Republican Peace

The second part of the discussion of the first definitive article presents an argument for the connection between republican constitutions and the end of perpetual peace whilst a subsequent third part describes in more detail the nature of a republican constitution.

The description of the basis of the claim for the connection between the republican constitution and the end of perpetual peace is made in a brief paragraph. The basis of it turns on the appeal to consent that we found integral to the very notion of republicanism (and one of the features that we indicated distinguished it from liberalism). For a republican state to wage war it requires the consent of its citizens. This basic fact of a republican state is indicated by Kant to predispose a republican state to peace. The rationale for this claim is that war is, as Kant puts it, a "bad game" (Ak. 8: 350). There are inevitable hardships suffered in the case of war including the fact that the citizens of the state will themselves have to fight the war (this surely intimates a view of the army as voluntary and not a "standing" one). Similarly, the financing of the war will be based on the contributions of the citizenry (through taxes). Finally, the financing will carry over into the eventual peace through the countries' indebtedness.

By contrast, in a constitution in which the subjects are not citizens (i.e. a non-republican constitution) the head of state is intrinsically distinct from the other members of the state having no representative connection with them. As such the head of state can treat his subjects in this case as mere mechanisms for his own ends, substituting these ends of his own for publicly available ones hence indicating that a non-republican constitution is intrinsically out of harmony with respect for humanity.

The argument for republican peace thus turns on the claim that if a citizenry that is engaged in its country in such a way that the country is one that it clearly "owns" then it will be cautious in endangering it. The reason for this will be that such a citizenry puts its own property at risk in engaging in war. The ruler in the non-republican constitution does not put his property at risk in any particular sense and relates to his subjects as means to his own ends so is at war with them. Such a ruler is thus merely re-directing his general policy of war when he engages in conflict with other states, not altering the overall policy as would occur for a republic.

Assumptions that guide this argument are that a republic would not wish to "out-source" the conflicts it engaged in, by, for example, employing mercenaries to fight its wars for it or by having a principled distinction between a standing army and the ordinary citizenry. Both these points are clearly built in to the general claim of the basis of the republic as one that possesses an active citizenship. The point concerning the army would imply, however, either a general absence of an army except in cases of specific conflict (surely a foolhardy policy) or a general citizen army based on continued engagement (something like a general policy of enlistment or conscription for limited periods so that the entire citizenry is engaged in defence). The latter view cuts against "liberal" assumptions of the correct way to run a state in peace time and could be modified to allow citizenship engagement (so not necessarily military but this one amongst the options much like with Obama's recent notion of voluntary engagement).

Either way the view of citizenship involved in the idea of the republic appears rather more active than is generally given in most existent models of the state (except perhaps in a country that is constantly ready for war such as Israel). However, without some assumption of this kind it is less obvious why a country with a republican constitution would be peaceful. Current advocacy of the related idea of "democratic peace" suggests different reasons for peaceful behaviour and will be examined in a subsequent posting.

Republicanism (I)

The 1st Definitive Article for perpetual peace reads simply: "The civil constitution in every state shall be republican" (Ak. 8: 349). Two questions emerge in consideration of it: firstly, what is meant by "republican" and, secondly, how does it relate to the aim of perpetual peace?

The first question will be addressed in this posting. Kant speaks of a constitution that is republican as including principles that operate on three distinct levels. At the level of individuals there is a principle of the freedom of members of a society whilst at the level of subjects there is one of dependence on a single common legislation. The third level is that of citizens of a state where there is a principle of equality operative. Kant's general claim is that the "idea of the original contract" leads us to the notion of a republican constitution.

In articulating further the notion of this constitution Kant develops his argument in another extended footnote. The footnote begins by opposing a conventional "liberal" idea of freedom as "the warrant to do whatever one wants provided one does no wrong to anyone". This view of freedom is what Isaiah Berlin characterized as "negative freedom" and is captured well in John Stuart Mill's definition of freedom as "pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs" (On Liberty). Kant indicates however that this view amounts to an empty tautology.

By contrast to this view Kant defines freedom as "the warrant to obey no other external laws than those to which I could have given my consent" (Ak. 8: 350n). The reference here to hypothetical consent was not included in the "negative", "liberal" view of freedom and nor was the specific inclusion of external laws. The specific inclusion of the concept of law in the idea of freedom is subsequently followed up by the ways in which Kant characterizes equality. Equality within a state is "that relation of its citizens in which no one can rightfully bind another to something without also being subject to a law by which he in turn can be bound in the same way by the other" (Ak. 8: 350n). So the equality in question is one of reciprocal relation to the laws of the state. Kant intimates that there is no need to further specify the dependence of subjects since we have already covered it in what has emerged.

