ON THE DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN MORALS AND POLITICS WITH REFERENCE TO
PERPETUAL PEACE
In an objective sense, morals is a practical science, as the sum of
laws exacting unconditional obedience, in accordance with which we
_ought_ to act. Now, once we have admitted the authority of this
idea of duty, it is evidently inconsistent that we should think of
saying that we _cannot_ act thus. For, in this case, the idea of duty
falls to the ground of itself; “_ultra posse nemo obligatur_.” Hence
there can be no quarrel between politics, as the practical science of
right, and morals, which is also a science of right, but theoretical.
That is, theory cannot come into conflict with practice. For, in that
case, we would need to understand under the term “ethics” or “morals”
a universal doctrine of expediency, or, in other words, a theory of
precepts which may guide us in choosing the best means for attaining
ends calculated for our advantage. This is to deny that a science of
morals exists.
Politics says, “Be wise as serpents”; morals adds the limiting
condition, “and guileless as doves.” If these precepts cannot stand
together in one command, then there is a real quarrel between
politics and morals.[147] But if they can be completely brought into
accord, then the idea of any antagonism between them is absurd,
and the question of how best to make a compromise between the two
points of view ceases to be even raised. Although the saying,
“Honesty is the best policy,” expresses a theory which, alas, is
often contradicted in practice, yet the likewise theoretical maxim,
“Honesty is better than any policy,” is exalted high above every
possible objection, is indeed the necessary condition of all politics.
[147] Cf. Aristotle: _Politics_, (Welldon’s trans.) IV. Ch. XIV.
“The same principles of morality are best both for individuals
and States.”
Among the ancients the connection between politics and morals
was never questioned, although there were differences of opinion
as to which science stood first in importance. Thus, while Plato
put politics second to morals, Aristotle regarded politics as the
chief science and ethics as a part of politics. This connection
between the sciences was denied by Machiavelli, who lays down
the dictum that, in the relations of sovereigns and states, the
ordinary rules of morality do not apply. See _The Prince_, Ch.
XVIII. “A Prince,” he says, “and most of all a new Prince, cannot
observe all those rules of conduct in respect of which men are
accounted good, being frequently obliged, in order to preserve
his Princedom, to act in opposition to good faith, charity,
humanity, and religion. He must therefore keep his mind ready
to shift as the winds and tides of Fortune turn, and, as I have
already said, he ought not to quit good courses if he can help
it, but should know how to follow evil courses if he must.”
Hume thought that laxer principles might be allowed to govern
states than private persons, because intercourse between them
was not so “necessary and advantageous” as between individuals.
“There is a system of morals,” he says, “calculated for princes,
much more free than that which ought to govern private persons,”
(_Treatise_, III., Part II., Sect. IX.) [Tr.]
The Terminus of morals does not yield to Jupiter, the Terminus of
force; for the latter remains beneath the sway of Fate. In other
words, reason is not sufficiently enlightened to survey the series
of predetermining causes which would make it possible for us to
predict with certainty the good or bad results of human action, as
they follow from the mechanical laws of nature; although we may hope
that things will turn out as we should desire. But what we have to
do, in order to remain in the path of duty guided by the rules of
wisdom, reason makes everywhere perfectly clear, and does this for
the purpose of furthering her ultimate ends.
The practical man, however, for whom morals is mere theory, even
while admitting that what ought to be can be, bases his dreary
verdict against our well-meant hopes really on this: he pretends
that he can foresee from his observation of human nature, that men
will never be willing to do what is required in order to bring
about the wished-for results leading to perpetual peace. It is
true that the will of all individual men to live under a legal
constitution according to the principles of liberty—that is to
say, the distributive unity of the wills of all—is not sufficient
to attain this end. We must have the collective unity of their
united will: all as a body must determine these new conditions. The
solution of this difficult problem is required in order that civil
society should be a whole. To all this diversity of individual wills
there must come a uniting cause, in order to produce a common will
which no distributive will is able to give. Hence, in the practical
realisation of that idea, no other beginning of a law-governed
society can be counted upon than one that is brought about by force:
upon this force, too, public law afterwards rests. This state of
things certainly prepares us to meet considerable deviation in actual
experience from the theoretical idea of perpetual peace, since we
cannot take into account the moral character and disposition of a
law-giver in this connection, or expect that, after he has united a
wild multitude into one people, he will leave it to them to bring
about a legal constitution by their common will.
