Beyond Struggle and Power: Heidegger's Secret ... - Interpretation

Book Review: Kant’s Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace
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in their external behavior, and in doing so, their private wills become the general
will.
Kant’s argument also allows for criticism of the scope of legitimate
governmental power, so that Höffe can escape the “practical antinomy”
discussed above. Höffe explicates Kant’s argument by first claiming that coercion
is primarily “protective in nature” (114) in that it restores justice when one
pursues one’s private will at the expense of the general will. However, the government
cannot affect one’s internal self-legislation by legislating virtue; it can
only regulate the external activity of citizens by maintaining the integrity of the
private spheres of non-interference and the impartial rule of law. In short, Kant
replaces the philosopher-king with the kingly people: each individual is a sovereign,
autonomous individual unto himself. The liberal state is constructed by
these kingly people to maintain the integrity of this individual sovereignty and
stave off the encroachment of authoritarian governmental power.
Höffe’s reconstruction of Kant’s moral grounding of politics
is impressive and ambitious, but not immune to criticism, especially on the
matter of the source of rights. In chapter 7, Höffe insists that “right is not naturally
given, but must be created” (130). Kant rejects the Lockean grounding of
natural right on self-ownership. He claims instead that basic rights come from
fulfilling an original duty to oneself, the duty to “assert oneself as a legal equal”
(121). Individual rights, then,“depend on one’s own achievement and [are] not
granted by others” (122). Höffe does not consider, however, the following questions:
what happens when someone fails to attend to the basic duty of legal
self-assertion? Does this person not enjoy rights? Further, if this unassertive
person is bound by the moral law, does this not mean that this person is already
entitled to his autonomy, so that he should be treated as an end of another’s
action, rather than as a means? The Kingdom of Ends from Kant’s Groundwork
already contains “naturally given” rights, so the idea of legal self-assertion, in
addition to being problematic, also seems superfluous.
In part III, Höffe shows how, for Kant, the moral law necessarily
extends beyond national borders to concern itself with the relationship
among states. Specifically, Kant called for “perpetual peace” among nations,
and Höffe applauds Kant for standing apart from his successors such as Hegel,
who eschew this desideratum. The conditions for peace require the fulfillment
of two duties placed on all states by the moral law. First, just as individuals have
a duty to leave the state of nature, states must also seek peace, particularly by
abolishing standing armies and refraining from interference in the constitution