Kant or not Kant?
Arguing on Kant’s Ultimate Political Design for Global Governance and
Cosmopolitanism.
An Exchange between
Claudio Corradetti and Allen Wood
Claudio Corradetti,· / Allen Wood·
University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy / Stanford
University and University of Indiana at Bloomington, USA
Abstract
In the following reflection Claudio Corradetti and Allen Wood engage in
a controversy concerning the possibilities and the limits of textual
interpretation. Should an interpreter still be authorized to call an author’s
interpretation the logical stretch of text beyond its black printed letters?
The authors offer two different standpoints on what can still be defined as
textual interpretation. Whereas for Allen Wood a clear-cut separation must be
kept between what a text shows and what an interpreter argues starting from the
text, for Claudio Corradetti such distinction remains internal to textual
exegesis in so far as the interpreter’s conclusions follow a logical pattern of
justification starting from evidential hints.
Key words
Kant, Cosmopolitanism, World Republic,
Regulative Ideal
In occasion of the publication of the monograph Claudio Corradetti, Kant Global Politics and Cosmopolitan Law.
The World Republic as a Regulative Idea
of Reason, Routledge, London-New York 2020, the book author and Allen Wood
engage in a controversy concerning the possibilities and the limits of Kant’s
textual interpretation. Should an interpreter be authorized to stretch a text
beyond its black printed letters even if in the ‘spirit’ of the author? Is it
possible to draw a clear distinction between textual evidences
and the interpreter’s additions? Is there a middle ground? Allen Wood and
Claudio Corradetti offer two different standpoints on how to approach Kant’s
exegesis of global politics and cosmopolitan law. Whereas for Allen Wood there
must be a clear-cut separation between what a text shows and what an
interpreter argues starting from the text, for Claudio Corradetti such
distinction remains internal to textual analysis in so far as the interpreter’s
conclusions follow a logical pattern of justification. There are two main points around which this
exchange unfolds: 1) the meta-questions concerning what a textual
interpretation is and what its limits and possibilities are; and, following
from this, 2) a disagreement on what the ultimate design and rationale of
Kant’s international relations is.
Allen
Wood Kant conceives
a progression in conditions of international right. Corradetti seems to think
(I am skeptical about this) that Kant has a definite conception of the
progression of rightful international orders, culminating in a World Republic.
My view is that Kant does have a plurality of distinct conceptions of how a
rightful international order might be constituted, which include a voluntary
international federation, and its possible growth to include new states, such a
federation with provisions for enforcement of its laws and decrees over its
members, and finally a state of nations, whose members are themselves sovereign
states. I do not see Kant as projecting a progression in history here, as if
nations should first adopt one model and then a more demanding one. I think he
is hoping that nations will do something to lessen the frequency and the danger
of war between them, and to lessen their addiction to the preparedness for war,
which Kant sees as a mortal threat to the political and even moral progress of
humanity. But I do not see him as having even a clear favorite among the
models. He is simply hoping that nations will agree on something that works.
Perhaps he does favor the idea of a state of nations, since it comes closest to
an international order that would resemble a condition of right among
individuals. But I do not see him as projecting any future historical
progression leading to that. It looked to me as if at times Corradetti was
trying to use the idea of a regulative principle in Kant to construct such a
future course of history on Kant's behalf. I do not see that in Kant.
I certainly think Kant never
entertains the thought of a world republic whose members are human individuals
-- a single world-state encompassing all human beings. On the contrary, he
regards that as a dystopian horror-vision, the worst form of tyranny and
"the graveyard of freedom." The state of nations he favors would
retain the internal sovereignty of separate states and have these states as its
members. This would limit the capacity of such a state of nations to enforce
its decrees, since if its members are to retain internal sovereignty and
control over their own resources and enforcement capacities, it could not
require them to go to war in order to enforce a
rightful international order. At most, it could give its members permission to
join in the enforcement of its laws and decrees against one of its members. It
was not always clear to me that Corradetti did not see clearly Kant's rejection
of the idea of a single all-encompassing world-state. But that may be either
because he did not express himself unambiguously or because I am at fault in
not understanding him correctly.
I also found a bit obscure
Corradetti’s discussion of lex latae or lex permissiva.
This is, admittedly, a difficult and obscure concept in Kant's theory of right
itself, about which nobody can be too sure what it is or exactly where it fits.
Or at least that's true of me. There was an interesting paper about 20 years
ago written by Brian Tierney, arguing that Kant's notion of permissive law
constitutes an unsolved (maybe insoluble) problem in his theory of property
Tierney comes at this through his work on medieval canon law theories of
property (B.Tierney, 2001, pp.301-312), such as those involved in the
Franciscan claims to own nothing while having become a scholarly order that
needed books and manuscripts that were, in effect in that society, like highly
scarce and valuable works of art.
