Toward Eternal Peace: A Philosophical Draft

Kant argues that due to the broken and inherited evil nature of man, peace is not natural and must be built through adherence to rational maxims at the individual, national and international levels. These binding international maxims have built the foundation of anti-Machiavellian Liberal Internationalism of today. On Perpetual Peace is one of the foundational philosophic works underlying the international world order and the charter of the United Nations. The League of Nations ( a phrase coined by Kant) was founded by Woodrow Wilson, who was a professor of Kantian philosophy, and explicitly used Kant's terminology "league of nations". This work was designed to be a template for future agreements between states, hence the reason it is written like a legal contract.

The work opens by rejecting secret treaties, standing armies, and foreign interference in sovereign affairs, urging instead a legal structure in which states act not as private persons in a state of nature but as juridical persons under common rules. Kant calls for constitutional republicanism, based on legal equality and citizen consent, and envisions a voluntary league of nations that would prevent war by institutional means rather than by coercive power. He argues that peace is not a natural condition among states, but one that must be established through institutions that treat states analogously to individuals under moral law. Written in a period of instability and suppressed reform, the essay became one of Kant’s clearest statements on the relationship between morality, law, and international relations, proposing peace not as a utopia, but as a juridical goal grounded in reason.