On the grounds of the egalitarian conception of citizenship Kant explicitly rules out the notion of hereditary nobility. The republican position advanced is one in which freedom is distinctively understood as emergent from a relation to law, not as something properly realized independently of law. This is the substantive difference between the republican view that Kant has advanced here and many "liberal" views. It remains to be assessed, however, what relation this puts a specifically Kantian theory in to the so-called "Kantian liberals", such as John Rawls and his followers on the one hand, or the more apparently "republican" views of Jurgen Habermas. A further point of interest is how to characterize Kant's form of republicanism by contrast to that which has been developed in contemporary political theory on the basis of response to the Renaissance account of Machiavelli. For a detailed description of this tradition and its place in contemporary political theory see this article. A notable feature of the contemporary revival of republicanism and assertion of its distinction from liberalism has been the general failure, despite the historiographical nature of its basis, to account for Kant.

Global Taxes

A question that has recently emerged from somewhat surprising quarters is the possibility of global taxes. The current leader of the German SPD floated the notion of a global finance tax recently, in the wake of similar ruminations by Lord Adair Turner, current head of the Financial Services Authority in the UK. These discussions have acquired a new relevance in the wake of the financial difficulties of the last 12 months, difficulties arguably brought about by the wave of financial deregulation that took off globally from the mid-1980s.

The feasibility of global finance taxes has been much debated since the floating of the idea  in 1972 by Nobel Laureate James Tobin. The other major area in which global taxes are recurrently proposed concern carbon emissions with suggestions for a carbon tax, a notion that appears to be attracting renewed attention in the EU. Both the notion of a global finance tax and the idea of a global carbon tax have the quality of being "Pigovian taxes", named such after the economist A.C. Pigou, meaning that they are intended to create disincentives for certain kinds of behaviour. The rationale for them is that certain activities have costs that are greater than the prices levied on them by markets.

Not all the forms of global tax proposed have this "Pigovian" bent since some, by contrast, are aimed at affirming certain ends rather than trying to limit activities. One form of such an affirmative global tax measure is Thomas Pogge's notion of a Global Resource Dividend intended to ensure that wealthy nations come together to collect means to alleviate poverty in the developing world. The details of Pogge's proposal and the problems alleged with it have been subjects dealt with at some length in a number of places but the basic conception of the Dividend has been widely influential.

Despite the widespread nature of the campaigns for global taxes there are some curious features of the discussion of the taxes. Firstly, in the absence of a global taxation authority, it remains the case that the imposition, collection and distribution of any such proposed taxes will tend to remain at the national level (though a federal EU could in principle also act in this way). Second, the suggestion of such taxes is widely recognized to have implications concerning redistribution, not all of which are evidently benign. 

Thirdly, whilst one of Pogge's central arguments concerns the view that the poverty of many in the world today is a legacy of the activities of those in the wealthy countries this is, to say the least, arguable. Since poor governance in a developing country acts to forestall the countries growth independently of its relation to developed countries the promotion of means within the developing country to produce better internal governance has arguably more valence for its future development than would receipt of donations from developed countries. Fourthly, the imposition of global taxes in the absence of a central global authority ensures that the taxes in question are imposed on a group of citizens by their public authority for the benefit of some beyond the remit of that authority. To put that another way, citizens are taxed for the exclusive benefit of non-citizens, something not clearly part of the social contract.

The curious features of these taxes apply less to carbon taxes given the evident global effect of environmental policies and the detrimental effect on all of the pursuit of poor policy in these areas. Even here the question of redistribution raises some difficult questions since many poorer countries will have worse environmental records. So the arguments for global taxes have to be assessed as at present unproven though the activism in favour of them indicates a growing awareness of a need for an expansive sense of cosmopolitan right, a notion that has been signally important in Neo-Kantian IR theory as will be discussed in more detail in later postings.

Peace and the Civil Condition

Prior to setting out the definitive articles of perpetual peace Kant first provides a bridge towards them in the form of a short paragraph and appended footnote. This opens the second section of Perpetual Peace as the discussion of the division of the preliminary articles and footnote on permissive laws closed the first part.