It amounts to this. Any ruler who has once got the power in his
hands will not let the people dictate laws for him. A state which
enjoys an independence of the control of external law will not
submit to the judgment of the tribunals of other states, when it
has to consider how to obtain its rights against them. And even a
continent, when it feels its superiority to another, whether this be
in its way or not, will not fail to take advantage of an opportunity
offered of strengthening its power by the spoliation or even conquest
of this territory. Hence all theoretical schemes, connected with
constitutional, international or cosmopolitan law, crumble away into
empty impracticable ideals. While, on the other hand, a practical
science, based on the empirical principles of human nature, which
does not disdain to model its maxims on an observation of actual
life, can alone hope to find a sure foundation on which to build up a
system of national policy.
Now certainly, if there is neither freedom nor a moral law founded
upon it, and every actual or possible event happens in the mere
mechanical course of nature, then politics, as the art of making
use of this physical necessity in things for the government of
men, is the whole of practical wisdom and the idea of right is an
empty concept. If, on the other hand, we find that this idea of
right is necessarily to be conjoined with politics and even to be
raised to the position of a limiting condition of that science, then
the possibility of reconciling them must be admitted. I can thus
imagine a moral politician, that is to say, one who understands the
principles of statesmanship to be such as do not conflict with
morals; but I cannot conceive of a political moralist who fashions
for himself such a system of ethics as may serve the interest of
statesmen.
The moral politician will always act upon the following
principle:—“If certain defects which could not have been avoided
are found in the political constitution or foreign relations of a
state, it is a duty for all, especially for the rulers of the state,
to apply their whole energy to correcting them as soon as possible,
and to bringing the constitution and political relations on these
points into conformity with the Law of Nature, as it is held up as a
model before us in the idea of reason; and this they should do even
at a sacrifice of their own interest.” Now it is contrary to all
politics—which is, in this particular, in agreement with morals—to
dissever any of the links binding citizens together in the state
or nations in cosmopolitan union, before a better constitution is
there to take the place of what has been thus destroyed. And hence
it would be absurd indeed to demand that every imperfection in
political matters must be violently altered on the spot. But, at the
same time, it may be required of a ruler at least that he should
earnestly keep the maxim in mind which points to the necessity of
such a change; so that he may go on constantly approaching the end
to be realised, namely, the best possible constitution according to
the laws of right. Even although it is still under despotic rule,
in accordance with its constitution as then existing, a state may
govern itself on republican lines, until the people gradually become
capable of being influenced by the mere idea of the authority of law,
just as if it had physical power. And they become accordingly capable
of self-legislation, their faculty for which is founded on original
right. But if, through the violence of revolution, the product of
a bad government, a constitution more in accord with the spirit of
law were attained even by unlawful means, it should no longer be
held justifiable to bring the people back to the old constitution,
although, while the revolution was going on, every one who took part
in it by use of force or stratagem, may have been justly punished
as a rebel. As regards the external relations of nations, a state
cannot be asked to give up its constitution, even although that be
a despotism (which is, at the same time, the strongest constitution
where foreign enemies are concerned), so long as it runs the risk of
being immediately swallowed up by other states. Hence, when such a
proposal is made, the state whose constitution is in question must
at least be allowed to defer acting upon it until a more convenient
time.[148]
[148] These are _permissive_ laws of reason which allow us to
leave a system of public law, when it is tainted by injustice, to
remain just as it is, until everything is entirely revolutionised
through an internal development, either spontaneous, or fostered
and matured by peaceful influences. For any legal constitution
whatsoever, even although it conforms only slightly with the
spirit of law is better than none at all—that is to say, anarchy,
which is the fate of a precipitate reform. Hence, as things now
are, the wise politician will look upon it as his duty to make
reforms on the lines marked out by the ideal of public law. He
will not use revolutions, when these have been brought about
by natural causes, to extenuate still greater oppression than
caused them, but will regard them as the voice of nature, calling
upon him to make such thorough reforms as will bring about the
only lasting constitution, a lawful constitution based on the
principles of freedom.
