Kant eirenikôs: republicanism, commerce and the law of nations

Abstract

Kant differs from European irenism in all key points. The difference results from his resting the cause of international peace on a free federation of sovereign states (and not on any kind of civitas maxima), that is, from strictly framing the problem in terms of the law of nations. This jurisprudential framework sets limits to the expectations that peace could be brought about by commerce or achieved through a universal republican settlement. On the one hand, Kant understands that commercial innovations have made it easier to wage war, and that commercial nations, violating jus gentium, are devastating non-European world. On the other, a pacific world construed on the lines of classical republicanism would be militarized universal community.