The Duty of Peace and the Minority of War. Arguments From Kant

Drawing from Kant’s philosophy of history, this article defends the view that, if peace is a duty, war cannot be a right. I argue that (1) (perpetual) peace can be accounted for as a historical duty : a goal that humankind ought to achieve throughout a historically situated process of moralization – according to the moral vocation of the human being itself – that essentially relies on juridical and political conditions. I then argue that (2) war represents a collective state of minority based on the inversion of the maxims of enlightened reason, of common human understanding, of wisdom. The upshot is that (3) war is always a practice contrary to morals and the seal of the breakdown of practical rationality and all bonds of community. Following Kant, the only viable option is international law in a cosmopolitical framework, whereby the rule of law ought to take war’s place as the means to the solution of all controversies.