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

practised trade instead of being prosecuted, then they would help build a competitive Austrian monarchy. Joseph II was primarily concerned about the advantage of the state, and civil rights had to take a back seat. Kant was aware of this probably selfish motivation. Joseph and Frederick were enlightened in the sense that ‘they realized what was to their own advantage’. Their self-centred ‘schemes of expansion’ promoted something they did not intend: civil and intellectual freedom (VIII, 28, 9–11). A similar line of thought can be found in the essay ‘Conjectures on the beginning of human history’ (1786), where Kant succinctly claimed that ‘the risk of war is the only factor which keeps despotism in check, because a state must now have wealth before it can be powerful, and there can be no wealth-producing activity without freedom’ (VIII, 120, 6–9). Despots become ‘enlightened’ because they want to use their subjects more effectively.

      Historians have developed explanatory models for the spread of reforms in the countries of enlightened absolutism that support Kant’s theory.⁸⁸ Most historians agree that Leopold von Ranke was right with his thesis of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’.⁸⁹ Governments were eager to expand their borders and tried to counterbalance the ambition of rival governments. This required a strong standing army. The army in turn asked for a flourishing economy. As Joseph II put it in 1779, ‘only the improvement of … agriculture, industry, trade and finance’ made it possible for the state to maintain and expand the ‘military establishment’.⁹⁰ Hence all princes looked ‘ever and only to the prosperity of their own countries, making that their chief concern’ (XXVII, 471). This asked for a governmental laissez-faire policy. Gradually, civil liberties were granted. Members of dissenting churches and sects were not suppressed or expelled (they might have helped any of the rivals), but invited to do something for their country. Like most eighteenth-century observers, Frederick thought that the Huguenot expulsion had had serious negative consequences for the French economy. He implicitly supported Kant’s contention that his reforms were rooted in foreign aspirations rather than concern for the rights or the well-being of the citizens. In the Essai sur les formes de gouvernement et sur les devoirs des souverains (1777), Frederick summarized the principles of his rule. He compared the state to a clockwork mechanism with all parts and sections subordinated to one main goal, the survival and the expansion of the state. All subjects, and the king himself, were mere means to this ultimate end. Within this context, reforms were necessary to support the financing of the army which executed foreign policy.⁹¹

      Conclusion

      Kant became increasingly sceptical about Frederick, and this changing attitude was reflected in the way he addressed Frederick. Since 1745, writers and commoners in Prussia, France and England accepted the epithet ‘magnus’. In 1795, Kant discarded the title ‘the Great’ and referred to ‘Frederick II’ (VIII, 352, 32; cf. XXVII, 2, 1, 647; VII, 332, 31). Kant never commented explicitly on the ‘philosopher of Sans-Souci’. He made it clear, however, that he did not believe in Plato’s philosopher kings. Being a king and a philosopher at the same time was impossible, ‘since the possession of power inevitably corrupts the free judgement of reason’ (VIII, 369, 29–30). Kant undermined a crucial cornerstone of Frederick’s hagiography. Usually, it is assumed that this passage is nothing more than a criticism of Plato; it should, however, also be read in the context of the myth of Frederick as the ‘roi philosophe’. This myth evolved during the Seven Years War and was cherished by philosophers within the Reichsgebiet, in France and England. Despite Frederick’s military aggressions, d’Alembert, for instance, was willing to see the monarch as one of the ‘philosopher kings (monarques philosophes)’.⁹² Voltaire, whose support and admiration for the king was unwavering, continued to call him the ‘roi philosophe’. Kant, the king’s subject in East Prussia, finally seemed to side with Rousseau, who saw Frederick as just another one of the corrupt kings of this world. Although Kant’s philosophy is already in principle universalist, his own experience with Prussia might have pushed him towards a more cosmopolitan perspective.

