Kant's Cosmopolitan Right and the Rights of Others

The paper outlines the systematic work that would have to be done in order to answer the title question. It starts from cosmopolitan right as natural right and asks what kinds of transformations cosmopolitan natural right would have to undergo to form a legitimate part of public international law.

The purpose of this article is to respond to Jacques Derrida’s reading of Immanuel Kant’s laws of hospitality and to offer a deeper exploration into Kant’s separation of a cosmopolitan right to visit (Besuchsrecht) and the idea of a universal right to reside (Gastrecht). Through this discussion, the various laws of hospitality will be examined, extrapolated and outlined, particularly in response to the tensions articulated by Derrida. By doing so, this article will offer a reinterpretation of the laws of hospitality, arguing that hospitality is not meant to capture all the conditions necessary for cosmopolitan citizenship or for a thoroughgoing condition of cosmopolitan justice as Derrida assumes. This is because hospitality could be understood as the basic normative requirement necessary to establish an ethical condition for intersubjective communication at the global level, where discursive communication regarding the substance of a future condition of cosmopolitan justice is to be subjected to global public reason.

Revue Française de Science Politique (in English), 2014

МЕЃУНАРОДЕН ДИЈАЛОГ: ИСТОК - ЗАПАД, 2020

The European ideals – as well as the idea of Europe per se – are faced with a serious challenge due to recent migration crisis: it is not just the reflexes, the effectiveness and the policies, but also the consistency, the principles and the justification of the notion of the European Union that is in stake. Kant’s concept of universal hospitality could probably provide a good way out of this conundrum: while hospitality has largely been viewed as a solidarity-related imperfect duty towards others, that is, a less compelling duty that allows moral agents for certain latitude concerning the occasions and the degree of its implementation, Kant’s views allow for a totally different perspective, and, in my view, a much more philosophically nuanced one: hospitality might also be considered as an autonomy-based duty owed to others, and in this respect could count as a perfect, morally compelling duty. To the extent that the concept of Europe consists in humanitarian ideals that are based upon a strong philosophical humanistic tradition, I consider my claim to be in perfect harmony with the true spirit of Europe.

Addaiyan Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences , 2021

This article intends to answer the question of the ethics of hospitality, according to a specific objective, that of raising the hospitality to the rank of a philosophical question, with a view to delivering it, in these days, from the calculating game of politics in search of nationalistic votes, and the media spread of the dominant news on terrorism and migrants. Such an approach presupposes that the concept of hospitality fits into the field of the thinkable, that it is welcomed as a knowable host, figure, and object of knowledge. It is a question of asking for hospitality, the cousin of ethics, to think about the welcome and being-welcomed. One of the objectives of this text is to demonstrate that the concern for transnational solidarity is not a new phenomenon and that more than two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant, without forging the concept, already theorized certain issues. It is also true that most contemporary philosophers have addressed this important subject in one way or another. As the theory of international relations is increasingly shaken by the debate between constructivists and postmodernists (or deconstructivists), it seemed interesting to us, instead of studying the contribution to the understanding of transnational solidarity of the main political scientists involved to one or the other current, to look closely at the attempts at theorizing of the founder who is Immanuel Kant. Emphasis will be placed on the duty of transnational solidarity, which is to say on the ethical aspect.

Dados

The article investigates Kantian cosmopolitanism, based on the philosopher’s works and his main commentators. The study chooses and highlights three central and specific themes: the evolution of the human species, the dilemma between sovereignty and cosmopolitanism, and the issue of hospitality. By casting light on these themes, the article attempts to fill in a gap in specialized literature from the fields of international relations and philosophy. Regarding the evolution of the human species, I emphasize the philosopher’s understanding of “unsociable sociability“ – a natural mechanism which provides the elementary basis for the advent of cosmopolitanism and perpetual peace. The dilemma between sovereignty and cosmopolitanism leads to the significant analysis of whether Kant has reflected upon or proposed transcending the paradigm of classical sovereignty. Finally, the discussion about hospitality becomes particularly relevant, and is scrutinized according to its juridical and ethi...

