188 Reason and Its Rivals (ca. 1550– 1815)thoughts ranged much further. Th ey extended, like those of Wolff , to outer
space, but in this case more accurately. (He was an early advocate of the
nebular theory of the formation of the solar system.) Also like Wolff — with
whose writings he was thoroughly familiar— Kant was not a lawyer. He is
known today primarily for his writings on metaphysics, philosophy of sci-
ence, ethics, and aesthetics. But international relations was one of the many
other topics to which his fertile and penetrating mind turned. His principal
writing on the subject was a short work called Perpetual Peace, written in
1795, which included a statement of basic principles on which to base peace-
ful relations between states.
Kant, in contrast to Wolff , had considerable doubts about the principle of
the innate sociability of humans— and especially about the sociability of
those humans who were in charge of national governments. “Nowhere does
human nature appear less admirable,” he grumbled, “than in the relation-
ships which exist between peoples.” He was a pessimist regarding interna-
tional aff airs, seeing relations between states as inherently confl ictual. “[T]
he state of nature,” he bemoaned in the spirit of Hobbes and Spinoza, “is...
a state of war.” Nor had he any high opinion of the impact of international-
law writers on the practice of states. “[T]here is no instance,” he lamented,
“of a state ever having been moved to desist from its purpose by the testimo-
nies of such notable men” as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel.
As a consequence, the problem of international order, in Kant’s view, is
reduced to the problem of how to reconcile the inevitably competing inter-
ests and claims of states. To deal with this challenge, Kant posited the exis-
tence of something that he called “international right”— a concept that (he
explained) “implies by defi nition that there is a general will which publicly
assigns to each individual that which is his due.” Th is must arise out of what
he vaguely called “some sort of contract.” Th e application of this transna-
tional general will, he surmised, results in “a state of permanent and free
association,” in the manner of a federation of states.
Th is federation was envisaged as a somewhat looser arrangement than
Wolff ’s supreme state. It was seen as an association of in de pen dent states,
broadly on the model of the post- Westphalian Holy Roman Empire. (Part of
Kant’s native Prussia— though not the part that he lived in— was still, at the
time of writing, a member of that empire.) “Th e idea of international right,”
Kant opined, “presupposes the separate existence of many in de pen dent ad-