In the paragraph Kant points out that a condition of peace is not a natural condition as the state of nature is rather characterised by a constant possibility of war. This is a central point as, on the basis of making it, Kant argues that peace is something that has to be established or, in other words, it is an institution. The basis of it is something more than mere cessation of hostility, as Kant opened the whole discussion of perpetual peace by saying. To assure peace is to take away the relation to another of being an actual or potential enemy. Hence peace is a condition in which others no longer possess this status but are rather, in some sense, fellows with oneself.

The implication of this point is again drawn out in the footnote where Kant argues that actual wrong does not have to befall me for it to be the case that I can rightly respond to someone with hostility. Or, at any rate, this is the case in the state of nature. In a state of civil law there does have to be some wrong done to me for the relation of hostility to be justified, but this is not so in the state of nature.The civil condition is one in which there is a superior power between myself and others and the existence of this superior power ensures I have assurance that I am safe from others, an assurance that is the basis for ceasing to view them as enemies. By contrast, in a state of nature, where such superior power does not exist then there is only a relation to others in a general sense of hostility. Due to this there is the basis for coercion towards the creation of a civil condition.

Now the key point that emerges at this stage of the argument is that there are 3 ways in which a civil constitution can be specified:

1) with regard to the citizens of a state. This is the usual sense meant and the predominant concern of political theory. It shapes all the initial discussion in the Doctrine of Right.

2) with regard to the right of nations, that is, states in relation to each other. This is the central basis of international right. So it follows from the discussion to this point that there are institutional conditions for a civil peace between states. This is a central point that shows the ground for concern with international affairs in Kant's political theory.

3) with regard to the citizens of the world. Here Kant includes both individuals and states together in a general condition of a "universal state of mankind" (Ak. 8: 349). This is what he also terms cosmopolitan right. So the difference between international right and cosmopolitan right is that the former concerns the relations between states and the establishment of peace in relation to them whilst cosmopolitan right, by distinction, concerns the relations of individuals on a world scale in addition to the relations between states. It follows from the fact that Kant admits of the notion of cosmopolitan right that not everything of significance internationally concerns the regulation of inter-state relations alone but that there is still a ground for concern for the fate of individuals. The inclusion of this notion also suggests however that, just as states stand in a state of nature relation to each other on Kant's account, so, individual members of distinct states are in this relation with regard to individual members of other states.

Iranian Solidarity

For all those interested in becoming aware of acts of solidarity in the UK with the protestors in Iran, check out this blog. Latest entry is from Alison Assiter whose guest contribution on a similar theme featured here last month.

Since Ahmadi is due to address the UN soon it is all the more important that acts of solidarity are carried out and that there continues to be witness to the injustice of the fraudulent "election" carried out there earlier this year, the same event that was discussed here in my initial posting.

Publicity and Corruption

In postings on publicity thus far I have focused mainly on examining the principles Kant sets out in Perpetual Peace and responding to the discussion of the question of publicity by Axel Gosseries. However, whilst these points are important, and there is much left yet to discuss in Kant's own works (including Perpetual Peace) there is also a broader discussion of publicity that raises some important questions of its own. I am referring to the way in which corruption is raised as a question that is connected to publicity.

Transparency International is a group that campaigns against corruption specifically and looking at how it addresses the question of what corruption consists in is very useful. They define corruption as "the misuse of entrusted power for private gain" and distinguish between two broad forms of corruption. The two forms are "according to rule" corruption and "against the rule" corruption. The former is where you have to, for example, pay a bribe for a service to which you are lawfully entitled, whereas the latter is where, by paying money, you receive something that you are not lawfully entitled to (from a state agency presumably). Since the general definition of corruption consists in using public resources for private purposes it follows that the basic nature of corruption consists in treating the area of public life as an extension of private (often kinship) networks.

So the real point of campaigning against corruption and taking it seriously is that corruption subverts the point of public authority as such. Corrupt behaviour is behaviour that sees law, authority and order through the prism of private interest and operates to deny the notion that there is such a thing as a public interest. As such, corrupt behaviour could be described as a quintessential form of political evil. To engage in it is to adopt a maxim that all interest is to be defined as private and that a network (usually familial) of associations deemed personally advantageous pre-empts any apparent public interest. The result of this is to weaken institutions that have a remit of concern for public interest with the general intention of replacing all such with private concern. Thus corruption is a basic form of rebellion against public order and public right.

