Kant's Sovereignty Dilemma: A Contemporary Analysis

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 469-493

  Flikschuh, Katrin ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78751529238     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2010.00361.x     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Thomas Pogge, 'Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty', Ethics, 103 (1992), 48-75
2. republished in Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press 2002), pp. 168-95 (page references are to the latter).
3. Thomas Nagel, 'The problem of global justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33 (2005), 113-47.
4. John Rawls's The Law of Peoples There are, of course, intermediate positions. See, for example, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1999
5. David Miller's National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press). However, these are not generally considered to be cosmopolitan approaches. 2007.
6. Unless otherwise stated all citations from Kant's texts are from the University of Cambridge edition of Kant's collected works, Practical Philosophy (Volume 4, 1996), edited and translated by Mary Gregor. Page references are to the Prussian Academy edition, which are included in the Cambridge volume. References to quotes from Kant are given in-text; the Roman numeral refers to the volume number, and the Arabic to the page number. Abbreviated prefixes are DR for The Doctrine of Right; PP for Toward Perpetual Peace; GW for The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. As originally proposed by Gregor in her 1991 Cambridge translation of the Doctrine of Right (but unfortunately dropped in the 1996 translation) I employ the capitalized form of 'Right'. This is to indicate the semantic distinctiveness of the German term 'Recht', which is closer to 'law' than to 'rights'. 'Justice', corresponds better with 'Gerechtigkeit'-a term used sparingly by Kant. (In this context it may be worth pointing out, that Kant's cosmopolitanism is a form of legal cosmopolitanism; he is generally unconcerned with social or re-distributive justice, either domestically or globally. To this extent talk 'global justice' sounds somewhat anachronistic in the Kantian context, given that term's current close association with theories of re-distributive justice. Given space, I must ignore this complexity here.)
7. Most Kant-inspired current cosmopolitans do not regard themselves as un-reconstituted Kantians. Most come to Kant via Rawls. Among Rawls' sympathetic cosmopolitan critics many appeal to Kant at specific junctures in their cosmopolitan argument against Rawls, implying that had Rawls been a more consistent Kantian he would have more readily embraced proposals for the global extension of his domestic theory of justice. Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989) contains numerous such appeals to Kant; Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979) appeals to Kant when arguing for an extension of Rawlsian justice on the grounds of increased international economic interdependence; Darrel Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2002) repeatedly invokes Kant in his plea for an extension of Rawls' theory to the global context. Cosmopolitan thinkers who do not appeal to Kant in support of their own position nonetheless acknowledge the importance of his contribution to modern cosmopolitan debates.
8. Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2005
9. Jeremy Waldron, 'What is cosmopolitan?'Journal of Political Philosophy, 8 (2000), 227-43.
10. Pogge, World Poverty, 91-117
11. Caney, Justice beyond Borders, 25-62
12. Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice, 18-25.
13. There is a well-established literature on Kant's ambivalence between coercive federation and free league within the context of Perpetual Peace.
14. Otfried Höffe, Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace See, for example, (Cambridge: Cambidge University Press) 2006, 189-203
15. Pauline Kleingeld, 'Approaching Perpetual Peace: Kant's defense of a league of states and his ideal of a world federation', Journal of European Philosophy, 12 (2004), 304-25
16. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, 'Kant's idea of peace and the philosophical conception of a world republic', Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal, ed. James Bohman and Lutz-Bachmann (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 1997, 59-78
17. Georg Cavaller, Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right (Cardiff: University of Wales Press), 1999, 113-32.
18. Since my interest here is conceptual I shall here engage with that literature only indirectly. This is not to deny my considerable debt to it.
19. Interest in the concept of sovereignty revives periodically; its highly complex nature is widely appreciated.
20. Compare F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1986
21. Chris Brown, Sovereignty, Rights, and Justice (Cambridge: Polity Press), 2002
22. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 1999
23. Christopher W. Morris, An Essay on the Modern State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1998
24. Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 1994.
25. An outstanding recent collection of essays, examining the concept primarily in current non-Western contexts, is Douglas Howland and Louise White (eds), The State of Sovereignty (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 2009.
26. Morris, The Modern State, 174.
27. Critique of Pure Reason (A 448-51, B 476-9)
28. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (IV, 421)
29. Critique of Practical Reason (V, 68-71).
30. See, more extensively, my Kant and Modern Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), chs 5 and 6. 2000
31. Höffe, Cosmopolitan Theory, 198-201.
32. An alternative interpretation is offered by Kleingeld, who in 'Approaching Perpetual Peace', argues that states' reluctance to cede their sovereignty stems from their morally valid claims to national self-determination. Kleingeld's interpretation is among the few to attempt a non-pragmatic interpretation of relevant passages in Perpetual Peace. Although my own reading differs from her account it is indebted to hers.
