Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right. Georg Cavallar

on the one hand and the ‘philosophe guerrier’ on the other. Rousseau was more straightforward in his assessment: ‘Il pense en philosophe et se conduit en roi. La gloire, l’intérêt, voilà son Dieu, sa loi!’⁶³ For Rousseau, there was just one soul, not two, in the Prussian king: a soul that was dominated by ‘glory’ and ‘interests’, and more or less devoid of moral principles. Kant sided with Rousseau’s assessment. He was aware of the ruthless policy of contemporary princes and criticized it in his unpublished reflections. Kant complained, for instance, that the heroism of princes was mistakenly identified with their honour, and that historians preferred the military camp to the cabinet (XV, 610, 19–21, refl. 1400). Kant deplored the fact that princes did not care about justice, as long as they could expand their states (XV, 610, 19–21, refl. 1400, lines 21–3), and saw this as a form of barbarism. Kant implicitly criticized all of Frederick’s major foreign policy decisions. The capture of Silesia, the invasion of Saxony in 1756 and the First Partition of Poland violated Kant’s notion of states as moral or juridical persons. When Frederick broke his treaties with France, he undermined the notion of a contract and the possibility of lasting peace based on the principle pacta sunt servanda (VIII, 343–4). Kant’s readers could relate the second preliminary article to the partitions of Poland.⁶⁴ Poland virtually disappeared as an independent state with the third and last partition in 1795 – the year Kant published Perpetual Peace.

      Kant did not criticize Frederick’s foreign policy explicitly, but he condemned the philosopher who defended the king. In writings on Cicero, Frederick, and the relationship between politics and morality, Christian Garve (1742–98) offered a utilitarian apology of ruthless power politics as performed by the ‘roi philosophe’.⁶⁵ Together with William Paley, Saint-Pierre, Hume and Beccaria, Garve can be seen as an early utilitarian ‘within a Christian framework’.⁶⁶ In the appendix of Perpetual Peace, Kant dismissed Garve’s utilitarian maxims in foreign policy as incompatible with the principle of publicity (VIII, 383–6). Frederick’s preventive war of 1756 is the only major foreign policy decision supported by Kant’s writings, though only by implication. According to the Doctrine of Rights, states have a ‘right of preventive war’ if another state ‘engages in military preparations’ or if its increase in power is ‘menacing’ (VI, 346). In 1756, Frederick had every reason to believe that this was happening in Russia, Austria and France.⁶⁷

      Kant saw the implications of enlightened absolutism for foreign relations. Monarchs were always tempted to use their supreme power to wage war, thus ‘destroying the world’ (XXIII, 354, 24–8). In the first definitive article, Kant argued for the moral and pragmatic superiority of republicanism (see chapter 4 in this volume). He offered a vivid description of foreign policy decisions in a state under a non-republican constitution ‘where the subject is not a citizen’:

      it is the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state is not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the state, and a war will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure palaces and court festivals are concerned. He can thus decide on war, without any significant reason, as a kind of amusement, and unconcernedly leave it to the diplomatic corps (who are always ready for such purposes) to justify the war for the sake of propriety. (VIII, 351)

      In this passage, Kant also provided an accurate account of Frederick’s rule. For instance, Frederick decided to invade Silesia all by himself and presented his decision to Minister Podewils and Field Marshal Graf Schwerin in Rheinsberg on 29 October 1740. The king was convinced that the Austrian province was the best possible object ‘pour l’agrandissement le plus solide’, and had the resources ‘d’un pays riche, abondant, plein de commerce et peuplé’.⁶⁸ Podewils and Schwerin tried in vain to change the king’s mind. As Frederick remarked, ‘the orders to the troops have already been given’.⁶⁹ Frederick left the justification of the war ‘to the diplomatic corps’. Podewils produced a complicated and hardly convincing legal document in spring 1741.⁷⁰ Frederick was rather ‘unconcerned’. When Podewils tried to explain the intricate legal problems involved, Frederick replied that this was a job for the ministers and lawyers. Frederick wrote on the margin of Podewils’s legal argument the arrogant and cynical comment: ‘Bravo: the work of an excellent charlatan!’⁷¹

