Immanuel Kant

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Kant wrote a series of articles, derived from Rousseau, but expanded upon in a Kantian fashion, on how to attain or approach perpetual peace. These articles continue to serve as the foundation for contemporary political liberalism.The author points out that Kant calls for a "league of peace"; the task of this federation is not to solve every international problem among states, but seek to permanently end war by creating conditions for moral action through the freedom provided by the republican nature of states. The paper relates, just as Kant stated, it is highly feasible that liberal states will be pacified with one another, but will utilize political institutions, which are inconsistent with liberal policy in dealing with non-liberal states ,such as the American war with Iraq without the approval of the peacekeeping organization, the United Nations.

From the Paper:

"It would seem to appear that leaders commence wars, the people fight them, and the collaboration of objectives between the two is often minimal at best. According to renowned philosopher Immanuel Kant, a man whose ideas humanity cannot escape from-perhaps the decision-making should shift solely from the rulers to the people, in the form of establishing a world of independent republics. Kant's solution, entitled Perpetual Peace, was written in 1795 as French armies roared across Europe. Kant insisted that human beings are quite capable of reason and proposed an interesting solution for international relations, much to the likely protest of realist opponents such as Thucydides or lovers of 'righteous', religious wars such as St. Augustine."

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