33. Arthur Ripstein, 'Authority and coercion', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 32 (2004), 2-35.
34. The idea of individual autonomy plays no role in Kant's philosophy of Right, which expressly abstracts from persons' maxims of actions (cf. DR VI, 218-21).
35. Alexander Aichele, 'Persona physica und persona moralis: Die Zurechnungsfähigkeit juristischer Personen nach Kant', Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, 16 (2008), 3-24 See also.
36. Sharon Byrd and Joachim Hruschka, Kant's Doctrine of Right: A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2010.
37. Bernd Ludwig, 'Kant's Verabschiedung der Vertragstheorie. Konsequenzen für eine Theorie Sozialer Gerechtigkeit', Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, 1 (1993), 221-54.
38. Matthew Noah Smith, 'Rethinking sovereignty, rethinking revolution', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 36 (2008), 405-40 For references, see footnote 7. See also.
39. I am here indebted to Kleingeld's 'Approaching Perpetual Peace', though I disagree with her about the grounds of moral prohibition. Kleingeld does not, moreover, diagnose a resulting sovereignty dilemma-on her account states cede sovereign control by consent; the coercive federation is itself a voluntary association.
40. Georg Cavaller, Kant and International Right, 94-102 For some discussion of this issue, see.
41. Fernando Téson, A Philosophy of International Law (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), 1998
42. Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2003
43. Simon Caney, Justice beyond Borders.
44. Leif Wenar, 'The nature of human rights', Real World Justice, ed. Andreas Føllesdal and Thomas Pogge (Dordrecht: Springer), 2005, 285-94
45. Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2009.
46. Ronald Hyam, Britain's Declining Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 2006
47. P. J. Marshall, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1996.
48. For the post-colonial legacy of new states 'grant' of their sovereignty by established powers, see Robert Jackson, Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1990.
49. Robert Jackson, 'Juridical statehood in Sub-Saharan Africa', Journal of International Affairs, 45 (1992), 1-16. See also
50. Jackson was among the first to draw attention to the enormous problems associated with new states' unequal accession to statehood. The process has been, and continues to be, particularly painful in Sub-Saharan Africa. Continuing difficulties are explored in the illuminating set of essays in Howland and White (eds), Sovereignty.
51. This is not to deny the appeal to many of the Lockean alternative conception, with which the Kantian position should nonetheless not be conflated.
52. Nagel, 'Global justice', 114.
53. Although Nagel typically speaks of 'the nation-state' rather than simply 'the state', he does not explain his reasons for adopting this more restrictive term.
54. Nagel's contention that citizens and the state owe each other reciprocal obligations seems to me distinctly un-Hobbesian.
55. Simon Hope has suggested to me a possible reading of Nagel's position based on the distinction between perfect obligations of justice and imperfect humanitarian obligations. While the latter are non-coercible, they need not be thought of as less stringent morally. I agree that the distinction between perfect and imperfect obligations should not be read as one between especially demanding and not so demanding obligations. Nagel, who does not in fact invoke this distinction, seems to me to think of humanitarian obligations as less stringent because unassigned: while particular states may feel called upon to act on these obligations in this or that instance, states in general are not bound by these obligations.
56. Chiara Bottici, 'The domestic analogy and the Kantian project of Perpetual Peace', Journal of Political Philosophy, 11 (2003), 392-410 On the limits of analogical reasoning see.
57. Howard Williams, 'Reforming Westphalia: Kantian perspectives on intervention', International Relations after Hobbes, ed. R. Prohkovnik and G. Slomp (Houndsmills: Palgrave), 2010.
58. See Kant's discussion of permissive laws in Perpetual Peace (VIII: 348).
59. Allen Wood, 'What dead philosophers mean', Unsettling Obligations (Stanford: CSLI Publications), 2002, 213-45.
60. Onora O'Neill, 'Kant's justice and Kantian justice', Bounds of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 2000, 65-80.
61. John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan, 'Legal fictions after empire', Sovereignty, ed. Howard and White, 169-95.
62. Karlfriedrich Herb and Bernd Ludwig, 'Naturzustand, Eigentum und Staat: Immanuel Kants Relativiesrung der "Ideal des hobbes" ', Kant Studien, 83 (1993), 283-316.
63. Reinhard Brandt, 'The guiding idea of Kant's Anthropology and the vocation of the human being', Essays on Kant's Anthropology, ed. Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2003, 85-104.
64. I examine this in more detail in, 'Elusive unity: Hobbes and Kant on the general will', Hobbes Studies, forthcoming 2010.
65. Branko Milanovic and Leif Wenar, 'Are liberal states peaceful?', Journal of Political Philosophy, forthcoming 2010.