The Disagreement Between Morals And Politics With Reference To Perpetual Peace

Objectively, morals is a practical science.

• It is the sum of laws that demand unconditional obedience.
• We should act according to those laws.

This idea of duty has an authority.

Hence there can be no quarrel between:

• politics, as the practical science of right, and
• morals, a theoretical science of right

Theory cannot come into conflict with practice.

If they contradict then it means that a science of morals does not exist.

• This is because “ethics” or “morals” refers to a theory of precepts which may guide us.

Politics says “Be wise as serpents”.

Morals adds the limiting condition “and guileless as doves.”

If these precepts cannot stand together in one command, then there is a real quarrel between politics and morals.[147]

But if they can be completely brought into accord, then there is no antagonism between them.

• This removes any question of how best to make a compromise between them.

The series of predetermining causes would allow us to predict the good or bad results of human action.

• But reason is unable to survey those causes.

The practical man thinks that morals is mere theory.

He foresees that men will never do what is required to bring about perpetual peace.

The will of all men to live under a legal constitution according to the principles of liberty is not enough for perpetual peace.

We must further have the collective unity of their united will.

There must be a uniting cause, in order to produce a common will.

Hence, in the practical realisation of that idea, no other beginning of a law-governed society can be counted upon than one that is brought about by force: upon this force, too, public law afterwards rests.

This state of things certainly prepares us to meet considerable deviation in actual experience from the theoretical idea of perpetual peace,

since we cannot take into account the moral character and disposition of a law-giver in this connection, or expect that, after he has united a wild multitude into one people, he will leave it to them to bring about a legal constitution by their common will.

Any ruler who has gained power will not let the people dictate laws for him.

A state which is superior to foreign states will not submit to the tribunals of other states.

Hence all theoretical schemes, connected with constitutional, international or cosmopolitan law, crumble away into empty impracticable ideals.

But a practical science, based on the empirical principles of human nature, can find a sure foundation for building up a system of national policy.

A moral politician understands the principles of statesmanship that does not conflict with morals.

• He cannot fashion for himself such a system of ethics as may serve the interest of statesmen.

The moral politician will always act on the following principle:

“If a state’s political constitution or foreign relations have unavoidable defects, it is a duty of all, especially for the rulers of the state, to:

• correct them as soon as possible
• make them conform with the Law of Nature, as a model in the idea of reason

They should do this even at a sacrifice of their own interest.”

A moral politics cannot dissever any of the links binding citizens together in the state before a better constitution is adopted.

The ruler should earnestly keep the necessity of such a change. In this way, he may go on constantly approaching the goal of creating the best possible constitution according to the laws of right.

A despotic state may still govern itself on republican lines until the people can be influenced by the mere idea of the authority of law, just as if it had physical power.

They become accordingly capable of self-legislation, their faculty for which is founded on original right.

But if, through the violence of revolution, the product of a bad government, a constitution more in accord with the spirit of law were attained even by unlawful means, it should no longer be held justifiable to bring the people back to the old constitution, although, while the revolution was going on, every one who took part in it by use of force or stratagem, may have been justly punished as a rebel.

As regards the external relations of nations, a state cannot be asked to give up its constitution, even although that be a despotism (which is, at the same time, the strongest constitution where foreign enemies are concerned), so long as it runs the risk of being immediately swallowed up by other states.

Hence, when such a proposal is made, the state whose constitution is in question must at least be allowed to defer acting upon it until a more convenient time.[148]