When Kant began focusing his writings on politics towards the end of his life, he aimed to tackle some of the central issues of the discipline. Few of these issues have remained so consistently a focus of politics than the quest for peace. In Kant’s Century, Europe was frequently torn apart by wars of continental Empires and in the last century millions of people died in the only two conflicts ever (if not somewhat inaccurately) awarded the status of “world war.” In 2011, it can seem as if Britain has been so long at peace domestically that we need not obsess over how to achieve peace at all. Britain’s success in this area is worth noting; however a consistent aversion to war remains central of our international conduct in a way few of our ancestors would have recognised. It is, for example, unthinkable that Britain would go to war with a fellow European power on the basis of aggressive conduct outside of the continent. Simply put, Britain and the Western World at large is at peace with itself and war is now an unthinkable tool of diplomacy for many states. So have we achieved perpetual peace and have we done so in the way Kant thought we would?
To answer this, let us first consider what Kant felt were the means of achieving political objectives. In the appendixes to his essay, Kant makes it clear that the best way of achieving an end is to create a framework so that this end inevitably come about. In perpetual peace, for example, Kant looks at the conduct of states and what that must be (states must be democratic, not break treaties, not enter into debt for war or hold standing armies) so that peace is the inevitable consequence of all of these components. This is perhaps the great lesson we can take from this work of Kant’s – the pursuit of an end can be fruitless unless the framework for it to come about and thrive is in place.
In this light, Kant speaks of how the consequences of war are too great for most rational people to burden willingly – and as such, many wars have been the consequence of leaders failing to represent the general will of their people. There are events in history to challenge this (such as the cheering crowds that welcome WWI), but as more and more states have become democratic and accountable to their people, fewer and fewer of these states have gone to war (and according to Democratic Peace Theory, democracies simply do not go to war with each other). This was key to Kant's framework for peace - some elements of his treaty for peace have been realised and their consequences have been as predicted.
Not all of Kant’s goals are being realised – but we are certainly moving in the direction he predicted. More states than ever are democratic, for example, with the Arab Spring promising to inaugurate a new wave of middle-eastern states into the democracy club. The true realisation of Kant’s ultimate goal is still a long way off and it faces many challenges ahead. But this isn’t a problem – Kant believes human reason would grow and perpetual peace materialise anyway. We have cause for optimism that he was right.
Read ‘Perpetual Peace’ as part of Kant’s Political Writings in this Cambridge series of books by clicking here.
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