Immanuel Kant's Uninable Peace

“Sapere aude!” is the rallying call for Kant’s enlightenment. Translated, it roughly means dare to be wise. Plato, through the voice of Socrates in the dialogues The Euthyphro and The Crito, demonstrates the ultimate example of Kant’s definition of enlightenment. Socrates fearlessly dares to be wise.

Liberals believe the causes of war are miscommunication, mistrust, and misperceptions. As a solution, Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, believed that to overcome international anarchy and achieve perpetual peace, there needed to be collective action (interdependency between states), and a federation of states in which state sovereignty will be left intact (international organizations). However, for this to occur, states must have a democratic government. This later became known as the Kantian Triangle.

Kant’s third proposition then explains that is not the respect for the power of the law but rather it is the moral motivation of an individual who acknowledges that the law is an imperative of reason that trumps our other interests.

Charles Tilly’s article “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime” creates an analogy between the creation of European states and acting out an organized crime. Earlier in our course, we learned about Max Weber, who defined a state as “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Tilly argues that the word “protection” in relation to physical force has positive and negative connotations, leading to illegitimate use of power during the period time that Tilly is discussing. Tilly’s analysis eventually tells the reader that war is always a major part of state politics; specifically that war making and state making are interdependent.

Immanuel Kant was a famous philosopher whose philosophical influences impacted almost every new philosophical idea, theory, concept etc. In a sense, he was considered the central face of contemporary philosophy. Kant spent his whole life in Russia. Starting out as a tutor, to then a professor, he lectured about everything; from geography to obviously philosophy. In his early life, he was raised to emphasize faith and religious feelings over reason and theological principles. As he got older though, that position changed. It then became that knowledge is necessarily confided and within the bounds of reason. Now with this in mind, Kant claims many different things that derive from this. There are many different parts and aspects to it which is why it relates to almost every philosophical idea out there. Kant referred his epistemology as “critical philosophy” since all he wanted to do was critique reason and sort our legitimate claims of reasons from illegitimate ones. His epistemology says that we can have an objective, universal, and necessary knowledge of the world, and that science cannot tell us about reality. He claims science cannot tell us anything because it only tells us about the world as it is perceived, whether it’s based on measures, manipulations, experiments and so on. Kant says that we all have knowledge; that the mind and experience work together and that we construct and gain this knowledge by both reason and experience.

When it comes to guiding our moral actions, I believe that care ethics is the better moral philosophy to follow over Kantian deontology. While both moral philosophies strongly believe in defending the dignity of our fellow man, care ethics believes that nurturance and caring is the best way to defend a person’s dignity, as opposed to Kant who believe that our actions alone determine our dignity and worth. There are a number of reasons why one should choose care ethics over Kantian deontology. The first reason is that, in his moral philosophy, Kant chooses reason over feeling. The second reason is that Kant lacks compassion for the unique situations of others by suggesting that the principle of good is universifiable. The third reason is that Kant ignores how the consequences of our actions affect others. Finally, the fourth reason is that Kant implies that while we should all seek to perfect our moral selves, we are not responsible for the moral growth and perfection of others. Instead, we are merely obligated to help others and promote their happiness.

The European Union (EU), since the initial foundation in 1952 as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and throughout periods of development, has been considered one of the most advanced forms of regional integration. It, based on numerous treaties and resolutions, has strived to promote values such as peace, cooperation or democracy, and in 2012 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” (Nobel Media AB, 2012). Despite its struggle for promoting democracy, the EU itself has long experienced scholarly criticisms that it suffers the democratic deficit, from which its democratic legitimacy is undermined by observable problems in

The ethnic conflict on Friday February 24th, did not go the way that my country, Tundistran, had hoped. Our objective was to keep the Ostracites in our state and refuse investigation. We managed to transfer the Ostracite homeland to our ally, Petropol, and a vote was set forth that refused the Ostracites independence. Following the PSF vote, our ally Paxony voted against us as did Industrael who was originally voting in our favor. These two countries were paid off in butter and guns to help Islandia win objective points.

Immanuel Kant’s theory is one that is completely different than those of Descartes. He disagrees with logic of Descartes, Kant believes that existence isn’t something that is a property of discovery, it is something that is real on its own terms. Kant believes that that rational explanation is insufficient without human freedom being a part of the equation. Just because one can provide a good reason and logical explanation on something doesn’t mean that it carries reality has to be the case. Kant believes that the reality of an experience must embody those logical laws. He constantly attacks rationale or logical explanation on morals because its more than just following rules. If it’s not

In many countries, the Government never mentions about the wars, freedom and respect towards others. Each country has a different belief that makes them want to go at war for them to come to an agreement. We are never at peace with each other due to high demands with products, our society as a whole and who represents our country. Kant states that by having only one Government who is Republic, we are prone to receive lifetime peace. We have numerous authorities that run our country and it restricts us to have the freedom we want. We also have different Governments throughout our country, leads to misunderstandings within society. Continue…

Kant is considered a Liberal because he applies domestic liberal policies that emphasize “freedom of the members of the society” to the international system (Perpetual Peace pg. 4). By stressing the need to respect each country’s sovereignty, Kant demonstrates a tenet of Liberalism. Also, he proposes a “federation of nations” that would work together and multilateralism is another facet of Liberalism (Perpetual Peace pg 5). Kant argues for nations to adopt a “republican constitution” in the hopes of becoming the “foundation” for a “perpetual peace.” (Perpetual Peace pg. 4) His reasoning is that if all nations were republics, citizens would have the power to “determine whether or not there will be war” and would be much more analytical before

Kant's seventh proposition within his "Idea for a United History" that sees its as necessary for states working together before NGO’s or other political organizations such as the UN can be set up and successfully established. His desire to set into motion the idea of perpetual peace should be the result not the driving force behind nations working together.

The EU represents Kant’s idea of a federation of states in perpetual of peace in many of the more overarching ways, it must be noted that it is not a perfect fit. Before diving into the support of this claim, it is important to realize what the European Union is so to fully understand what it could represent. The EU is a political and economic union, hoping to facilitate free movement in terms of trading, with the intent of building peaceful relationships and increasing economic growth. Perhaps the biggest reason the EU was created was to increase peace throughout Europe and hopefully take away the possibility of another World War. The European Unions serves as a facilitator for agreement between each nation inside the union, and provides the

For Kant, the ideal international system would consist of states with republican forms of government and universal laws. These laws would be upheld purely by people putting aside personal views (self-interest) and using reason to do what is ethical (Doyle, 1983, p. 207). Kant’s writing Perpetual Peace, has been criticised for its lack of coherence, conflicting statements and little

One of the most remarkable successes of the European Union is ensuring peace and stability is maintained in Europe and other parts of the world. Prior to the formation of the union, European nations experience disharmony related to both World War I and II. The first step towards peace building was the formation of European Coal and Steel Community. Since then, the union has formulated several peace policies with the aim of ensuring peace thrive amongst members and their associates.