Immanuel Kant

 

Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most important philosophers ever. His writings on perception and knowledge are still read to this day and many still consider Kant to be the final word on these matters. However, just as important is his political philosophy. In this class, we will cover two of his most important essays "Perpetual Peace" (1795) and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

Kant's essay "Perpetual Peace" was written during the waning days of the French Revolution after the most violent episodes of the revolution had occurred. Many of the leaders of the revolution had been killed, often as a result of in fighting among the leaders of the revolution. When the revolution began, in almost no time at all, all the kings of Europe had mobilized armies to crush the revolution in France. They obviously saw this momentous event of overturning the monarchy and establishing a government by the people as a direct threat to their rule and sought to crush this movement by force. Kant lived in far off Eastern Europe, but this was an event that all of Europe and possibly most of the world was paying attention at least as much as they could given the limits to communication back then, certainly in the US this event was closely followed as well.

Given the immense bloodshed that had already occurred and would continued for almost the next twenty years under Napoleon, it is not hard to see why Kant would be concerned with inquiring into the causes of peace, literally how do we achieve peace between the different nations. Many of Kant's ideas were ahead of their time and would not take shape until well into the 20th century with the establishment of the United Nations, an organization that is supposed to be devoted to the preservation of peace. 

To achieve perpetual, or everlasting peace, Kant argues that certain conditions would have to be met, that frankly still have not been met today. For one, nations would have to give up all wars of expansion, whether it be for resources, or whatever. When one country seeks to control over countries, whether through direct or indirect control, it is called imperialism, and such countries are called empires. There have been many notable empires throughout history, however none of them have lasted forever. In Kant's day it would have been unlikely to think that the US would become a global empire whose power is felt everywhere and by every nation on earth. Even people in the US at this time would have been surprised, as most people today do not realize that the US only achieved this imperial status since the end of World War II. After the war, the US engaged in a long struggle with another empire, the Soviet Union, which ended with the destruction of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Since then, the US has been the only real empire that exists in the world today. 

Despite this, many see the US as an empire in decline. This decline is shown both in the failure of the US to successfully establish control over other countries, which arguably goes as far back as Vietnam, and even perhaps to Korea in the 1950s, and certainly in the seemingly unending wars waged by the US in the middle east for almost 20 years. Beyond this, this decline is seen in the increasingly dysfunctional aspects of domestic life in the US. The US is the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth inequality, is the only the major country not to provide healthcare and education to all of its citizens, is an increasingly violent country with more deaths by gun violence than any other country, has the largest prison population in the world, largely due to the "war on drugs" which is also unsuccessful as it is widely known the US has an out of control epidemic of drug abuses among its citizens, as well as various other indicators of the poor health of the population. Many have argued the horrible response of the US to the covid 19 pandemic resulting in the most cases and highest number of deaths in the world, is due to the pre-existing poor health of the population as it is again widely known that those in poor health are more at risk at suffering severe consequences, as well as the lack of infrastructure and equipment to contain the spread of the virus. Finally, the US has the highest infant and maternal mortality rate among major countries with extremely high rates among African-Americans.

There seems to be some wisdom in Kant's claim that countries should give up their desires of being an empire, for the sake of people in other countries but even for the sake of people in the imperial country itself. For this another condition would have to be met that the US is also lacking, which is to give up standing armies, or a permanent military structure. In sharp contrast to this claim, the US maintains the largest military in the world, far outspending the next ten highest countries combined, including Russia and China. Again, this is a fairly recent development in American history. Until the Civil War the US did not have a standing army, and until World War II the amount of resources it spent on the military was quite limited. Military spending almost makes up the largest part of the annual discretionary spending of Congress every year, not counting entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare which are not part of the discretionary spending budget.

Kant stresses that peace requires countries to have a republican constitution, meaning a government by the people, and one that places limits on the exercise of political power. Today, this seems obvious, but in a time when monarchies still dominated the politics of most countries throughout the world this was a radical claim to make.

Kant also speaks of a federation of states or countries, which again was very much ahead of its time and would not be realized until the 20th century with the United Nations. Many theorists of international relations refer to the Kantian triangle as a formula for preserving international peace. The three points of the triangle are international organizations like the UN, democracy at the state level, and economic interdependence between states.

In Kant's essay "What is Enlightenment,"written several years earlier, he sets out to define what it meanest be enlightened. He says:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

 In other words, to be enlightened means to be able to rationally think through situations and not be constrained by myths and superstitions. Myths are an important part of politics and so the themes of this essay relate to the other. For Kant, a good political order is a rational one pure and simple. That means a political order which is based on principles that can be rationally defended or justified through argument by giving reasons for supporting certain actions. For example, can giving more tax cuts for the wealthy really be justified when the wealth inequality is already so unequal, and as is widely talked about now with the revelations over Trump's taxes that wealthy hardly pay any or in many cases no taxes at all. Can the invasion of countries like Iraq be justified when we know there were never any weapons of mass destruction. This speaks to the negative power of myths that we still see in politics, but at least by insisting on the rationality of political order gives people a standard to hold leaders accountable. Make no mistake this did not stop the Iraq war from happening but the backlash against it has been so massive than even Republicans now admit it was a mistake and former President George Bush can hardly show his face in public anymore. Even Trump, who in the past has bragged that he does not pay taxes because he was smart, now has to backpedal and make excuses and lie about he how has paid millions of dollars of taxes over the years.

For the assignment, choose a passage from one of the Kant essays or from the Foucault piece who gives his own commentary on Kant.

Next class, we will discuss the philosopher Rousseau.