After setting out reasons for seeing corruption as a basic political problem the question next arises as to whether publicity is, as a general condition, in direct opposition to corruption? In principle the answer is in the affirmative, unless it is the case that corruption has become so widespread that those who engage in corrupt behaviour become prepared to open and overtly announce this not merely as something they do but what ought to be done. Such a state is not inconceivable so we can see again the point of the distinction at the close of Perpetual Peace, of negative from affirmative principles of publicity. The affirmative principle is directly and explicitly in opposition to the adoption of corrupt maxims. As such, it frames a central orientation of public life. Hence the question that emerges from this concerns the relationship between the affirmative principle of publicity and the supreme principle of right which latter is described in the Doctrine of Right. This topic will be returned to in a future posting.

Permissive Laws

After setting out his somewhat unconvincing account of the division between the preliminary articles of perpetual peace Kant inserts a footnote that discusses at some length the basis of his claim that there can be such things as permissive laws. The specific focus of the note concerns the way in which the second preliminary article (concerning the right to acquire a state through inheritance, purchase or donation) has been mitigated in the division of the preliminary articles.

In discussing this question Kant first mentions the apparent paradox involved in the very idea of a permissive law. Laws generally involve practical necessity whilst the notion of a permission seems, by contrast, to involve practical contingency. So a permissive law appears contradictory as implying a necessity for some contingency. However Kant seeks to escape this consequence by speaking of the different ways "the object of the law" can be meant (Ak. 8: 347n). The prohibition involved in the law here is directed to the future. There can be future permission to acquire a right in the manner forbidden by the second preliminary article. By contrast, the permission is directed to the present state of possession. The reason for the present permission concerns the general transition from the state of nature to the civil condition. In the process of this transition occurring there is a possession held which, whilst not in accord with right, is still, as Kant puts it, "possession in good faith".

This "possession in good faith" is said to accord, not with right, but with a permissive law of natural right. This type of possession is still an odd one since Kant makes clear that once its cognition has occurred it would not be granted either in the state of nature or in the subsequent civil condition so its right to be granted is only in terms of transition between two states that would, in themselves, grant no ground to it. The fact that there is a transition between the state of nature and the civil condition in which there are in effect permissive laws that neither of the states in question would grant indicates a peculiarity about this intermediate state. Rather than seeking to justify this concept further Kant merely indicates that the notion of a permissive law has to be specified in the way given since the only other way is to state a law of prohibition and then build in exceptions to the law into the formula of the law itself, something he thinks would ensure that there were no universal laws but only general ones.

The other interesting point worth raising is why it is that Kant's discussion of permissive law contains no reference to the 3rd and 4th preliminary articles (concerning standing armies and the national debt) but only the 2nd (on inheritance). Given that the 3rd and 4th preliminary articles have been treated in the same permissive way as the 2nd one would have expected the reasoning for the idea of a permissive law to include some consideration of all of them and not merely one of the articles effected.

The Supreme Leader, Philosophy, and Social Science

Last week the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made remarks at Tehran University, that indicated a problem with the teaching of humanities and social sciences in Iran. "Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings" he is reported to have said, adding that he wanted a review of any subject that "promotes doubts and uncertainties". According to some reports he specifically singled out philosophy and sociology as subjects that he is particularly concerned about. Apparently around 2 million students are currently majoring in human sciences and Iran is, after all, a country where more than 60% of the population is under 30.

Since the Supreme Leader made his remarks the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies has been given the task by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council of revising the curriculum in the dangerous subjects with the head of the Institute, Hamid Reza Ayatollahi, indicating he would pursue this matter. One of the factors that may have prompted the original remarks - apart of course from the participation of students in demonstrations against the flawed election earlier this year - was likely the show trial of Said Hajjarian who, in his "confession", indicated he was "misled" by the works of Talcott Parsons, Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas.

It is hardly a new accusation against philosophy in particular that it "corrupts youth" and certainly it engages with "doubt and uncertainty" rather than simply trying to suppress it. Such engagement is, naturally, anathema to someone who, by contrast, promotes dogma, a term that evidently has a positive valuation for him. The idea of the office of the Supreme Leader promotes the view that someone has access to truth in an eminent way and that this access is precisely not open to "doubts and uncertainties". There can, when it comes to serious challenge to the authority of the Supreme Leader and his particular interpretation of sacred texts and divinely mandated laws, be no option other than to suppress dissent. After all, such dissent is, simply by definition, wrong!