It is always possible that moralists who rule despotically, and are
at a loss in practical matters, will come into collision with the
rules of political wisdom in many ways, by adopting measures without
sufficient deliberation which show themselves afterwards to have been
overestimated. When they thus offend against nature, experience must
gradually lead them into a better track. But, instead of this being
the case, politicians who are fond of moralising do all they can to
make moral improvement impossible and to perpetuate violations of
law, by extenuating political principles which are antagonistic to
the idea of right, on the pretext that human nature is not capable of
good, in the sense of the ideal which reason prescribes.
These politicians, instead of adopting an open, straightforward way
of doing things (as they boast), mix themselves up in intrigue. They
get at the authorities in power and say what will please them;
their sole bent is to sacrifice the nation, or even, if they can,
the whole world, with the one end in view that their own private
interest may be forwarded. This is the manner of regular jurists (I
mean the journeyman lawyer not the legislator), when they aspire to
politics. For, as it is not their business to reason too nicely over
legislation, but only to enforce the laws of the country, every legal
constitution in its existing form and, when this is changed by the
proper authorities, the one which takes its place, will always seem
to them the best possible. And the consequence is that everything
is purely mechanical. But this adroitness in suiting themselves
to any circumstances may lead them to the delusion that they are
also capable of giving an opinion about the principles of political
constitutions in general, in so far as they conform to ideas of
right, and are therefore not empirical, but _a priori_. And they may
therefore brag about their knowledge of men,—which indeed one expects
to find, since they have to deal with so many—without really knowing
the nature of man and what can be made of it, to gain which knowledge
a higher standpoint of anthropological observation than theirs is
required. Filled with ideas of this kind, if they trespass outside
their own sphere on the boundaries of political and international
law, looked upon as ideals which reason holds before us, they can
do so only in the spirit of chicanery. For they will follow their
usual method of making everything conform mechanically to compulsory
laws despotically made and enforced, even here, where the ideas of
reason recognise the validity of a legal compulsory force, only when
it is in accordance with the principles of freedom through which a
permanently valid constitution becomes first of all possible. The
would-be practical man, leaving out of account this idea of reason,
thinks that he can solve this problem empirically by looking to the
way in which those constitutions which have best survived the test
of time were established, even although the spirit of these may have
been generally contrary to the idea of right. The principles which
he makes use of here, although indeed he does not make them public,
amount pretty much to the following sophistical maxims.
1. =Fac et excusa.= Seize the most favourable opportunity for
arbitrary usurpation—either of the authority of the state over its
own people or over a neighbouring people; the justification of the
act and extenuation of the use of force will come much more easily
and gracefully, when the deed is done, than if one has to think out
convincing reasons for taking this step and first hear through all
the objections which can be made against it. This is especially
true in the first case mentioned, where the supreme power in the
state also controls the legislature which we must obey without any
reasoning about it. Besides, this show of audacity in a statesman
even lends him a certain semblance of inward conviction of the
justice of his action; and once he has got so far the god of success
(_bonus eventus_) is his best advocate.
2. =Si fecisti, nega.= As for any crime you have committed, such
as has, for instance, brought your people to despair and thence
to insurrection, deny that it has happened owing to any fault of
yours. Say rather that it is all caused by the insubordination of
your subjects, or, in the case of your having usurped a neighbouring
state, that human nature is to blame; for, if a man is not ready to
use force and steal a march upon his neighbour, he may certainly
count on the latter forestalling him and taking him prisoner.
3. =Divide et impera.= That is to say, if there are certain
privileged persons, holding authority among the people, who have
merely chosen you for their sovereign as _primus inter pares_, bring
about a quarrel among them, and make mischief between them and the
people. Now back up the people with a dazzling promise of greater
freedom; everything will now depend unconditionally on your will. Or
again, if there is a difficulty with foreign states, then to stir
up dissension among them is a pretty sure means of subjecting first
one and then the other to your sway, under the pretext of aiding the
weaker.
