Investigations of Kantian Cosmopolitanism: Evolution of the Species, Sovereignty and Hospitality (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
Most contemporary attempts to draw inspiration from Kant's cosmopolitan project focus exclusively on the prescriptive recommendations he makes in his article, ‘On Perpetual Peace’. In this essay, I argue that there is more to his cosmopolitan point of view than his normative agenda. Kant has a unique and interesting way of problematizing the way individuals and peoples relate to one another on the stage of world history, based on a notion that human beings who share the earth in common ‘originally’ constitute a ‘commercium’ of thoroughgoing interaction. By unpacking this concept of ‘commercium’, we can uncover in Kant a more critical perspective on world history that sets up the cosmopolitan as a specific kind of historical-political challenge. I will show that we can distinguish this level of problematization from the prescriptive level at which Kant formulates his familiar recommendations in ‘Perpetual Peace’. I will further show how his particular way of framing the cosmopolitan problematic can be expanded and expatiated upon to develop a more critical, reflexive, and open-ended conception of cosmopolitan thinking.
Kant's Cosmopolitan Right and the Rights of Others
Kant's understanding of Cosmopolitan Right, elaborated in the Third Article of his essay on "Perpetual Peace" and The Metaphysics of Morals, enjoys considerable attention today under the current conditions of the refugee crisis and globalization. Geneva Convention's principle of "non¬refoulement" concerning the Status of Refugees mainly relies on Kant's claim that first entry should always be granted to those who are in danger. The paper will focus first on the distinction Kant makes between "the right to be a permanent visitor" and the "temporary right of sojourn." Though the Kantian hospitality "is not a question of philanthropy but of right," yet it is confined to a claim to temporary residency.
Hospitality, Coercion and Peace in Kant
Philosophy of Globalization, 2018
In this essay, Id iscuss Kant'sr ight of hospitality in TowardP erpetual Peace. In the proposed reading, the right of hospitality protects foreigners from the xenophobic practices of the locals, while protecting the locals from the colonial practices of foreigners. The main question guiding this paper is whether hospitality is for Kant am oral injunction calling for a 'humane' treatment of foreigners; or whether it is rather ar ight senso strictu-namely, one that entails full coercive authority against violations. Ia rgue that once the connections between the dilemma of coercion and the so-called 'institutionalization dilemma' are properlyu nderstood, they mayberesolvedi nf avor of the first option, namely, coercion. Additionally, by examining the notions of non-centralized coercion and transnationalp olitical participation, this paper explores a wayt om atch hospitality'sn eed of coercion with Kant'sf ederalist proposal. Hospitality,a sw ek now,i sa bout what is due to strangers. By its very nature, hospitality livesa tt he threshold of the polity;i ta ppears at the geographical and political borders,a tt he fringes, and overlaps between those who share a civil space and those who are alien to it,b etween resident communities in a givent erritory and the individuals who show up in that space. Thus, hospitality occupies the space between what is duet op ersons as members of as pecific community,a nd what is due to them independentlyo ft hat,m erelya sh uman agents. It is preciselyt his interstitial character of hospitality that opens it up to ad ecisive ambivalence. Is hospitality as ort of moral obligation that is somehow grounded in our common humanity, or is it astrict right,acoercive norm to which individuals, groups,a nd-notice-autonomous political entities are subject?T hisi nterrogation is the subject of this essay. The right to hospitality That strangers ought not to be treated with hostility is perhapsthe least one can accord to the concept of hospitality.That they should be givenrights, even political rights, is not,h owever,w hat most people in today'sn ationalistic times would grant.Although Kant said relatively little concerning the nature of hospi
Cosmopolitanism. From the Kantian Legacy to Contemporary Approaches
Duncker & Humblot, 2021
This book investigates several dimensions of the concept of cosmopolitanism since Kant. The first of these dimensions is a world vision that considers the construction of a »cosmopolitan self« as a question of justice. The second is the idea that a local political-legal order is fully democratic only if it respects the environment and the human rights of all people of the world, regardless of their citizenship. The third dimension concerns the practice of crossborder associations between individuals, institutionalized or not (cosmopolitics, as Balibar called it). The fourth considers individuals as subjects of international law, as in the case of individual petitions concerning human rights through the European Court of Human Rights and individual responsibility in international criminal law. Finally, the fifth dimension is a form of ecological consciousness based on the relationship between the self and the cosmos, which would imply a profound revision of modern anthropocentric concepts.