This view is precisely the same as the one that condemned Socrates for promoting unbelief and which was the basis of a Royal decree in Prussia forbidding Kant from publishing on religion. Numerous similar episodes are familiar to us all (such as the expulsion of Spinoza from the Jewish community or the more recent fatwa against Salman Rushdie issued by - who else - Ayatollah Khomenei!). The struggle for free speech and the right to cast doubt on whatever we please has been a long one in the states of the West and one that should win the support of all those who think that teaching and thinking in a way that remains open to doubt is to be encouraged not suppressed. As Kant wrote, in words that remain as relevant today as when he published them in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781:

"Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit. Religion, through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from it. But they then awaken just suspicion, and cannot claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination." (A xi n)

It may well be that Max Weber, Jurgen Habermas, Talcott Parsons, and many others from the social and human sciences, in addition to philosophy, promote views that require searching questions that are often uncomfortable but such enquiry is the basis of a life worth living, not one that requires unconditional submission to self-selected leaders who apparently can read God's intentions in all matters from the growing of beards to the understanding of the relationship between desire, fantasy and action. Such leaders are supreme only in being ridiculous and scorn is all they deserve. Iran's future lies in being republican in the true sense, that which involves embrace of constitutions that meet the condition of a public will not private revelations.

Report on UK Kant Society Conference 2009

Having just returned from attending this event, held this year at Lancaster University, it struck me as worthwhile to do a posting on the major themes that emerged from it and to note some of the ways this seems significant in relation to contemporary Kantian philosophy. Before moving on to an account of these general points I should mention three factors that seriously impressed me. The first was the number and quality of graduate papers this year. As occurred earlier this year when I co-organized the annual conference of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, the graduate contributions were of very high quality. As with the BSHP, graduates who attended demonstrated that there are good grounds for hope with regard to the continuation of philosophical research of serious value.

The second factor was the surprisingly high number of US contributors this year. Like the first factor this is a welcome development, revealing as it does the increasingly international nature of philosophical work. The third factor was the larger number of women philosophers, a development, like the first two, promising a more creative future for philosophical research.

The conference theme this year was "Kant: morality and society" and the organizer, Garrath Williams, is to be commended for bringing together a wide range of papers on the theme in question, many of great interest. The three plenary papers were certainly very different in both approach and focus. The first, by Stephen Darwall, covered the question of an alleged "gap" in Kant's derivation of the formula of universal law, treating this gap as appearing in both the first and second parts of the Groundwork but presenting his own theory of the need for a "second-person" standpoint as indicating a way of amending the derivation so that it succeed. Somewhat surprisingly, given his theme, Darwall did not refer to earlier work on this question such as appears in the books of Bruce Aune and Samuel Kerstein. An additional problem with Darwall's treatment of the alleged "gap" is that it appears to rest on the presumption that such strange creatures as principled egoists and act consequentialists not only exist but, in existing, have to be committed to the view that others should adopt the same principles! Despite these problems the paper was a thoughtful contribution and certainly suggests reasons both for reading his new book on the second personal standpoint in more detail and treating it to a more extended response.

The second plenary paper was by Arthur Ripstein and concerned the theory, adopted by John Rawls from H.L.A. Hart, that we need to distinguish between laws/rules and their "benefits". This theory, whose remoter origin resides in utilitarian responses to "rule-fetishism" has an inherently de-bunking effect on the understanding of rules, and was opposed point by point by Ripstein to a Kantian theory. The interesting point about Ripstein's treatment of Kantian theory was that he reprised the central motifs of the account of "private right" in the Doctrine of Right and showed in the process that it was with regard particularly to these elements that the distinction between rules and their "benefits" was especially prominent. Ripstein's highly impressive paper brought out the need, by contrast to this theory, for Kantians to emphasize a view of rules that did not regard the "benefits" of them as something intrinsically separable from them. Ripstein has elsewhere extended his treatment of the Doctrine of Right and this account, like that of Darwall, bears much more extended investigation.