      It might be argued that Kant’s picture of ruthless monarchs waging wars at will is one-sided and historically inaccurate. In addition, historians disagree in their evaluation of (enlightened) absolutism and its warlike tendencies. Some historians argue that above all, the king is to blame. Their interpretation is closest to Kant; they emphasize royal prestige, the desire to expand, and individual ambition – they support Toynbee’s catchphrase of war as the sport of kings.⁷² Kings such as Louis XIV and Frederick II are seen as motivated by both the more traditional ideals of gloire, réputation and heroic deeds, and by the modern concept of reason of state.⁷³ This thesis, however, is challenged by the claim that the aristocracy was responsible for eighteenth-century wars in the first place,⁷⁴ and it is sometimes argued that both the king and the aristocracy were the decisive factors. Johannes Kunisch has supported still another thesis, arguing that the very structure of hereditary monarchies increased the likelihood of wars. Empires like the Habsburg monarchy were based on the principle of dynastic legitimacy. Within the framework of mercantile theory, the persons inhabiting a certain territory were simply seen as part of that territory rather than as citizens with rights (a theory subsequently criticized by Kant as violating the principle of popular sovereignty). Any problems with succession were exploited by neighbouring states. The year 1740, when Frederick invaded the Habsburg province Silesia, is precisely such a case in point.⁷⁵ Finally, we must not forget Kenneth N. Waltz’s classic and convincing distinction between permissive and efficient causes of war. In the eighteenth century, the permissive cause of war (that which permitted war to occur) was certainly the condition of anarchy in the international political system. The efficient causes must be sought at the individual and societal or state level.⁷⁶ It seems most plausible to argue that wars were the result both of individual royal ambition and of the structure of hereditary monarchies and the international system. This implies that Kant tended to neglect the structural causes of eighteenth-century wars emphasized by Kunisch. Kant had plenty of evidence that Frederick’s Regierungsart in foreign relations was despotic rather than republican. However, he might have ignored the logical conclusion for his political theory. The two parts of the first definitive article do not fit together. In the pragmatic argument in favour of republicanism, Kant attacked enlightened absolutism as being warlike and bent on war. In the second part, where Kant distinguished between Herrschaftsform and Regierungsart, he seems to defend the same despotic system. He refused to refer to foreign relations in his appraisal of Frederick’s rule.

      Kant offered a limited defence of Frederick’s military state. Apparently referring to Prussia, Kant claimed in a footnote to The Contest of Faculties (1798) that ‘a people which occupies extended territories in Europe may feel that monarchy is the only kind of constitution which can enable it to preserve its own existence between powerful neighbours’ (VII, 86, 18–22). Frederick used a similar geopolitical argument in his Political Testament of 1768. In the case of war, the territories of Cleve and Mark in the west and East Prussia would be lost immediately to the French and the Russians respectively. Of course, this was no argument for Frederick in the quarrel between republicans and monarchists. Monarchy was never questioned anyway. For Frederick, Prussia’s geopolitical predicament was another reason to teach the gospel of militarism to his successor: Prussia needed more soldiers, they should be better trained than those of its neighbours, and the Prussian king should be their commander in chief. In times of peace, the king should prepare for the next war.⁷⁷ As far as foreign policy was concerned, Frederick the king was by no means ‘acting by analogy with the laws which a people would give itself in conformity with universal principles of right’ (VII, 88, 6–7). I suppose that Kant was fully aware of this; a lot had been achieved on the domestic level, and he was patient.

      There was a deep discrepancy between Frederick’s domestic and foreign policy. In domestic policy, the king seemed an enlightened, humanitarian ruler who respected the rights of his people. In foreign