The main application of the concept
of permissive law, as I understand Kant, is to resolving the theoretical
problem within his theory of property - the transition from provisional to
peremptory property. (I don't agree with Tierney that this represents an
insoluble problem.) And then its role is that in a state of nature we are
permitted (what we otherwise would not be allowed according to right) to compel
others to join a condition of right in which provisional possession becomes
peremptory possession and a right of property. Who owns what would be settled
by a public authority which would also enforce property rights. Is there
something analogous that in Kant's view does (or could) operate on the
international level? Could sovereign states be permitted to coerce others into
an international order? I doubt it. All the models of international right I see
Kant as entertaining presuppose the sovereignty of individual states, and the
international order (however it is conceived) would have to be entered into
voluntarily by them. One issue on which Kant's texts might give different
verdicts is whether an international order would have to be such that any state
could withdraw from it. Could voluntary membership be revoked at will, or would
there be a true federation that is permanent? In the Rechtslehre (6:351) Kant seems to suggest that the most there could
be is a voluntary congress with right of withdrawal at any time (Kant, 2006
[1797]). But is he merely describing that arrangement, or is he claiming (as
some, such as Susan Shell, maintain) that nothing stronger than such a congress
is rightfully possible? That would contradict what he seems to say in Perpetual
Peace. Corradetti may be alluding to this late in the paper and trying to
use regulative ideas to resolve the apparent conflict. I prefer to see Kant as
merely describing what a Congress of nations is (one model for international
right), not setting limits on what states could do. (Incidentally, Kant alludes
here to the USA as a federation not permitting voluntary withdrawal -- thus
anticipating by a half century the issue in our Civil War and taking the Union
side.)
Claudio Corradetti At the top
of Kant’s practical philosophy is the regulative idea of transcendental freedom. In so far as
freedom solves the dialectical opposition of necessity and freedom (as thesis and antithesis), its regulative
property derives from its being an Idea of reason (Kant, I. 2000 [1781-7], A338/B396,
p.409 ff.). The world republic represents a political regulative counterpart to
the metaphysical idea of the republican view of freedom as non-domination. The
world republic as an idea of reason expresses merely a cognitive function rather than a form of knowledge. Because ideas
have a hypothetical character, the world republic provides us with a cognitive model
for judging ‘transitional’ progressions in current politics. It does not
represent an objective historical finality of world history, but a conceptual
resource for its judgement.
Let me just add two things: 1) the regulative idea of the Welt Republik/Völkerstaat (these are for me analogous terms) is something we can
textually reconstruct from several passages which are all connected to freedom
as a regulative idea.
The reading I
propose thus reinforces the assumption that, for Kant, law and politics
are legitimate in so far as they reflect the ideals of moral freedom. Since
freedom according the Critique of Pure
Reason is an idea of reason (and thus it is regulative),[1]
I conclude that the world (state) republic — in so far as it institutionalizes
freedom for global politics — is also an idea of reason that thereby holds a
regulative function.
Let us reconsider this conceptual puzzle by referring to
the famous paragraph in Toward Perpetual
Peace where Kant draws a distinction between what is right in theory (in thesi) ― as with the desirability of
a world republic/multistate confederation (note that here Kant uses the term Weltrepublik) ― and what is instead
right in practice (in hypothesi), as
with the realization of the federation/league of states seen as a negative,
second best, surrogate.
If, according to the ideal standard of practical
reason, the world (state) republic is the solution to adopt but nations “in
accordance with their idea of the right of nations […] do not at all want this,
thus rejecting in hypothesi what is correct in thesi” (Kant, I.,
2006 [1795], 8:357,
p.328), then, a
suboptimal solution becomes legitimate only in so far as it stays compatible
and open to the normative improvements demanded by the defined ideal. In other
words, states’ practical rejection of the ideal standard of global politics (the
world republic) is justifiable pro tanto
only if it shows that the second-best solution does not contradict the ideal of
the practical demands of reason. The normative demand for a formal congruence between theory and
practice persists.
Accordingly, just as the league of states, in order to
result as a normatively significant entity (not just as a brute fact!) must
incorporate within its suboptimal institutional arrangement the normative ideal
of the world (state) republic, similarly, the concept of a global arrangement
of world politics must be turned into a regulative ideal. It is exactly at this
textual juncture that Kant’s elliptic introduction of the conceptual
possibility for the idea of the league of states ‘as if’ it were a world
(state) republic should be seen. But this, in Kantian terms, requires a
consideration of the relation between the league of states and the world
(state) republic in a way similar to the relation between the regulative ideas
of reason and the empirical occurrences of experience.
Such point
opens the problematic issue of how to conceive the relation between theory and
practice in Kant’s global politics. Some passages are indicative of this
difficulty.
First, in the
aforementioned text of Toward Perpetual Peace, just before the
introduction of the distinction between theory and practice Kant explains that
the international state of nature among nations cannot be abandoned in any other
way “but war” (Kant, I. 2006 [1795], 8:357, p.328),
similarly to the way in which individuals are forced to leave “their savage
(lawless) freedom” (Ibid.).
Yet, the possibility
that “an (always growing) state of
nations (civitas gentium)”
(Ibid.) would arise and “finally encompass all the nations of the earth”
(Ibid.) is prevented by
the will of states who will never freely subordinate themselves to a superior
power. Therefore, one might conclude, “if all is not to be lost” (Ibid.), the
world (state) republic can be assumed only as a conceptual guidance for the
arrangement of interstates relations. The distinction Kant draws between what
is correct in thesi and what is
instead feasible in practice should be interpreted in relation to a regulative
role of the idea of theoretical correctness.