How cosmopolitanism reduces conflict: A broad reading of Kant's third ingredient for peace
Kant's theory of peace has been reinterpreted under one of the most influential research programs of our times: The so-called democratic peace theory. In particular, the third ingredient of Kant's " recipe " for peace —the cosmopolitan right to visit—has been recognized as a powerful and effective instrument to reduce militarized interstate conflicts. In the hands of political scientists, however, this ingredient has often become nothing more than a set of rules for securing and facilitating international trade and economic interdependence. This article argues that this narrow reading mistakes international trade as the essence of the third definitive article. Kant sees economic interdependence as a means to realize what cosmopolitan right is truly about, that is, the affirmation of a set of rules for protecting humans qua humans, the creation of communal bonds among individuals beyond national or group loyalties, and the promotion of a global moral conscience modeled on the natural rights of man. An accurate understanding of cosmopolitan right is essential to avoid the popular-yet mistaken-idea that Kant sees progress towards peace as possible without individuals' and peoples' moral progress. In the last three decades, Kant's theory of peace has attracted the attention of scholars well beyond the circle of political philosophers. The three political reforms advocated in Towards Perpetual Peace—republicanism within states, international federation, and the
Kantian cosmopolitanism and its limits
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2015
ABSTRACT The cosmopolitanism of the European Enlightenment was mostly a limited matter of a Eurocentric anti-nationalism promoting the ideal of Europe as an harmonious system of balancing states. Against this background, Kant’s cosmopolitan vision stands out as more inclusive because, far from restricting its concerns to Europe, it proposes to bring all of humanity together by locating its different sections in a developmental framework that runs from the most primitive of human conditions to the fullest development of Man’s moral and intellectual capacities. Like the developmental schema posited by Voltaire and the Scottish Enlightenment, this vision locates most of humanity at some distance behind Western Europe. It produces the appearance of a cosmopolitan inclusiveness by means of an equally cosmopolitan differentiation.
Kant’s Criticism of European Colonialism: A Contemporary Account of Cosmopolitan Law
Problemos, 2018
This paper tackles Kant's juridical arguments for criticizing European colonialist practices, taking into account some recent accounts of this issue given by Kant scholars as Ripstein, Cavallar, Flikschuh, Stilz and Vanhaute. First, I focus on Kant's grounding of cosmopolitan union as a juridical requirement stemming of the systematic character of the rational doctrine of right. Second, I pay attention to Kant's remarks about how the European nations ought to establish commercial relations with other nations in the world and how they should approach non-state people. I draw the conclusion that Kant's juridical-political writings should be consider as a forerunning corpus for furthering an anti-colonialist mind in the European philosophy of Enlightenment.
Kant's Criticism of European Colonialism. A Contemporary Account of Cosmopolitan Right
This paper tackles Kant's juridical arguments for criticizing European colonialist practices, taking into account some recent accounts of this issue given by Kant scholars as Ripstein, Cavallar, Fliks-chuh, Stilz and Vanhaute. First, I focus on Kant's grounding of cosmopolitan union as a juridical requirement stemming of the systematic character of the rational doctrine of right. Second, I pay attention to Kant's remarks about how the European nations ought to establish commercial relations with other nations in the world and how they should approach non-state people. I draw the conclusion that Kant's juridical-political writings should be consider as a forerunning corpus for furthering an anti-colonialist mind in the European philosophy of Enlightenment.