Seán Molloy has written an important book that should serve as a cautionary tale for would-be cosmopolitans who view Kant as the “true prophet” for our collective deliverance. The book does not discount the prospect and theories of cosmopolitanism. Rather, it rightly alerts us to the fact that the contemporary political environment poses challenges that no one should ignore. This is because, as the author rightly points out, contemporary challenges may be beyond the comprehension and/or capacities of the cosmopolitan traditions. Kant’s International Relations makes some important points that I reprise because I share them and think that they are important to restate. It also fails in some important regards that I note in my conclusion.
The primary tenet of cosmopolitan theories that concerns Molloy is “the rational capacity of human beings to transform their moral and political natures” in the face of pending catastrophes (p. xi). He has two main issues with this aspect of cosmopolitan theories. The first is that “cosmopolitans cannot provide a rationally justified basis for the assumption that salvation from the depredations and violence of human beings can be found in human beings themselves” (p. xi). The second is that theories of cosmopolitanism lack sufficient “critical-historical investigation of both Kant and world politics today to plausibly advance the cause of ‘perpetual peace’” (p. x).
Molloy’s critique of cosmopolitanism centers on three dimensions of the recuperations of Kant’s ideas by today’s cosmopolitans. First, he considers the collection of theoretical ideas that modern theorists attribute to Kant as the “essential” elements of cosmopolitanism emerging from Perpetual Peace and other writings. Second, he interrogates the ideological, moral, and normative commitments professed by cosmopolitans. Third, though less prominently, Molloy considers the political orientations and dispositions of cosmopolitans toward the world. I insist on these distinctions because he is a careful reader of the texts often cited by cosmopolitans, particularly the three sections of Perpetual Peace: 1) the Preliminary articles (which stipulate the conditions of peace); 2) the Definitive articles (which set forth the terms of peace); and the Supplements (which point to the requirements of peace). Besides being a good reader, Molloy does not contest Kant’s central principles of peace: republicanism, a federation of Free states, and hospitality. Nor does he directly confront the terms of war and conditions of warfare today. I assume that the author agrees with Kant and Kantians today on these scores.
Molloy’s contestations instead center principally on the many untenable (and at time inexplicable) dualisms around which Kant based his cosmopolitan views. These include the distinctions between humanity and human beings; reason and desire; the contingent and necessary; form and content; noumena and phenomena; and discernment and interpretation. It is the author’s contention that these concepts and the associated ideas have theological and metaphysical valences for Kant that “our” own contemporaries would do well to remember. This is because Kant subscribes to a particularly providential theology as the necessary frame for understanding the condition of humanity in which the means to salvation emerge from reason. It is clear form Kant himself that while providence remains beyond human abilities, reason rests with the individual. Indeed, Kant’s view of human nature as it ought to be (or human nature upon redemption) depends on the human mind and the sociability of the human, the accessibility of judgment, and the ability to systematize life and the relation of humans to nature.
One of the most insightful segments of the book is the author’s discussion of belief in God. He argues that this is a crucial theme in Kant’s ethics, politics, aesthetics, teleology, and anthropology. This fact arguably poses problems for Kantians because God is accessible only through Christian theology and thematics. Molloy identifies the first as the tendency of Kantians to extend both Kant and his ideas as a “master” and the provider of resources for international relations. This extension of Kant and his ideas is seldom possible without the near-deceitful posture of pretending that Kant’s ideas are not at base “political theology” derived from Christianity. This allows Kantians to propose Kant’s ideas as a secular emancipatory script. Neither of these would be problematic if the nonsecular nature of other (non-Western) texts and modes of thought did not emerge as a point of contention. This fact is particularly salient with Islam and other supposed nonenlightened thought. Secondly, Kantians seems to substitute Europe for God in Kant’s affirmation of God as the “orderer” of the universe. Consistently, the (European) God reigns supreme today even if in different modulations: for instance, by assuming greater than ordinary powers—and therefore quasi-imperial privileges—for Europe as a matter of reason, pragmatism, and deference. The inescapable conclusion is that the imaginary of ethics is the extension of a peculiar monotheistic tradition.
I take this latter point to be the most significant insight and an area of vulnerability of cosmopolitanism today, that is the blurring of the line between moralism and ethics and between the moral intellectual and the intellectual moralist. This is an important point to make and Molloy makes it poignantly.
Still, Molloy’s arguments are at times mistaken. Regrettably, the book fails to transcend the Eurocentrism and Christian thematic of cosmopolitanism today. For instance, historically, the questions of being and becoming, and morality and freedom, figured prominently in moral reflections around the world. Not only were the questions of hospitality and moral laws matters of concern in most commercial societies around the world, but related thought also relied on theological and spiritual considerations. For example, the famed Silk Road, its industries of hospitality (including the caravanserais), the letter of credit, and other early instruments of capitalism existed outside Europe: in today’s China, Persia, Southeast and South Asia, so-called Arabia, the “Barbary Coast,” and the Indian Ocean, among other places. The comparative point for Molloy and his Kantian nemeses is that deliberations outside of Europe had distinct logical or metaphysical predicates, moral and ethical precepts, and therefore distinct propositions for peaceful coexistence. A contrast or comparison that highlighted some of these differences would have helped clarify further the limits of Kant’s political theology without dismissing it or the associated faculties. The lack of the required historical analysis is itself indicative of a troubling blind spot in Eurocentric critical traditions: to remain inherently tethered to the historical context, temporalities, and hermeneutics of the works that they set out to critique. This is indeed regrettable.
I wish, in concluding, to restate a point made in the beginning. Molloy’s book is an invaluable contribution to Kant’s scholarship in the discipline. Specifically, it rightly compels cosmopolitans to reconsider some of their own assumptions. For these and other reasons, I would more than recommend Kant’s International Relations. I will personally assign it to my own graduate classes in the years to come because it adds substantially to ongoing debate on peace and the means to it.