By suggesting
the view that the world state republic provides a practical guidance to the
structuring of international relations, Kant safeguarded the unity of theory
and practice through the hope that peace among nations is an achievable ideal.
This is not to exclude the possibility that a universal state – not a republic
– could be brutally brought about through force.
In the writing
On the Common Saying, Kant had
already affirmed that: “such a universal state of nations […]is possible {in
praxi) and […]can be” (Kant, I. 2006 [1793], 8:313, p.309). Yet, in Toward Perpetual Peace, he reminds us that only by subordinating politics
to public right under the guidance of the world (state) republic can we hold “a
well-founded hope [that] perpetual peace […]
is no empty idea but a task that, gradually solved, comes steadily closer to
its goal” (Kant, I. 1795, 2006, 8:386, p.351).
2) regarding the leges latae, they
are adopted by Kant in different contexts and not only in private law contexts
(which I do mention, by the way). More interestingly for my purposes is Kant's
indication of the preliminary articles 2-3-4 of Toward Perpetual Peace in terms of leges latae. Within it, Kant refers to the provisional, but not
rightful, toleration of royal inheritance of states (which contradicts the
self-determining will of the people), state financial debts with other
countries, and finally (and perhaps more importantly) the standing armies to be
adopted to solve interstate conflicts. All of these concessions tolerate
transitional phases towards a rightful international order.
Allen Wood My chief
reservation about the later version of your paper -- which was much
clearer (at least to me) than the earlier version -- have to do with whether your
project really involves an interpretation of Kant or is really about
contemporary international relations. There is no doubt that Kant is an
important source for anyone thinking about these questions and represents
an earlier stage in offering proposals for how nations ought to relate to
one another with the aim of keeping peace between them. But I would resist using the word
'interpretation' (of Kant) for ideas that are suggested to you by Kant but are
not in Kant himself. I think you need to keep the distinction between
these two kinds of ideas sharp and not blur it. Kant offers a series of models for
possible future international relations - organizations or agreements
between nations with the aim of securing a peaceful relation. Here are the ones
I would distinguish, beginning with the least ambitious and going on from there:
1. A peace pact between two or
more nations, concluding a war (Kant, I. 2006 [1795], 8:356).
2. A congress of nations with
longer duration, but entered into voluntarily and
with the proviso that any nation may withdraw from it unilaterally at
any time (Kant, I. 2006 [1797], 6:351).
3. A federation of nations (Völkerbund) organized with the aim of keeping
a just peace between them, to which the member nations commit themselves to
remain a party (Kant, I. 2006, [1795], 8:356 and 8:311; Kant, I. 2006 [1797],
6:351; Kant, I., 2012,
8:24, pp.107-120).
4. A state of nations (Völkerstaat), with a permanent
constitution, of which sovereign states are the
members.
(4) but not (3) would have
coercive enforcement mechanisms to be used against
states (whether members or not) that resist the rule of international law
and attack member states of the state of nations. But for the
sovereignty of member states to be maintained, the state of nations could not
rightfully coerce its members to participate in such a war, but could
only permit them to do so if their internal sovereignty led to their decision
to participate. Each of (2)-(4) Kant hopes will expand its membership. If (as
Kant considers
highly unlikely though desirable) that membership encompassed all the nations of
the earth, this would result in:
5. A world republic, whose
members are states
Kant rejects the idea of a:
6. World monarchy, abolishing
the sovereignty of individual nations.
As I read Kant, he views this list
(excluding (6) of course) as a list of possible models of international co-operation.
He is hopeful that nations will eventually choose one model or another to promote peace
and if possible make it perpetual. Which of the models nations should adopt is not
something Kant proposes to decide. It would depend on pragmatic considerations. He might
prefer (4) or even (5) to (3) and (3) to merely (2). But Kant DOES NOT
view this list as a progression (or to use your word, "transition")
moving from (2) to (3) to (4). This would suggest a speculative
historical teleology which is no part at all of Kant's thinking about
international relations.
As I read
your paper, it seems on the contrary to suggest precisely that - this is how I
understand your term ‘transitional’. And you are offering this
way of understanding the models of international co-operation as (in your words) an
interpretation of Kant. This is where I must disagree strongly with you. It would be
an abuse of the word ‘interpretation’ to attribute to Kant the thought
that there will be, or even ought to be, a progression from (3) to (4) to (5)
and even to (6). An interpretation of a philosopher ought to be an attempt to
state clearly and accurately what the philosopher's views are. But in that
case, the ‘transitional interpretation’ of Kant would be simply a wrong interpretation of
him. Perhaps
this historical teleology is something you find appealing, which you wish would
occur and whose occurrence you might like to advocate. That thought (of a
progression with a historical teleology) may even have been suggested to you
by reading Kant. But it is not in Kant. Not at all. He does not believe in
such a teleology of international relations and is not arguing for one. It is
at most a thought suggested to your mind by what he thought and wrote. But it is
not his
thought at all. A thought that bears this relation to a historical philosopher
is not an interpretation of that philosopher, as I understand the word ‘interpretation’.
