Perpetual Peace

Structured as six "preliminary articles" and three "definitive articles," Kant's essay proposes that perpetual peace requires republican constitutions at home, a federation of free states abroad, and a cosmopolitan right of hospitality binding strangers and hosts. The Supplements and Appendices argue that nature itself, through the unsocial sociability of human beings, drives history toward peace — and that the apparent gap between morality and politics is the political moralist's invention. The essay's argument has shaped the League of Nations, the UN charter, and contemporary cosmopolitan theory.