      We may now return to the question of why Kant preferred republican France over Frederick’s Prussia. The revolutionaries had the right goal, that is, the establishment of ‘the only intrinsically rightful and morally good constitution’ (VII, 85, 34). They were only mistaken in the means applied. Frederick and the other representatives of enlightened absolutism, on the other hand, had the wrong goals (territorial expansion), but applied nolens volens the right means (reform). Kant’s admiration for Frederick in the year 1784 is surpassed by his enthusiasm for the French Revolution (VII, 85–9). My systematic interpretation is also supported by biographical information. The theologian Johann Friedrich Abegg visited Königsberg and Kant in 1798. During one of their discussions, Abegg pointed out that the Allgemeines Landrecht was above the king, whereas Kant claimed that in fact the will of the king was still law (Gesetz) in Prussia.⁹³ Gerhard Ritter was mistaken in his claim that Frederick would probably have agreed to the categorical imperative as a foundation of civil society. Imperatives of skill and maxims of prudence were the bases of Frederick’s Prussia. His subjects were used as mere means. Frederick did not call himself servant of the people, but of the state. The new and frightening element in Frederick’s rule was that he used himself as a means as well – he was willing to sacrifice himself on the altar of the state. Frederick exposed himself to death in battle on numerous occasions. As Kant and his contemporaries knew, Frederick in addition ‘kept a strong poison at hand, presumably so that if he were captured when he led his troops into battle he could not be forced to agree to conditions of ransom prejudicial to his country’ (VI, 423, 26–9). Kant was right that ‘mere pride’ (VI, 423, 26–9) certainly was not Frederick’s motivation. Frederick’s willingness to sacrifice even his life for the state is part of his concept of being ‘first servant’. Though Kant’s reference to Frederick in the Doctrine of Virtue is listed under ‘Casuistical Questions’, his point of view leaves no room for doubt. According to the standards of the categorical imperative, Frederick had no right to dispose of himself ‘as a mere means to an arbitrary end’, as this would mean ‘to abase humanity in one’s own person’ (VII, 423, 1–6).

      We are now in a better position to understand Kant’s enthusiasm about the outbreak of the French Revolution. For Kant, the principles of the revolutionaries were, at least during the first, constitutional phase from 1789 to 1792, diametrically opposed to Frederick’s pragmatism. As early as 1790, Kant praised their ‘organization’ of the ‘entire body politic’ according to the principle of morality: ‘For in such a whole each member should certainly be not merely a means, but at the same time also an end’ (V, 375, note). This ‘organization’ was missing in Frederick’s Prussia. For that reason Kant sided with the revolutionaries, defended the principles he thought they cherished and supported the revolution even at a time when it became obvious that the revolutionaries had betrayed their own principles.

      In his last letter to Frederick in 1778, Voltaire praised his former friend enthusiastically: ‘If only Frederick the Great could be Frederick the immortal!’⁹⁴ Voltaire accepted that Frederick was not only a follower of the Enlightenment but also eager to continue and even intensify traditional power politics. Ultimately, Kant’s evaluation was more negative. In Kant’s deterministic philosophy of history, Frederick’s humanitarian reforms were based on self-interest, not on morality. In contrast to nationalist intellectuals in Germany after the Wars of Liberation (1813–15), Kant detested the Frederick of military aggression and of wars, the Frederick who repeatedly violated international law and right. Voltaire’s moderate approach and ‘appeasement’ was typical of an earlier generation of Enlightenment writers. Kant, belonging to the last generation, was no longer satisfied with a reformed system of absolutism.⁹⁵ The ultimate goal was the ‘perfect’ republic, ‘governed by principles of justice’ (IX, 444, 33–4; XXIII, 342, 27–9), which was identical with representative democracy. Kant invalidated reformed, enlightened absolutism to a mere transitory phase in this process towards republicanism. Thus Kant did not compromise with the status quo, as has been claimed by various authors for the last 200 years. It is also unfair and misleading to argue that Kant was ‘a radical in principle’, but deeply ‘conservative in practice’, and that in the 1790s Kant’s ‘views on social and political change look back to the 1770s’.⁹⁶

      Frederick