I think
there are indications in your paper that you realize that what I have just said is
true. But you nevertheless want to continue to speak of your idea of a
‘transition’ from (2) Perhaps I have misunderstood you. If so, I'd appreciate your
explaining your view more.
So
let me complete my thought briefly.
As
I understand you, you are attracted by the idea of a historical transition from (2) a congress of states, through (3) a
federation of states, to (4) a state of nations and then even to (5) a
world republic. But I think you realize this idea is not in Kant. He does not
advocate such a developmental process. It is an abuse of his notion of the
regulative to suggest that he is thinking of this progression and the
notion of a world republic ‘regulatively.’ I think you are aware of all this.
But nevertheless you want to call YOUR idea of a "transition"
from (2) to (5) an ‘interpretation’ of Kant, and want to appeal to his idea of
the regulative to suggest that (5) is a regulative idea governing the
transition. Whatever appeal the notion of a ‘transition’ may have for
you, you should not use the term "interpretation" to describe its
relation to Kant. That is my objection to your paper, as I understand it. The only element
of your view that I find in Kant is the thought that whatever model of
international co-operation nations may choose to adopt (whether (2), (3)
or (4)), it would be a good thing if the membership were to expand and
more states to join. But this falls well short of your conception of the
‘transition’. So your "transitional interpretation" of Kant should not be
called an "interpretation". To do so is to abuse the word
‘interpretation’.
Perhaps
I have misunderstood you. If so, I would be grateful if you would correct me, and explain your view more.
Claudio
Corradetti So here are my replies to your
replies:
- ‘transition’
is used with reference to ‘approximation to peace’ as it appears from the same use
of ‘zu’ in the title of Towards Perpetual
Peace, but also in later passages.
- I believe
you misunderstand me when you consider that at some point I see the world
republic as realizable. I never say that. What I claim is that the world
republic is a way ‘to think the unity’ of international law. This is why it is
a ‘regulative’ idea as they are described in the Dialectic of Reason.
-
progression 1 (as inter-transnational-political-entities shifts) is desirable
but it is not an objective teleological direction we can reconstruct in
history. Yet, it is a benchmark (of a cosmopolitan kind) we can use to judge
history according to a cosmopolitan perspective. This does not mean though that
the plurality of the shift from the Kongreß
to the Völkerbund etc. is nullified
by historical progression. On the contrary: the plurality of these
institutional options available at the international level remains, BUT, their
external constitutional arrangements (their external relations) must
approximate the ideal of a world republic as well as of the cosmopolitan right
to visit (the 2nd and the Third definitive article).
As states must be republican,
similarly transnational entities must approximate a republican ideal for a reciprocal
arrangement of international affairs.
-progression
2, I believe it is a fair interpretation of Kant’s Enlightenment and ideal of
human emancipation to make sense of his understanding of history according to a
‘cosmopolitan point of view’. It is Kant himself who devotes an entire work to
explaining how we can look back on history and judge it according to a
cosmopolitan progression. The idea of a ‘cosmopolitan constitution’ serves
precisely as a standpoint for adjudicating empirical progression in that
respect through the advancement of the constitutionalization of domestic,
international and cosmopolitan law (the three constitutional layers Kant
mentions in a footnote of Perpetual Peace).
Allen
Wood I accept
that you do not think of a world republic as realizable in Kant's view. And I agree
that this the way you describe his use of ideas in the Dialectic is the
way Kant thinks of ideas in the Dialectic of Critique of Pure Reason. But he never applies it to international
law in the way you do in this paper. It is a misinterpretation of Kant to
read him that way. Kant does use the word 'idea' in relation to history
in his 1784 essay. But there he is seeing the idea of a perfect civil
constitution as an idea to be approximated in reforming the constitutions of
individual states. One thing he thinks will assist this process of political
progress is the creation of a federation of states seeking peace. But in that
essay he does not entertain a plurality of models of international co-operation.
Still less does he entertain the thought that there might be a regulative idea
relating different models. When you apply the notion of regulative ideas to a
progression
of such models, you are extending Kantian ideas in a way Kant never does, and
you should not call such an extension an ‘interpretation’ of Kant.
I am not
clear whether in the above you are intending to describe Kant's views
or are merely putting forth your own views. This is what I wish had been made clearer
in your paper. I see nothing whatever in Kant to suggest a transition
between different models of international co-operation is anything Kant
intends to put forward or to entertain. If offered as an interpretation of
Kant, it is without textual support and should be rejected as an
interpretation of Kant's thoughts about how we should think about the quest
for world peace. In Idea (1784) he
presents such an idea toward which states might progress as a way of thinking about
political progress. In Religion
(1793-4) he
entertains the idea of an ethical community along with hopes that existing
churches should make progress toward that idea. But nowhere do I find Kant
suggesting a progression from treaties, to a congress of nations, to a
federation, to a state of nations as a progression (or ‘transition’) in
terms of which we should think about the efforts toward perpetual peace
that he is advocating. Again, in Idea
(1784) he thinks this way about the progress of individual states toward an
ideally just constitution. I never see any evidence of the same way of
thinking about the efforts toward world peace. In your paper I saw various signs
that you are aware of this, and realize that what you call a “transitional
interpretation” (of Kant) is not a textually defensible interpretation of Kant,
but instead is a way of looking at his models of international co-operation
that apparently appeals to you, and can be constructed using an innovative (never used
by Kant) application of the Kantian notion of a regulative idea. You are extending
Kant's conceptions in ways he never does. He uses the idea of a just
constitution in Idea (1784) in this
way when discussing political progress in individual states (domestic right), but
he never applies the same pattern of thinking to international or cosmopolitan
right.
