The Limits of Cosmopolitan Right

In his third definitive article for perpetual peace, Kant says: "Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality."

The german reads: Das Weltbürgerrecht soll auf Bedingungen der allgemeinen Hospitalität eingeschränkt sein. (Ak 8:357)

Many contemporary political theorists have tried to take cosmopolitan right beyond these "limits". Perhaps it is just my limited knowledge of German, but I'm not sure how limited cosmopolitan right was for Kant. Here's the ambiguity I am thinking of.

It is interesting to me that Kant does not say that cosmopolitan right shall be "limited to universal hospitality" but "limited to conditions [auf Bedingungen] of universal hospitality". Does the right to visit only come into effect under conditions of universal hospitality? That is, is cosmopolitan right limited to conditions of universal hospitality, in that outside of the existence (or possible existence) of these conditions, we cannot think about cosmopolitan right, and it holds no sway?

Note that Gregor's translation refers to "conditions" not the "condition" (singular) of universal hospitality. I am not sure what to make of this. Is that we need everyone to be hospitable? After all, why should I act hospitably if I do not know you will? (Compare to section 8 in the Metaphysics of Morals- Kant discusses possession of private things in the state of nature. He says I am under no obligation to refrain from touching your possessions unless you refrain from touching mine. This follows from a universal and reciprocal rule. However, we can only have a guarantee in the civil condition, where there is common power. But at the cosmopolitan level, there is no world government (at least not yet). So how can I be under an obligation to leave another's possession untouched? Indeed, why can't the locals treat the others with hostility (in the state of nature, Kant discusses how others can be a threat to me even before they behave badly, so why does Kant say in cosmopolitan right that peaceable behavior is sufficient?) It seems that somehow cosmopolitan right, as a level of public right, brings us out of the state of nature. It is often forgot that at each level of public right, including cosmopolitan right, something needs to be promulgated for it to be law. It seems that hospitality is what needs to be promulgated. So how is it to be promulgated? Are there conditions for promulgation or other conditions for reassurance (even enforcement)? It may be that there to be a whole lot of conditions required before cosmopolitan right can be considered public.

So to say that cosmopolitan right is limited to conditions of hospitality pointed to a general issue with the idea of publicity, perhaps. We can consider that cosmopolitan right is

(1) limited, in that it involves no more than a right to visit; 

(2) limited, in that it stretches no further than where conditions of universal hospitality exist, and so we cannot talk about cosmopolitan right as a category of public if there is universal (or general) hospitality; (3) limited, in that it stretches no further than saying that conditions of universal hospitality shall exist, that is the command to allow others to visit peacefully, etc. (to establishing universal hospitality); 

(4) limited to all the measures that might be needed to make it effective, by bringing about the conditions of universal hospitality.

This is a pretty rough division off the top of my head; feedback welcome.

One other matter: I suspect cosmopolitan right has a negative element, in that it mainly says what should not be done. Hospitality is largely defined as not treating anyone with hostility. Kant is limiting what constitutes an authorization to use force. The state of nature includes an authorization to force others to leave it, and to view there not providing you with the security of the state a cause for treating them as an enemy. But cosmopolitan right says I don't get to treat outsiders as an enemy. This differs from the state of nature, which often allows use of force where threats are possible, even before active injury has occurred, simply because they have denied me security (for example, by their very existence in the state of nature). However, in cosmopolitan right, Kant seems to acknowledge that the locals can feel insecure through visitation. indeed, kant points to the horrors of colonialism. BUT, Kant says a possible misuse of the right to visit (by conquering lands!) does not annul the right of the world citizen to travel to seek commerce (Kant may be speaking of the world citizen generally, not necessarily the right of foreigners to actually keep visiting after their misuse to be more than a possibility and has become an active deed).

Refugees and the Addressees of Cosmopolitan Right

Gary Banham has recently posted on cosmopolitan right, which had me thinking again about the addresses of cosmopolitan right. Who are the "citizens of the world"?

Let's first say what cosmopolitan right is not, by looking at the first two levels of public right. The first level is the right of citizens of a state, (or constitutional right); the focus is on relations between individuals in a local territory and the principles for organizing the constitution of the state. This more or less matches the traditional subject of political theory.

Kant's second level of public right is international right (volkerrecht). In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says that international right should more properly be called right between states. Even today we refer to "international law" as if the primary focus was on relations between nations, rather than states. For Kant, nations (or peoples: volker) are not the subject of international right. Indeed, Kant specifically refers to "savages," who "may live near" citizens of a state "in a state of nature," who "do not constitute states by only tribes." (Ak 6:343 MM 53, Gregor p. 483) Kant then says that under the misnamed "right of nations," he is only going to consider "a states, as a moral person... as living in relation to another state in the condition of natural freedom and therefore in a condition of constant war."

Now we come to the third level of public right, cosmopolitan right (weltburgerrecht), or, the right of the world citizen. I said in my first blog post that: cosmopolitan right is a juridical category used by Immanuel Kant to discuss the rational principles for the lawful interaction between individuals, peoples [or nations], and states sharing a bounded earth. Are there really these three categories of citizens of the earth?

