Perpetual Peace
Chapter 3 considers Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant, two authors aiming to establish stable political peace. While their statements differ significantly in both practical focus (domestic versus international politics) and metaethical form (prudential versus moral rationality), both see peace as achievable under institutional conditions that are discovered and justified by philosophy. Yet Hobbes’s institutional ambitions are frustrated by aspects of politics that he recognizes as less susceptible to institutional control. And though Kant aspires to provide rational guidance for “moral politicians,” his rigid divide between heroic morality and the all too human flaws of politics frustrates prospects for moral influence. We are left wondering whether political conflict can be either controlled by Hobbes’s political science or regulated by Kant’s rational morality. Similar challenges afflict their different intellectual descendants, for both rational choice theory and global democratic theory find their projected reforms continually challenged by politics itself.