The final plenary speech, by Tamar Schapiro, contrasted markedly with the earlier two in being a more general paper that was less strictly focused directly on Kantian themes. Schapiro's paper concerned a distinction between two pictures of the relationship between passion and action. On one picture (argued to be shared by both empiricists and rationalists) the agent is viewed as unitary and passions and reasons treated as part of a continuum, not different in principle. As opposed to this, the other view, identified as Kantian, treats passions and reasons as different in kind and passions as generally adopted in the light of reasons. The effect of this second picture, Schapiro argued, was a bipartite, not a unitary, view of agency. Debate concerning this paper centred on arguments as to whether Kant is really committed to such a bipartite picture of agency with many claiming that this is not so though wishing to maintain the division between passions and reasons that Schapiro drew. The discussion subsequent to this paper was in many respects more engaging than the paper itself but also brought out clearly the questions posed for philosophy of action by Kantian practical philosophy.

The parallel sessions divided between those at which faculty members spoke and those devoted to graduate students. Topics discussed in them included Kant's view of suicide (taken to be unsustainable in itself but revealing of some key elements of his general view), the relationship of duties to humans and duties to animals, the relationship between Kantian ethics and aesthetics, the nature of Kantian respect, further reflections on the derivation of the formula of universal law, two papers on aspects of the doctrine of right, and, perhaps most impressively, a paper on provisional duty by Heather Roff. In the only paper specifically focused on the question of international right Roff demonstrated in detail both that all duties at this level are provisional and that the question of their provisionality raises important questions for Kant's whole Doctrine of Right. This paper was perhaps the single most inspiring one delivered at the conference and indicative of the centrality of the area of international right for the study of the whole of Kant's practical philosophy.

For domestic reasons I had to miss the final day of the conference and so this report is not complete. However, from the events I attended what becomes clear is a division between two general types of work being undertaken on Kantian practical philosophy. On the one hand are papers which are either highly general in feel (such as the plenary by Schapiro) or specifically focused on clarifying questions in Kant's critique of morality, especially as found in the Groundwork. The characteristics of these papers is that they are engaged in foundational questions, whether of moral philosophy, moral psychology or philosophy of action. On the other hand are papers either focused on the doctrine of right directly or on questions that require a concern with Kantian casuistry or with the implications of the general practical philosophy. The latter sort of papers are the sort that are more capable of speaking to other non-Kantian philosophers or to a broader public concerned with moral and political questions though the former kind remain significant in requiring us constantly to return to the basis of Kantian views.

Division of the Preliminary Articles

After detailing the 6th preliminary article and prior to moving to the 3 definitive articles Kant proposes a division of the preliminary articles. This division concerns the distinction between the "strict" articles that are required to be implemented at once and the ones that include latitude. Here I'll first mention the way the division demarcates the preliminary articles before reflecting on the principle by which the division is meant to be justified and whether Kant has applied it well.

The articles that are presented as "strict" and requiring immediate implementation are the first, the fifth and the sixth. The first is the one that most clearly related to principles of publicity ruling out secret reservations in the case of peace treaties. The 5th concerned the general rule of non-intervention in the constitution and government of other states and the 6th concerned dishonourable stratagems in times of war. The 6th article does relate to a publicity test though it is not primarily set out in terms of it whilst the 5th was found to be complicated both in including a mitigation and a mitigation of the mitigation.

The articles that would involve "latitude" in application and no necessary immediate action would be the second, third, and fourth, concerning the purchase of one state by another, the abolition of standing armies and the ruling out of national debt with regard to external affairs. The 3rd and 4th are the ones commonly thought to be out of date though I cast doubt on this assumption but the second on acquiring a state certainly could not be thought so.

The principle at work in Kant's distinction between the preliminary articles is between articles that require immediate implementation and ones that can be delayed though not indefinitely. The reason why delay can be given any room at all is not however clearly indicated with only one example treated as providing any reason at all. This is the example of the 2nd preliminary article on acquiring a state. Though such acquisition is not in accord with right there was a general public opinion which accepted it at the time says Kant. Even if this is correct it is unclear how it relates either to the article on standing armies or that on national debt. Further more, there is often support in public opinion for the use of the dishonourable stratagems of article 6 but this has not prevented Kant from placing these under the heading of "strict" articles.

It has to be said that this division of the articles is not handled in a way that either shows a serious ground for differential treatment of the specific requirements of the articles or why it is applied in the way it is. This account is perhaps one of the least satisfactory of the arguments in Perpetual Peace.