It is true that now-a-days no body is taken in by these political
maxims, for they are all familiar to everyone. Moreover, there is
no need of being ashamed of them, as if their injustice were too
patent. For the great Powers never feel shame before the judgment of
the common herd, but only before one another; so that as far as this
matter goes, it is not the revelation of these guiding principles of
policy that can make rulers ashamed, but only the unsuccessful use
of them. For as to the morality of these maxims, politicians are all
agreed. Hence there is always left political prestige on which they
can safely count; and this means the glory of increasing their power
by any means that offer.[149]
[149] It is still sometimes denied that we find, in members of
a civilised community, a certain depravity rooted in the nature
of man;[C] and it might, indeed, be alleged with some show of
truth that not an innate corruptness in human nature, but the
barbarism of men, the defect of a not yet sufficiently developed
culture, is the cause of the evident antipathy to law which
their attitude indicates. In the external relations of states,
however, human wickedness shows itself incontestably, without any
attempt at concealment. Within the state, it is covered over by
the compelling authority of civil laws. For, working against the
tendency every citizen has to commit acts of violence against his
neighbour, there is the much stronger force of the government
which not only gives an appearance of morality to the whole
state (_causae non causae_), but, by checking the outbreak of
lawless propensities, actually aids the moral qualities of men
considerably, in their development of a direct respect for the
law. For every individual thinks that he himself would hold the
idea of right sacred and follow faithfully what it prescribes,
if only he could expect that everyone else would do the same.
This guarantee is in part given to him by the government; and
a great advance is made by this step which is not deliberately
moral, towards the ideal of fidelity to the concept of duty
for its own sake without thought of return. As, however, every
man’s good opinion of himself presupposes an evil disposition in
everyone else, we have an expression of their mutual judgment
of one another, namely, that when it comes to hard facts, none
of them are worth much; but whence this judgment comes remains
unexplained, as we cannot lay the blame on the nature of man,
since he is a being in the possession of freedom. The respect for
the idea of right, of which it is absolutely impossible for man
to divest himself, sanctions in the most solemn manner the theory
of our power to conform to its dictates. And hence every man sees
himself obliged to act in accordance with what the idea of right
prescribes, whether his neighbours fulfil their obligation or not.
[C] This depravity of human nature is denied by Rousseau, who held
that the mind of man was naturally inclined to virtue, and that
good civil and social institutions are all that is required.
(_Discourse on the Sciences and Arts_, 1750.) Kant here takes
sides with Hobbes against Rousseau. See Kant’s _Theory of Ethics_,
Abbott’s trans. (4th ed., 1889), p. 339 _seq._—esp. p. 341 and
_note_. Cf. also Hooker’s _Ecclesiastical Polity_, I. § 10:—“Laws
politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are
never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man
to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience
to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man
to be, in regard of his depraved mind, little better than a wild
beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, so to frame
his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common
good, for which societies are instituted.” [Tr.]
* * * * *
In all these twistings and turnings of an immoral doctrine of
expediency which aims at substituting a state of peace for the
warlike conditions in which men are placed by nature, so much at
least is clear;—that men cannot get away from the idea of right in
their private any more than in their public relations; and that they
do not dare (this is indeed most strikingly seen in the concept of
an international law) to base politics merely on the manipulations
of expediency and therefore to refuse all obedience to the idea of
a public right. On the contrary, they pay all fitting honour to the
idea of right in itself, even although they should, at the same time,
devise a hundred subterfuges and excuses to avoid it in practice, and
should regard force, backed up by cunning, as having the authority
which comes from being the source and unifying principle of all
right. It will be well to put an end to this sophistry, if not to
the injustice it extenuates, and to bring the false advocates of the
mighty of the earth to confess that it is not right but might in
whose interest they speak, and that it is the worship of might from
which they take their cue, as if in this matter they had a right to
command. In order to do this, we must first expose the delusion by
which they deceive themselves and others; then discover the ultimate
principle from which their plans for a perpetual peace proceed;
and thence show that all the evil which stands in the way of the
realisation of that ideal springs from the fact that the political
moralist begins where the moral politician rightly ends and that, by
subordinating principles to an end or putting the cart before the
horse, he defeats his intention of bringing politics into harmony
with morals.
In order to make practical philosophy consistent with itself, we must
first decide the following question:—In dealing with the problems of
practical reason must we begin from its material principle—the end as
the object of free choice—or from its formal principle which is based
merely on freedom in its external relation?—from which comes the
following law:—“Act so that thou canst will that thy maxim should be
a universal law, be the end of thy action what it will.”[150]
[150] With regard to the meaning of the moral law and its
significance in the Kantian system of ethics, see Abbott’s
translation of the _Theory of Ethics_ (1889), pp. 38, 45, 54, 55,
119, 282. [Tr.]
