Perpetual Peace
Translated by M. Campbell Smith
4h 24m
52,745 words
en
Structured as six "preliminary articles" and three "definitive articles," Kant's essay proposes that perpetual peace requires republican constitutions at home, a federation of free states abroad, and a cosmopolitan right of hospitality binding strangers and hosts. The Supplements and Appendices argue that nature itself, through the unsocial sociability of human beings, drives history toward peace — and that the apparent gap between morality and politics is the political moralist's invention. The essay's argument has shaped the League of Nations, the UN charter, and contemporary cosmopolitan theory.