Perhaps the extension of that way of thinking to these two international
realms seems attractive to you, but that it appeals to you is not a ground for
attributing it to Kant or offering it as an interpretation of Kant.
[Follow-up
comments]
Allen Wood Let
me try to discuss what appears to be our disagreement over how to read Kant on
international right and peace, and explain why I read him as I do. We may simply
have a disagreement (common enough among scholars) about how certain texts or
passages are to be read. But I also suspect that your position is not
merely (or not entirely) about how to read Kant. So below I will also make a
suggestion regarding how I understand the motivation behind your
paper, and see if you think it is correct.
The
issue of Kant-interpretation. As I read the main texts in which Kant discusses international right and what nations might do to
secure perpetual peace, I do not see him as ever proposing that we move from
more modest models of international co-operation to more ambitious ones. In
Idea (1784) he never proposes
anything stronger than a peaceful federation (Völkerbund) (Kant, I. 2012, 8:24, pp.107-120). As I read him. this
is the only model he suggests in that text, so it cannot support the claim that
he envisions a "transition" from weaker to stronger international
organizations (from a congress to a federation to a state of nations). He does
suggest here, as he does everywhere about any international organization that
he hopes it will expand over time to include more nations as members.
This is the only developmental or ‘transitional’ claim I see him ever making.
In this work, Kant is indeed interested in a regulative idea. But it is a
regulative theoretical idea for understanding human history. It is not even a
practical
idea, though towards the end it converges with one, and it is an idea that would
be helped by an international peaceful federation. But this is not an idea
used regulatively in international relations, but only an idea citizens and
rulers might use in perfecting the civil constitution of individual states.
His
next discussion of this idea occurs in the third section of Kant’s Theory and Practice
(1793). Here he proposes a new model: a cosmopolitan constitution which I take
to be a version of the Völkerstaat (Kant,
I. 2006, 8:310-311). It would be an organization
having coercive power to preserve peace and justice among nations.
But no sooner does Kant propose it than he considers that it might be
"more dangerous to freedom than the lawless condition in which states find
themselves; this leads him to back off to the model of a federation of
nations.
In
Toward Perpetual Peace, there is this
same conception, with perhaps a more favorable
attitude toward the state of nations, but nevertheless the same thought, at
8:357. He suggests that nations might choose to give up their lawless
freedom (analogous to the way individuals do in entering into a condition of
right) and form a state of nations. He again suggests that such an
organization might be ‘always growing’ -- that over time, more and more nations
might join it. But then as he did before he pulls back from supporting this
model as a practical alternative, suggesting that existing states do not
want to lose their lawless freedom, and that in accordance with their idea of
international right, they reject ‘in hypothesi’ what might be correct
‘in thesi’ - refusing to form a state of nations. Kant then retreats
once more to the idea of a peaceful federation instead of the quest for a world
republic (which is what the state of nations would become if it included
all states as members). It is interesting that the only use of ‘idea’ in this
context is that of the ‘idea of international right’ that existing
states possess, and it is one that would lead them to resist a state of nations.
Still, by proposing that a state of nations is correct ‘in thesi’ I
think he is voicing support for such a stronger model, while doubting its
practicality and offering the weaker model of a federation as the most
realistic likely alternative.
Finally,
in the discussion of international right in Rechtslehre,
he distinguishes a “permanent congress
of states” (with states free to leave it at any time), from a federation
based on a constitution. Susan Shell thinks he is abandoning the stronger
conception of a federation in favor of the weaker conception of a mere
congress. I don’t read him that way, but merely suggesting the weaker idea as
one states might consider if even a federation is too strong for them. Again, Kant's
pattern of thinking is to suggest something stronger (which he might himself favor if
it were practicable) but then back off and suggest something weaker that states
might be
willing to accept.
If
you ask about the various models of international organization which ones Kant favors, I think it would be correct to think of him
as wishing for the stronger ones - a state of nations growing toward a world
republic or a federation instead of a mere voluntary congress. But he is always
doubtful
that states would accept the stronger models. And he thinks only the weaker ones
would accord with the 'idea of international right' that existing states
have. In Theory and Practice, he even
suggests that the stronger model of a cosmopolitan constitution (i.e. a state
of nations) might be a danger to freedom.
In
no text does Kant offer us the suggestion that there might be, or that there should be, or that we should even think in terms of, a
historical development from weaker models of international co-operation towards
stronger
ones. Thus I see your idea of a ‘transition’ (if I understand it) as absent from
his writings about international right and the striving toward perpetual
peace. This is why I think a ‘transitional interpretation’ of Kant on these
matters is not a textually supportable interpretation.
