Bringing the Argument Together

Abstract

Thus even though there are discrepancies between the Rechtslehre.account and the Perpetual Peac. view, they are far from being wholly incompatible with one another—and if Kant’s thinking is (legitimately) seen in a developmental perspective the former account can defensibly be seen as an initial attempt at attaining the point of view expressed in Perpetual Peace. Whilst recognising that as things now stand in statute and customary international law, war is in certain limited circumstances a permissible strategy to adopt; Kant does not endorse just war theory in its usual (traditional) sense. Kant does not want to present the possibility of political leaders opting for war and being legally and morally at ease with themselves in doing so. For him war is always a sub-optimal moral choice and he wants to see it become an illegal choice in the publicly recognized law of nations. He wants to get away from the Realpoliti. idea that anyone who is serious about being a state’s leader must be prepared to dirty their hands by engaging in war. The problem with war being so regarded as an inescapable necessity of politics amongst states is that accepting the assumption itself heightens the possibility of war occurring.