Philosophy of Globalization, 2018

In this essay, Id iscuss Kant'sr ight of hospitality in TowardP erpetual Peace. In the proposed reading, the right of hospitality protects foreigners from the xenophobic practices of the locals, while protecting the locals from the colonial practices of foreigners. The main question guiding this paper is whether hospitality is for Kant am oral injunction calling for a 'humane' treatment of foreigners; or whether it is rather ar ight senso strictu-namely, one that entails full coercive authority against violations. Ia rgue that once the connections between the dilemma of coercion and the so-called 'institutionalization dilemma' are properlyu nderstood, they mayberesolvedi nf avor of the first option, namely, coercion. Additionally, by examining the notions of non-centralized coercion and transnationalp olitical participation, this paper explores a wayt om atch hospitality'sn eed of coercion with Kant'sf ederalist proposal. Hospitality,a sw ek now,i sa bout what is due to strangers. By its very nature, hospitality livesa tt he threshold of the polity;i ta ppears at the geographical and political borders,a tt he fringes, and overlaps between those who share a civil space and those who are alien to it,b etween resident communities in a givent erritory and the individuals who show up in that space. Thus, hospitality occupies the space between what is duet op ersons as members of as pecific community,a nd what is due to them independentlyo ft hat,m erelya sh uman agents. It is preciselyt his interstitial character of hospitality that opens it up to ad ecisive ambivalence. Is hospitality as ort of moral obligation that is somehow grounded in our common humanity, or is it astrict right,acoercive norm to which individuals, groups,a nd-notice-autonomous political entities are subject?T hisi nterrogation is the subject of this essay. The right to hospitality That strangers ought not to be treated with hostility is perhapsthe least one can accord to the concept of hospitality.That they should be givenrights, even political rights, is not,h owever,w hat most people in today'sn ationalistic times would grant.Although Kant said relatively little concerning the nature of hospi

Kant's theory of peace has been reinterpreted under one of the most influential research programs of our times: The so-called democratic peace theory. In particular, the third ingredient of Kant's " recipe " for peace —the cosmopolitan right to visit—has been recognized as a powerful and effective instrument to reduce militarized interstate conflicts. In the hands of political scientists, however, this ingredient has often become nothing more than a set of rules for securing and facilitating international trade and economic interdependence. This article argues that this narrow reading mistakes international trade as the essence of the third definitive article. Kant sees economic interdependence as a means to realize what cosmopolitan right is truly about, that is, the affirmation of a set of rules for protecting humans qua humans, the creation of communal bonds among individuals beyond national or group loyalties, and the promotion of a global moral conscience modeled on the natural rights of man. An accurate understanding of cosmopolitan right is essential to avoid the popular-yet mistaken-idea that Kant sees progress towards peace as possible without individuals' and peoples' moral progress. In the last three decades, Kant's theory of peace has attracted the attention of scholars well beyond the circle of political philosophers. The three political reforms advocated in Towards Perpetual Peace—republicanism within states, international federation, and the

Kantian Review, 1998

Kant's unduly neglected concept of cosmopolitan law suggests a third sphere of public law -- in addition to constitutional law and international law -- in which both states and individuals have rights, and where individuals have these rights as ‛citizens of the earth' rather than as citizens of particular states. I critically examine Kant's view of cosmopolitan law, discussing its addressees, content, justification, and institutionalization. I argue that Kant's conception of ‛world citizenship' is neither merely metaphorical nor dependent on an ideal of a world-government. Kant's views are particularly relevant in light of recent shifts in international law, shifts that lead away from the view that individuals can only be subjects of international law insofar as they are citizens of particular states. Thereby, a category of rights has emerged that comes close to what Kant understands by cosmopolitan law.