My
question about the deeper intention of your paper. But now I have a question for you about your intention in this paper (and
perhaps in your book, which, however, I have not had time to read). You speak
in the paper's title of Kant’s ‘legacy’ You say you will defend the
transitional interpretation as one Kant ‘relies on’; and you say you will
‘reconstruct and explain’ how the international entities Kant talks about
‘are to be considered part of a single pattern’. A bit later you distinguish a
long-term
standard from a ‘short term feasibility standard’. Passages in your paper like
these lead me to offer the following suggestion as to what you might intend
in this paper. I’d like to know how far you might agree with my
characterization of your intentions.
What
I suggest, then, is this: You are not offering the ‘transitional interpretation’ as an account of what Kant actually thought
or wrote. You are instead extending Kant's ideas in a direction he did not,
and therefore intending to use what Kant thought like a legacy (something
inherited from him, which might then be employed for ends he did not himself
propose, as an heir might use inherited resources to fund some enterprise
or cause which was not among the activities of the person from whom the resources
were
inherited, but at most could be thought of as something that person might have
approved. You could accept what I have said above about Kant's intentions in his
texts, and say: “Yes, he was focused more on short term feasibility
standards than on long term goals, which he might not have thought
practicable”. As Fichte did with many Kantian doctrines, you might be consciously
revising Kant in a direction you think attractive and which you think further
some deeper (but never explicitly expressed) intentions of the spirit of
Kant’s philosophy.
In
that case, what you are calling your ‘interpretation’ (a term I regard as inappropriate if my suggestion is right) is not to be
judged by the standards of accuracy to his texts, but perhaps by standards
of desirability
as a way of thinking about international relations today or in the future. Your
references to later thinkers such as Klabbers, Habermas and Benhabib lead
me to conjecture that this is your real aim. Then my thought is that
perhaps Kant was right to limit himself to more modest and short term
suggestions, and that this is especially plausible now that we live in an age
when, sadly, the whole idea of international co-operation appears to be in
decline and tribes and nations seem to be retreating behind their
cultural walls and military power. I might wish your suggestions were
practicable, but fear they are unrealistic for the near (perhaps even the
foreseeable) future, and I might even fear that Kant was right in pulling
back from your extension of him. Kant might have considered you, and also
Fichte, as what he sometimes called a ‘visionary’ (Phantast), a person morally admirable but not practically wise. And
he might
have called a politician who tried to implement your ideas under conditions where they
are not practical a ‘despotizing moralist’, who does not unite
morality with politics in the right way because he goes against political
prudence, through “measures prematurely adopted or recommended” (Kant, I., 2006
[1795], 8:373).
This,
I suggest, is what Kant might have thought of your interpretation of him. And it is a further reason for rejecting your
‘transitional interpretation’ as an interpretation of Kant. But I am not
necessarily in agreement with Kant here. I am myself a big fan of Fichte [redacted].
So if your project is like his, I might still be sympathetic with it even if Kant’s
more cautious attitudes led him to resist it. Sometimes Fichte extends Kantian ideas
in ways that he claims are more consistent than Kant's own development of
those same ideas. Perhaps you might defend your ‘transitional’ interpretation in
that way.
But what I would like to know from you is whether my guesses about your intention in
this paper are correct. You do not really intend the transitional
interpretation as an interpretation of Kant's meaning, but instead as an
extension of some of Kant's ideas in a direction Kant himself was perhaps too
cautious or conservative to extend them. This is my most sympathetic take
on your paper. I wonder if you think it is correct.
Claudio
Corradetti
Let me preface this by saying that I do agree with both your Kantian
texts’ observations in the first part of your comments, as well as in
understanding my interpretation of Kant as a way of ‘filling in the gaps’ of
his reasoning. It might be pretentious but at least it is a useful attempt
particularly for current times. I don’t find myself to be a naive political
thinker by defending this overall picture, I do take the realistic point of
what is feasible in hypothesi as
something valuable.
It
is in this respect that I propose a ‘transitional’ reading of Kant’s global
politics.
What does it mean to progress
towards peace? It means to take seriously the ‘transitional’ movement of the
political approximation towards peace and the realization of the ‘cosmopolitan
constitution’ which Kant mentions in different ways along several writings.
Here are some examples: “a cosmopolitan constitution” (Weltbürgerliche
Verfassung) (Kant, I. 2006 [1795], 8:358, p.329 and Kant, I. 2006 [1793],
8:307, p.304), a “cosmopolitan commonwealth” (Weltbürgerliches gemeines
Wesen) (Kant, I. 2006 [1793], 8:311, p.308), or, even, in the Critique
of the Power of Judgment, “a cosmopolitan whole” (Weltbürgerliches
Ganze) (Kant, I. 2000 [1790], 5:432, p.300).
Kant titled his philosophical sketch Towards Perpetual Peace. He adopted the
prefix ‘zu’ with the idea of indicating a meaning of ‘movement towards’.
Peace
is for Kant an asymptotic concept. Asymptotic concepts in mathematics are
values which can be approximated along an infinite series of numbers, that is,
a value containing a variable tending to infinity.