Without doubt, the latter determining principle of action must
stand first; for, as a principle of right, it carries unconditional
necessity with it, whereas the former is obligatory only if we assume
the empirical conditions of the end set before us,—that is to say,
that it is an end capable of being practically realised. And if
this end—as, for example, the end of perpetual peace—should be also
a duty, this same duty must necessarily have been deduced from the
formal principle governing the maxims which guide external action.
Now the first principle is the principle of the political moralist;
the problems of constitutional, international and cosmopolitan law
are mere technical problems (_problema technicum_). The second or
formal principle, on the other hand, as the principle of the moral
politician who regards it as a moral problem (_problema morale_),
differs widely from the other principle in its methods of bringing
about perpetual peace, which we desire not only as a material good,
but also as a state of things resulting from our recognition of the
precepts of duty.[151]
[151] See Abbott’s trans., pp. 33, 34. [Tr.]
To solve the first problem—that, namely, of political expediency—much
knowledge of nature is required, that her mechanical laws may be
employed for the end in view. And yet the result of all knowledge
of this kind is uncertain, as far as perpetual peace is concerned.
This we find to be so, whichever of the three departments of public
law we take. It is uncertain whether a people could be better kept
in obedience and at the same time prosperity by severity or by baits
held out to their vanity; whether they would be better governed
under the sovereignty of a single individual or by the authority of
several acting together; whether the combined authority might be
better secured merely, say, by an official nobility or by the power
of the people within the state; and, finally, whether such conditions
could be long maintained. There are examples to the contrary in
history in the case of all forms of government, with the exception
of the only true republican constitution, the idea of which can
occur only to a moral politician. Still more uncertain is a law of
nations, ostensibly established upon statutes devised by ministers;
for this amounts in fact to mere empty words, and rests on treaties
which, in the very act of ratification, contain a secret reservation
of the right to violate them. On the other hand, the solution of the
second problem—the problem of political wisdom—forces itself, we may
say, upon us; it is quite obvious to every one, and puts all crooked
dealings to shame; it leads, too, straight to the desired end, while
at the same time, discretion warns us not to drag in the conditions
of perpetual peace by force, but to take time and approach this ideal
gradually as favourable circumstances permit.
This may be expressed in the following maxim:—“Seek ye first the
kingdom of pure practical reason and its righteousness, and the
object of your endeavour, the blessing of perpetual peace, will
be added unto you.” For the science of morals generally has this
peculiarity,—and it has it also with regard to the moral principles
of public law, and therefore with regard to a science of politics
knowable _a priori_,—that the less it makes a man’s conduct depend
on the end he has set before him, his purposed material or moral
gain, so much the more, nevertheless, does it conform in general
to this end. The reason for this is that it is just the universal
will, given _a priori_, which exists in a people or in the relation
of different peoples to one another, that alone determines what is
lawful among men. This union of individual wills, however, if we
proceed consistently in practice, in observance of the mechanical
laws of nature, may be at the same time the cause of bringing about
the result intended and practically realizing the idea of right.
Hence it is, for example, a principle of moral politics that a people
should unite into a state according to the only valid concepts of
right, the ideas of freedom and equality; and this principle is not
based on expediency, but upon duty. Political moralists, however,
do not deserve a hearing, much and sophistically as they may reason
about the existence, in a multitude of men forming a society, of
certain natural tendencies which would weaken those principles and
defeat their intention. They may endeavour to prove their assertion
by giving instances of badly organised constitutions, chosen both
from ancient and modern times, (as, for example, democracies without
a representative system); but such arguments are to be treated with
contempt, all the more, because a pernicious theory of this kind
may perhaps even bring about the evil which it prophesies. For, in
accordance with such reasoning, man is thrown into a class with all
other living machines which only require the consciousness that they
are not free creatures to make them in their own judgment the most
miserable of all beings.
