Immanuel Kant and Woodrow Wilson Stage a Tag-Team Fight For International Cooperation

Immanuel Kant and Woodrow Wilson share quite a few opinions on the subject of international cooperation, and both men were concerned with promoting the mutually beneficial results of such.  Kant is noted for his universalist ambitions as his vision of peace extends to all nations, not just European countries of concern to most others in Kant’s political sphere. Years later, Wilson will mirror this with his strong beliefs of internationalism.  Kant believes the government should be a constitutional republic (aka democracy) and also promotes a federation, or a union of free states who agree not to war against their neighbors. Woodrow Wilson, the former president of America- a famously democratic nation composed of 50 united, yet independent states- agrees.

            Both men composed written prescriptions, intended to dictate international norms of conduct in order to encourage what Wilson called a ‘lasting peace’ and Kant dubbed ‘perpetual peace’.  First, Kant develops his theory of perpetual peace; a claim that there are natural forces in place to incline human society towards mutual international cooperation. Kant argues that commerce and international economy is one such force. For example, it is unlikely that Spain and Ireland will go to war with each other because they share the same currency of the euro. Because an economic hit in one country, will cause a damaging, ripple effect for the other, inclinations of both parties towards self-interest, inevitably drives them to cooperation. (Although this theory and example seem sound, Kant ignores the fact that some wars are waged against the benefit of mutual self-interest. This can be seen in the counter-example of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although the two warring nations of Israel and Palestine share the same currency of the Israeli new sheqel, their grievances have proven to be too large to be put aside for the sake of a mutually beneficial, international, economy boost. However, we cannot hold this against Kant, as this particular conflict began far after his time.)  In Perpetual Peace, Kant aims to enable such international commerce by outlining a number of prescriptions intended foster international cooperation. These are composed as six ‘rules’. They are paraphrased as follows: No nation may not make a peace offering with false intentions; No nation may sell/give away another nation (or any people for that matter); No standing armies allowed as they are instigators for war and must be done away with; No national debt shall be incurred from external affairs, as debtor/lender relationships enable the construction of over-sized armies; No nation may interfere with the laws of another nation; And finally, No nation may employ acts of hostility, if two nations hold a treaty, each nation must be responsible for maintaining honesty and abstaining from sneak-attacks (assassination, poisoning etc.). (Wouldn’t it be nice if modern American government followed these prescriptions instead of developing a military-industrial complex, owing its metaphorical right arm to China, and considering accepting jurisdiction over foreign nations via the Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum Supreme Court case?)

            Wilson follows suit with the composition of his famous “14 points”, a statement of principles with the same goals as Kant’s. The 14 points are paraphrased as follows: Nations shall have open, mutually agreed-upon peace covenants; Nations shall have freedom to navigate the high seas; Nations shall remove trade barriers and establish equal trade conditions; National armaments shall be as small as possible without effecting domestic safety; (The next 6 points are prescriptions for specific countries and are not generally applicable) And finally point 14, Wilson’s most renowned section of writing, outlines Wilson’s proposition for a League of Nations.

            Although extensive similarities between these two men are evident, I observed and interesting difference in the language between each set of international prescriptions.  While Kant’s Perpetual Peace assumes a vibe of finger-wagging due to his use of negative commands (each of the six ‘rules’ begin with the word No), Wilson’s 14 Points express a more encouraging vibe, as all his points are phrased in the positive as suggestions.