SEoP Kant

 

9. Cosmopolitan Right

Relations among the states of the world, covered above, are not exhaustive of possible political relations outside one domestic state. Individuals can relate to states of which they are not members and to other individuals who are members of other states. In this they are considered “citizens of a universal state of human beings” with corresponding “rights of citizens of the world” (8:349, footnote). The rights individuals have as citizens of the world form the basis of cosmopolitan right. Based on these lofty sounding pronouncements, some writers inspired by Kant discuss cosmopolitan right as if it were equivalent to general human rights and as if it formed the foundation for worldwide progress. But general human rights in Kant would have to be found in the innate right to freedom, not specifically in cosmopolitan right, and progress toward peace is driven more by republicanism and the behavior of states as discussed in the previous section. Kant’s particular discussion of cosmopolitan right is restricted to the right of hospitality. Since all peoples share a limited amount of living space due to the spherical shape of the earth, the totality of which they must be understood to have originally shared in common, they must be understood to have a right to possible interaction with one another. This cosmopolitan right is limited to a right to offer to engage in commerce, not a right to actual commerce itself, which must always be voluntary trade. A citizen of one state may try to establish links with other peoples; no state is allowed to deny foreign citizens a right to travel in its land. And in an emergency such as a shipwreck, states must provide non-citizens with temporary shelter; this provision is sometimes understood as a basis for a state duty to accept refugees.

Colonial rule and settlement is another matter entirely. In his published writings in the 1790s, Kant is strongly critical of the European colonization of other lands already inhabited by other peoples. Settlement in these cases is allowed only by uncoerced informed contract. Even land that appears empty might be used by shepherds or hunters and cannot be appropriated without their consent (6:354). These positions represent a change in Kant’s thought, for he had previously indicated acceptance if not endorsement of the European colonial practices of his time and the racial hierarchy behind them. Kant himself produced a theory of human racial classifications and origins and thought that non-Europeans were inferior in various ways. Kant thought that the course of world progress involved the spread of European culture and law throughout the world to what he considered to be less advanced cultures and inferior races. By the mid-1790s, however, Kant appears to have given up beliefs about racial inferiority and no longer discusses it in his lectures. He publicly criticized European colonial practices as violations of the rights of indigenous peoples who are capable of governing themselves (8:358–60).

Cosmopolitan right is an important component of perpetual peace. Interaction among the peoples of the world, Kant notes, has increased in recent times. Now “a violation of right on one place of the earth is felt in all” as peoples depend upon one another and know about one another more and more (8:360). Violations of cosmopolitan right would make more difficult the trust and cooperation necessary for perpetual peace among states. And for Kant, perpetual peace is the “highest political good” (6:355).

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