal theories of Vattel’s type. It has been claimed that Vattel lacks a legal philosophy.33 Kant offers a complex and convincing one. Vattel stays too close to eighteenth-century political realities. Kant develops ideas to transform existing conditions.
An outline of Kant’s doctrine of international right
Kant’s doctrine of international right is part of his doctrine of rights, which is in turn part of the metaphysics of morals; the most comprehensive account of this doctrine of international right is found in The Metaphysics of Morals. Kant’s principle of justice forms its basis, and it is a special version of the categorical imperative.34 ‘Right is … the sum total of those conditions within which the will of one person can be reconciled with the will of another in accordance with a universal law of freedom’ (VI, 230, 24–6). One’s use of external freedom may violate the freedom of others. In this case, the use of coercion is justified to remove this ‘hindrance to freedom’. Therefore ‘right entails the authority to apply coercion’ (VI, 231, 30–4). From this, Pogge’s consistency principle follows: ‘rational persons ought to coexist under a system of constraints ensuring mutually consistent domains of external freedom’.35 A full juridical condition guarantees this. The universality principle is subordinate to the first one. It claims that the system of constraints ‘ought to limit everyone’s external freedom equally – the constraints should be general and universal’.
The universal principle of justice or rights is specified in the six preliminary and three definitive articles. Kant’s ‘philosophical sketch’ (VIII, 341) has the function ‘to constitute the rules and the basis of legitimation for internal and external State activity’.36
The preliminary articles specify what states should not do if they want to set up the conditions for a true peace treaty among them. These articles do not exclude war; it may still be necessary for a state to defend its independence or territory by military means.37 The preliminary treaty excludes actions that would make a peace treaty impossible and which contradict the idea of a peaceful society of nations. The preliminary articles offer six requirements.38
1. A conditional peace treaty and ‘secret reservations’ are forbidden (VIII, 343, 20–1). All parties agree mutually and unconditionally to recognize the status quo.
2. States identify each other as ‘moral personalities’ (VIII, 344, 22) with full external and internal sovereignty.
3. States are willing to reduce the readiness for war, stop the arms race and gradually abolish ‘standing armies’ (VIII, 345, 1).
4. National debt ‘in connection with the external affairs of the state’ (VIII, 345, 20–1) should be avoided. This provision is supposed to reduce the readiness for war.
5. If states are sovereign moral personalities (see article no. 2), then military intervention must be forbidden.
6. As wars can still be fought, they should be conducted in such a way that any future peace treaty is not made impossible.
Systematically speaking, each state has three perfect duties towards oneself and others, according to the Ulpian formula honeste vivere, neminem laedere and suum cuique (VI, 236–7).39 In international relations,