The possibility of progressing towards peace occurs
through steps approximating a never empirically realizable world (state)
republic. In Toward Perpetual Peace Kant
distinguishes what is ideally desirable (a world republic/Völkerstaat) and what is instead empirically feasible, namely the foedus pacificum (Völkerbund). The never-ending process of approximation is what I
call the ‘transitional’ condition of Kantian cosmopolitanism.
How do we measure our progression towards peace?
Institutional arrangements are relevant only in so far as they point to a
progressive legalization of international relations. For Kant, it is the
overcoming of the international state of nature that we have to pursue by means
of the regulative function of the world republic. This means that peace becomes
a realistic utopia only when international relations are arranged on the basis
of an overall system of public law.
The final destination of this journey is the realization
of what Kant calls in various writings ‘the cosmopolitan constitution’. It is a
system of global public law principles that should govern international
relations, subjecting both states and supranational entities to itself.
Indeed,
Fichte in his Review of Toward Perpetual
Peace affirmed that “[…] the federation of nations [Völkerbund] proposed by Kant for the preservation of peace is no
more than an intermediary condition […] (Emphasis added)” (Fichte, G. 2001
[1795, 1796], p. 319).
So,
you are right in noticing that I think - as Fichte did - that there are missing
elements in Kant's overall argument on global peace. This is why I believe we
should resort to the world republic in terms of a regulative idea (specifically
the problematic appreciation of Kant of Plato's ideas as Plato’s Republic is
interesting here).
What I do not agree with is that you
claim that my interpretation has no Kantian textual reference whatsoever. I
reject this and I invite you to re-read (besides all other passages that we
already mentioned and particularly the unfulfilled theory/practice gap between
the in thesi/hypothesi lines of Toward Perpetual Peace) a text from the Religion and the Preparatory work of the Rechtslehere.
I'll reconsider these shortly. Secondly, the ‘transitional’ interpretation
claims that we can formulate judgments on history by reconstructing possible
trajectories of approximation towards the ideal of perpetual peace. These
remain subjective standpoints but never objective steps, as it will be later
for Hegel, in which we can see an ‘unconditioned’ to redeem the conditionality
of contingency.
Here
is the text from the Religion within the
Limits of Mere Reason. Within it Kant draws an analogy between the
objective unity of religion as a rational idea and “the political idea of the
right of a state [der politischen Idee
eines Staatsrechts] insofar as this right ought, at the same time, to be
brought into line with an international law which is universal and endowed with
power” (Kant, I. 1998 [1793], 6:124, p.129).
For
Kant we cannot have much ‘hope’ for the empirical peaceful realization of
such trajectory. As he immediately exemplifies, whenever we look back at history
and how any state has ever tried to approximate such ideal, one cannot help but
notice that this has been through “subjugati[ing] all others to itself and achiev[ing]
a universal monarchy” (Ibid.). Yet, soon after, this empirical unity
proved not to last very long and disintegrated “to split up from within into
smaller states” (Ibid.).
Similarly,
Kant affirms, we cannot nurture much hope for achieving the empirical unity of
the church, that is, a unity realized within one single “visible church”
(Ibid.). Rather, in both cases, such unity should be conceived in terms of an
“idea […] of reason [eine Idee … der
Vernunft] [emphasis added]” that is, as a “practical regulative
principle [als praktisches regulatives
Prinzip]” (Ibid.).
And
again, noumenical unity
is connected to the visible church in so far as it provides its same normative
presuppositions. The phenomenical unity of state and international law appears
along interstate relations in the unfolding of the different stages of
approximations to the ideal.
This
connection is testified also in the preparatory drafts of the Rechtslehre – Reflections on the philosophy of right [1764-] – where Kant asserts
that “there is no salvation outside the republic. – A world republic [is] one
where no individual state would have enough forces to fight the great republic
if necessary” (Kant, I.
(2016 [1764-] §807, p.68). Clearly, the relation between the noumenical and the
phenomenical world remains in a perennially unsolved tension: the phenomenical
can never exhaust the noumenical. This point is raised again for the domestic
domain in the writing of The Conflict of
the Faculties. Here Kant observes that: “The Idea of a constitution in
harmony with the natural right of man […] signifies a Platonic Ideal (respublica noumenon) [and] is not an
empty chimera” (Kant, I. 1979 [1798], pp.163-5).
Allen Wood I
was not accusing you of being a Phantast
or a ‘despotizing moralist’. I was saying only
that this is how I think Kant would regard the position you want to ascribe
to him. Keep in mind that I do not automatically agree with every position I
find in
Kant. I read Kant according to what Kant says, not according to what I think is true or
what I might wish Kant had said.
I do not
dispute that Fichte would like to read Kant on international right
the way you would like to read him. If your ‘transitional interpretation’ were
applied to Fichte, I think it would be correct. I might even favor Fichte's
position over Kant’s. My only point here is that this would not be a correct
reading of Kant. All the textual evidence is against it.
If you presented
your transitional interpretation as ‘thinking beyond Kant’
I would accept it as that. What it does not do is think ‘with’ Kant, in the sense of
agreeing with what Kant thought.
