384 Kant: A Biographywith a democratic one, as "usually happens," and though he identifies
democracy as a despotic system, it is clear that his view of a republic is
compatible with certain forms of democracy. For his central idea of the re¬
public is that it is based on the separation of the executive power from the
legislative power. It needs a representative form of government. The sec¬
ond definitive article states that "The right of nations shall be based on a
federalism of free states," a view that Kant had already formulated in his
earlier essays; and the third article amounts to the claim that "Cosmopoli¬
tan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality."^217
In the first supplement, Kant deals with the guarantee of perpetual peace,
which for him, as for the Stoics before him, comes from providence. He
had already argued for this view on many previous occasions. The second
supplement offers a secret article of peace that amounts to the claim that
states armed for war must consider the maxims of philosophers about the
conditions that make public peace possible. While one cannot reasonably
expect that kings would become philosophers, they should also not silence
philosophers. Philosophers should be allowed to speak publicly. This plea
had, of course, a very personal meaning for Kant. The Appendix explores
further the relationship between morals and politics and how it is related
to the "transcendental concept of public right." This concept is expressed
by the claims that "All actions relating to the rights of others are wrong if
their maxim is incompatible with publicity," and that "all maxims which
need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonize with right and
politics alike."^218 Publicity is a necessary condition of moral politics. With¬
out publicity, progress toward eternal peace would be impossible, or so
Kant claims. All this is a matter of historical development.
The essay ends on a more personal note. Kant finds:If it is a duty to realize the condition of public right, even if only in approximation by
unending progress, and if there is also a well-founded hope of this, then the perpetual
peace that follows upon what have till now been falsely called peace treaties ... is no
empty idea but a task that, gradually solved, comes steadily closer to its goal.. ,^219
Kant believed he was fulfilling his duty by speaking up.
Kant's ideas about cosmopolitanism are still hotly debated today. They
are dismissed by some as a "Eurocentric illusion," and praised by others
as the answer to the problem of humanity's survival. Whether they are the
one or the other will be for (still) future generations to discover. Never¬
theless, they make clear that Kant considered himself first and foremost not
a Prussian but a citizen of the world. He was glad to be alive while momen-