Kant and Rousseau Reducing Conflicts Between States

Kant and Rousseau

Reducing Conflicts Between States

The Theories of the Great Philosophers Rousseau and Kant

The great philosophers of the 18th century were the first of their kind to fully encapsulate what it meant to be an ethnocentric state, rather than a simple nation or territory, and also were the first philosophers able to address the question of war between states as not merely individual struggles for dominance, but rather persistent frictions present in the system of states themselves. The formal idea of statehood came of age in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Year's War, and affirmed the domination of the central government of each state as the supreme power of the land, rather than any religious or social power. At this time, every state was essentially a dictatorship, and the world was divided into fiefdoms. The peace reached at Westphalia created the conditions for two philosophers in particular to put forth ideas of Romanticism and the achieving of utopia as the ultimate goal of any state, and in studying this phenomenon the philosophers try to achieve a lasting reduction in conflict between states. These philosophers are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher from the independent state of Geneva, a republican state controlled by a representational body elected by the people of the state. In Rousseau "s mind, Geneva was the ideal state, separated from the overarching power of the French Monarchy, and apart from the religious dominance of the Vatican in much of Italy's separate states at the time. Rousseau made the innovative argument that the state was merely the collective conscience of the people of the state, and whose power is derived from the consent of the people. The purpose of the state, according to Rousseau, is to provide for the common defense of man, to apply justice as the broader community sees fit, and to ensure the rights of the citizens within the state. (Rousseau, 1762) This opinion was a direct response to the absolutist monarchs of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, as the concentration of power in the king's hands was decidedly not an enlightenment idea. Rousseau's ideas eventually won out, however, and heavily influenced the 1789 French Revolution that deposed the French king and instilled the first major republican state in Europe for a time being.

Rousseau surrounded his works in the idea of equality of man, which was both applauded and reviled across Europe. The philosophers believed during the enlightenment that all European men were indeed created as equals, and thus should share equal rights that could not be infringed upon by the state, even between common men and aristocracy. In 'a lasting peace through the federation of Europe and the state of war', Rousseau makes the argument that only through a union of states will Europe be vanquished of the wars it had been plagued with for the centuries prior. (Rousseau, 1917) In contrast to Kant, who believes city-states are the ideal resolution to the matter of peace, and that democratic states only will achieve such an end, Rousseau believes that there does exist the idea of a social contract within society that must be fulfilled between those who have means and those who do not.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who lived through the enlightenment period of intellectual awakening in the 18th century. (Vincent Ferraro) He wrote a 1795 essay entitled Perpetual Peace, which created the early workings of the ideas necessary to enforce world peace, if states were to ever extend their spheres of influence worldwide. The essay calls for several necessary steps to envision a future peaceful world, many of which seen as weakening the state for the sake of finding peaceful relations. The steps include not keeping secrets or secret treaties between states, abolishing standing armies, maintaining the free will of independent states, which includes not interfering with the political system of other states. Although these rules are strict, they have been seen as the most important factors in creating a peaceful world, and as we can see now in the 21st century, most republican, democratically elected and free states never go to war with other likewise states, because the will of the people is never geared towards hostilities with neighboring peoples in democratic systems.

Immanuel Kant wisely realizes that in order to establish such a system, no single dictator can exist, and al only when all states are freely elected can world peace be achieved. (Munkler) Kant also does not believe that achieving these steps will permanently predict peace, but rather will simply pacify the world as a whole, and the constant wars of humanities past will be better controlled and less violent. His philosophies are in contrast to others of the age including Hume and Locke, but Kant still believed that peace could be achieved even in a competitive and unforgiving environment such as the world was. The ideas of Rousseau and Kant were categorized as being the beginning of the Romanticism period of political theory, a time when it was believed that the ultimate goal of society was to reach a form of utopia for all peoples. (Jones, 2008) Reaching utopia could be accomplished through different means, but ultimately the freedom of man's soul and the sustenance of a peaceful regime across the world were first analyzes seriously by these two great philosophers in the 18th century.