What does it
mean to ‘resort to the world republic in terms of a regulative
idea?’ This vague formulation, using Kantian terminology in a context, and in a
way, that Kant never uses it, remains very unclear.
One might
think it means: We should seek to approximate as far as possible in
reality the world republic. Kant seems to think that would be ideally desirable but not
feasible and he does not in the end recommend it.
So this is
not Kant's position and not a correct interpretation of Kant. Or does this
phrase mean something else? If it means something else, please
tell us what.
In my previous
message I have said what the ‘in thesi/in
hypothesi’ distinction in Toward Perpetual Peace means. It means that Kant would approve of
it if nations could form a world republic but does not think they will
accept that, so he recommends a peaceful federation instead. Nothing in Theory
and Practice takes a different position from this. In Theory and Practice he even offers a reason why states
might not accept a world republic -- they fear a loss of freedom.
Here again,
it is unclear what you mean. It seems clear from this remark that you do not
believe history will move toward a world republic, and of course Hegel would
not believe any such thing as that either. But what does it mean to adopt a
‘subjective standpoint’ which reconstructs possible trajectories of
approximation? If it does not mean to seek to bring
about in the real world actual approximations to a world republic, then what does
it mean? Is it simply the approval of subjective fantasies (about ‘possible
historical trajectories’) that you find pleasing? I don’t think Kant favors
that either, and it is never what he means by the regulative use of ideas.
The text you
cite does not say what you wish it said. Kant does favor the unification
of churches and faiths, though also without expecting it to happen. But he
does definitely favor it, as he never does regarding approximations to
a world republic. But this passage does not say specifically that there should
be a world republic. It says only that there should be some organization with the
right of a state
under international right. We know from other texts that Kant thinks the
idea of international right that states have is not compatible with a
state of nations. And whatever he might have meant here, he immediately
goes on to say that ‘experience refuses to allow us any hope in that
direction’. Kant's views about the voluntary ethical commonwealth (the church) are
quite different from his views about international right and the coercive
power that belongs to states. The footnote on 6:124 is in any case about
the church (Kant, I. 1998
[1793], footnote at 6:124), and its vague reference to
the right of a state and international right is used only
to explain that. As it happens, I have just discussed this difference myself in
a book that is in press. Here I discuss the difference between voluntary
ethical community (the church) and coercive rightful community (the
state).
Noumenal
unity is connected to the visible church in so far as it provides its same
normative presupposition. The phenomenical unity of state and international law
appears along interstate relations in the unfolding of the different stages of
approximations to the ideal. We have other
passages in Kant’s writings, especially in Toward
Perpetual Peace 8: 357, where he indicates his favorable attitude
toward a state of nations that might grow toward a world republic. But there he
makes it clear, as he does in other such passages, that we cannot expect
existing nations to accept this arrangement. That he omits this further
thought in the Reflection does not mean he repudiates it. On the contrary, one
must read this unpublished reflection in light of parallel passages
in the published writings where he says the same thing, and then it is
quite clear that this Reflection would not support your ‘transitional
reading’ as an interpretation of Kant. The phenomenal/noumenal distinction is one of the most
misunderstood and most abused parts of Kant's philosophy. It seems to invite
obscurantism and fantasy. I prefer to avoid it unless I can explain very clearly
what it means in that specific context. I understand ‘noumenal’ to mean: as
thought by the understanding (or reason) and ‘phenomenal’ to mean: as cognized
theoretically by the understanding and the senses together. I can’t make sense of
the claim that the phenomenal does not exhaust the noumenal. I hope
it does not mean something like: “Reality does not exhaust our wishes, and
our wishes have some higher reality than reality”. That is just nonsense (Schwärmerei).
[Regarding
Plato’s ideal of a respublica noumenon],
here Kant is talking not about any international organization but about progress
toward an ideal civil constitution in individual states. So again, this passage is
not about what you are discussing and does not say what you wish it said.
So I do not
see in any of the passages you now cite any real support for your
interpretation. But even if they did support it, or even if you found in some other
Reflection or footnote in some work on another subject, some slight evidence
for it, we should agree with David Hume: “a wise man proportions his
belief to the evidence”. I see no evidence at all that supports your
interpretation. But even if some stray bits of evidence from this footnote or
that reflection did support your interpretation, the overwhelming
evidence in Kant's published writings on the topic of international
right goes directly against it. We should not interpret texts in philosophy
according to what we wish they said, but according to what they do say.
Claudio
Corradetti I
think we have come close or even covered all the issues of our disagreements.
Certainly your critical remarks will be very useful in my second step, namely,
in developing a contemporary theory of international relations. Let me just state
this: even if I concede that, there may not be clear evidences as you said about
what I defend as ‘filling in the gaps’ in Kant’s argument, it is the case that there
is no counterevidence to what I'm claiming in any of Kant’s texts. We interpret
differently some key political notions starting from the terminology Kant uses.
When he claims that there are undesirable international arrangements, he refers
only and consistently to the Weltmonarchie
but never to the Völkerstaat/Weltrepublik.
Should we just be content with a suboptimal political arrangement as the Völkerbund is? I don’t think that this
conclusion would be Kantian in any normatively significant way. Anyhow I
enjoyed this exchange and I thank you for this.
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