_Fiat justitia, pereat mundus._ This saying has become proverbial,
and although it savours a little of boastfulness, is also true. We
may translate it thus:—“Let justice rule on earth, although all the
rogues in the world should go to the bottom.” It is a good, honest
principle of right cutting off all the crooked ways made by knavery
or violence. It must not, however, be misunderstood as allowing
anyone to exercise his own rights with the utmost severity, a course
in contradiction to our moral duty; but we must take it to signify
an obligation, binding upon rulers, to refrain from refusing to
yield anyone his rights or from curtailing them, out of personal
feeling or sympathy for others. For this end, in particular, we
require, firstly, that a state should have an internal political
constitution, established according to the pure principles of
right; secondly, that a union should be formed between this state
and neighbouring or distant nations for a legal settlement of
their differences, after the analogy of the universal state. This
proposition means nothing more than this:—Political maxims must not
start from the idea of a prosperity and happiness which are to be
expected from observance of such precepts in every state; that is,
not from the end which each nation makes the object of its will
as the highest empirical principle of political wisdom; but they
must set out from the pure concept of the duty of right, from the
“_ought_” whose principle is given _a priori_ through pure reason.
This is the law, whatever the material consequences may be. The world
will certainly not perish by any means, because the number of wicked
people in it is becoming fewer. The morally bad has one peculiarity,
inseparable from its nature;—in its purposes, especially in relation
to other evil influences, it is in contradiction with itself, and
counteracts its own natural effect, and thus makes room for the moral
principle of good, although advance in this direction may be slow.
Hence objectively, in theory, there is no quarrel between morals
and politics. But subjectively, in the self-seeking tendencies of
men (which we cannot actually call their morality, as we would a
course of action based on maxims of reason,) this disagreement in
principle exists and may always survive; for it serves as a whetstone
to virtue. According to the principle, _Tu ne cede malis, sed contra
audentior ito_, the true courage of virtue in the present case lies
not so much in facing the evils and self-sacrifices which must be met
here as in firmly confronting the evil principle in our own nature
and conquering its wiles. For this is a principle far more dangerous,
false, treacherous and sophistical which puts forward the weakness in
human nature as a justification for every transgression.
In fact the political moralist may say that a ruler and people, or
nation and nation do _one another_ no wrong, when they enter on a war
with violence or cunning, although they do wrong, generally speaking,
in refusing to respect the idea of right which alone could establish
peace for all time. For, as both are equally wrongly disposed to one
another, each transgressing the duty he owes to his neighbour, they
are both quite rightly served, when they are thus destroyed in war.
This mutual destruction stops short at the point of extermination,
so that there are always enough of the race left to keep this game
going on through all the ages, and a far-off posterity may take
warning by them. The Providence that orders the course of the world
is hereby justified. For the moral principle in mankind never becomes
extinguished, and human reason, fitted for the practical realisation
of ideas of right according to that principle, grows continually in
fitness for that purpose with the ever advancing march of culture;
while at the same time, it must be said, the guilt of transgression
increases as well. But it seems that, by no theodicy or vindication
of the justice of God, can we justify Creation in putting such a
race of corrupt creatures into the world at all, if, that is, we
assume that the human race neither will nor can ever be in a happier
condition than it is now. This standpoint, however, is too high a
one for us to judge from, or to theorise, with the limited concepts
we have at our command, about the wisdom of that supreme Power which
is unknowable by us. We are inevitably driven to such despairing
conclusions as these, if we do not admit that the pure principles of
right have objective reality—that is to say, are capable of being
practically realised—and consequently that action must be taken on
the part of the people of a state and, further, by states in relation
to one another, whatever arguments empirical politics may bring
forward against this course. Politics in the real sense cannot take
a step forward without first paying homage to the principles of
morals. And, although politics, _per se_, is a difficult art,[152]
in its union with morals no art is required; for in the case of a
conflict arising between the two sciences, the moralist can cut
asunder the knot which politics is unable to untie. Right must be
held sacred by man, however great the cost and sacrifice to the
ruling power. Here is no half-and-half course. We cannot devise a
happy medium between right and expediency, a right pragmatically
conditioned. But all politics must bend the knee to the principle of
right, and may, in that way, hope to reach, although slowly perhaps,
a level whence it may shine upon men for all time.
[152] Matthew Arnold defines politics somewhere as the art of
“making reason and the will of God prevail”—an art, one would
say, difficult enough. [Tr.]