Kant says that cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality. Gary says that Kant defines hospitality as "the right of a foreigner not to be treated with hostility because he has arrived on the land of another" (Ak. 8: 357-8). Foreigners have the right to visit other lands to present themselves for society. However, foreigners can be turned away so long as this does not lead to their destruction (Untergang). This seems to have bearing on talk about the rights of refugees; with respect to this, Gary makes the interesting claim:

At this point it is also interesting that Kant is speaking here of the foreigner presenting themselves before individuals of the state they have arrived in, not of some responsibility of the government.

Gary says here that Kant is not talking about state responsibility for refugees, since foreigners present themselves to individuals. I have some doubts about Gary's claim, which bear on my question of who are the addressees of cosmopolitan right; hence, analyzing Gary's claim is relevant for how to characterize the citizens of the world.

First, do foreign individuals only present themselves to local individuals, and not states? Kant speaks of the foreigner arriving on the "land of another," which is generic. But just because Kant is or could be discussing individual-individual relations, does not mean he is not discussing individual-state relations. The right of the world citizen is the right not to treated with hostility, simply because he is visiting. I think the key question is whether states, as well as individuals, can treat foreigners in a hostile manner. And I think the answer is yes.

Second, I don't think we exhaust the possibilities by thinking only of individual-individual relations or individual-state relations. What about relations between an foreign individual and a people? That is, with a people, regardless of, or in abstraction from, whether they make up a civil state? Remember, from our above discussion of international right, not all peoples constitute states. Non-state peoples have a society, but their society is not organized according to principles of constitutional right (they are not "civilized"). Kant certainly thinks such peoples act inhospitably when they regard approach as an entitlement to plunder. If a tribe descends on a visitor, the visitor not just treated inhospitably by individuals, is he?

Third, Kant says there is no right to be treat as a guest of the household. This seems different than talking about individuals. It could be said that for Kant, there is the right of the head of the household (see his section on the right of domestic society in private right in MM and also section 41). Note that Kant says the individual is presenting himself for society. Kant says that even in the state of nature, there can be societies compatible with rights (section 41). When Kant talks about non-sedentary peoples in cosmopolitan right (who he does not think constitute states), is he talking about these societies?

While Gary says Kant is missing (at least at first) discussions of governments, I think Kant is not discussing states so as to also capture relations with non-state peoples. There does seem to be an issue with Kant not considering a cosmopolitan government under cosmopolitan right, but I don't think this is because he does (or must) exclude consideration of local governments. I do think Kant abstracts from whether peoples constitute states, and governments in his sense (being a "civil" state); but I am not sure whether Kant excludes a society (be it a civilized one or not) collectively aiding refugees.

Actually, I am not sure I want to put this in terms of aiding refugees, as if it were some sort of active duty. Suppose a shipwrecked crew arrives on my land. Kant says that an individual local cannot turn them away if this would cause their destruction. But does the local individual have to do more than not turn them away? Can it leave them to wander and find their own food? Or do the locals (in thanksgiving style) have to actively provide hospitality by giving provisions (at least until the ship is repaired)? The problem is same even if we consider the society as a whole or the state (remember also: for Kant, the Mongolian people could collectively own their land, so collective ownership, and hence exclusive from what is collectively owned, is a possible way outsiders might be treated inhospitably).

I think there is a reason Kant focuses the right to hospitality on the idea that all humans originally possessed the earth in common, and that originally no one had a right to any particular place. A local individual (or society, or state -- it does not matter) cannot unilaterally claim a portion of what was originally possessed in common, claim that all others are unilaterally put under a duty not to use this land, and thereby cause the destruction of those other foreigners (by right!). I think that the issue is not so much about needs per se, but about denying the conditions of freedom for others. These often coincide. However, the duty of hospitality does not seem to require sending food to starving others overseas who never travel to one's local lands. So I'm not sure it requires active provision to those who arrive -- as a basic duty-- though active provision may be required as compensation for another freedom denied, such as if you unilaterally enforce your property rights, rather than letting the foreigners help themselves to your food. (This is like Locke's duty of charity in the First Treatise.)

Blogging on Kant, Politics, and Philosophy

"Cosmopolitan Right" is a juridical category used by Immanuel Kant to discuss the rational principles for lawful interaction of individuals, peoples, and states sharing a bounded earth. Kant says that cosmopolitan right is limited to universal hospitality. Specifically, he allows foreigners to visit lands to propose further interaction and commerce without being treated in a hostile manner; however, he balances this with a condemnation of Europeans' inhospitable behavior towards native peoples in their colonial activities. This idea of cosmopolitan right and hospitality forms the focus on my academic work in political theory, where I concentrate on global justice, indigenous peoples, and historical injustice.

I reserved the address "cosmopolitanright.blogspot.com" years ago, but never got around to blogging on it, mostly due to an actual dissertation on Kant's Cosmopolitan Right. Based on my work in my dissertation, I've published an article about cosmopolitan right and indigenous peoples, in the new journal Public Reason.

Now that I'm in a postdoctoral research position at Queen's University in Ontario, I thought I'd actually blog to help collect my thoughts for writing further articles. I was inspired by Gary Banham's blog about Kant and international relations. I'll probably be discussing Kant in great detail, but also a variety of other topics in political theory and politics more generally (or really, whatever grabs my interest).