Kant’s theory of the state has invited numerous interpretations of the foundation and limits of state power, both in internal and external affairs. These texts focus primarily on Kant’s prohibition of revolution, the theory of passive citizenship and the limits of individual freedom, the democratic peace theorem and the Kantian just war theory. Vaha’s book incorporates all the elements and theories mentioned above to facilitate her Kant-inspired argument that all states, regardless of their inner constitution, have moral standing and thus are not only duty-holders but also right-bearers. It presents a novel approach to the topic of state theory in Kant scholarship and is, therefore, worth serious consideration. Moreover, the reader gains a refreshing view of Kant’s political philosophy and is also introduced into the debate on the moral standing of the state in the theory of international relations.
As Vaha outlines in the introduction, the question of the state’s moral standing and moral agency has been raised within the discipline of international relations since the 1990s amid humanitarian catastrophes, whose perpetrators were often sovereign states. The internationally acknowledged principle of non-interference has been put to trial as failing to protect the rights of individuals in the face of human rights violations. This debate focused on the moral (along with legal) agency of sovereign states and their moral responsibility while denying them moral standing along with certain inviolable rights, often connected to the idea of a state’s sovereignty over its population. Vaha’s approach in the book is to examine this issue through the Kantian theoretical model, which she accesses through Kant’s concept of a state as a moral person. She considers Kant especially useful for this debate since Kantian philosophy entails both an ideal and an empirical concept of a state. Vaha outlines her argument in six chapters while also applying her interpretation of Kant’s theory of the moral standing of a state to current issues in international relations.
The first chapter presents the problem of conceptualizing the moral standing of the state based on various conditions. Vaha understands moral standing as the quality of the state which deems it a bearer of rights that are not reducible to the rights of individuals within such a state. She contrasts the theories that endorse the moral standing of states (e.g. Walzer Reference Walzer and Beitz1985) with the accounts advocating only for states’ moral agency and so acknowledge states’ duties without attributing to them any inviolable rights (e.g. Erskine Reference Erskine2008). Further, Vaha presents the account of Walzer as an example of a pluralist standpoint, which attributes moral standing to a state regardless of its political constitution and the liberal rights of its members. The sole criterion of such attribution is the ‘common life’ the state provides for its members. Another anti-pluralist account discussed is Rawls’ The Laws of Peoples. Vaha sheds critical light on both Rawls and Erskine while referring to the latter’s Embedded Cosmopolitanism. She rightly notices that pluralist accounts are often unable to properly deal with the potential conflict between individual rights (of citizens) and the state’s moral standing. Nonetheless, she also criticizes the anti-pluralist accounts for calling for the moral agency of the state without acknowledging its moral standing and accompanying inalienable rights. The proposed solution (unravelled in the following chapters) is a Kantian conception of the moral standing of the state.
In the second chapter, Vaha turns to Kant’s theory of the state as a moral person. She claims that this ‘metaethical theory’ conceptualizes a state not as a collective agent but rather as a person with both moral duties and moral standing. The feature which distinguishes Kant’s conception is the notion of the ‘state in idea’. The ideal expressed in this concept determines the moral personality of the state, which according to Vaha is not very different from the moral personality of human beings. Even though none of the existing states truly fulfil Kant’s ideal, this concept enables them to have legal and ethical duties and legal and ethical rights. Therefore, the moral personality of the state in this interpretation signifies more than just the agency and accountability of states – it is combined with practical (moral) freedom, which Kant attributes to every moral person. Vaha’s account transgresses the previous interpretations of Kant’s theory of the moral personality of the state presented by Byrd (Reference Byrd, Sharon Byrd and Hruschka2006) and Flikschuh (Reference Flikschuh2010).
After the general presentation of Kant’s theory of the state, in the third chapter Vaha discusses Kant’s cosmopolitanism in connection with the problem of the moral standing of the state. She finds it crucial to address the tensions between state autonomy and individual freedom as well as between various levels of public law (constitutional, international and cosmopolitan) in Kant’s political philosophy. Vaha argues that Kant’s assertion of the moral standing of every state (not only republics) is backed by the prohibition of rebellion in constitutional law and the prohibition of intervention in international law. By insisting on the importance of the first two levels of Kant’s public law (and, respectively, the first and second definitive articles from the treatise Toward Perpetual Peace), Vaha unveils the weakness of the prevailing cosmopolitan reading of Kant’s political philosophy in Kantian literature. Further, she argues that the moral personality of the state is indeed the cornerstone of this part of Kant’s thought and that this quality gives Kant remarkable contemporary relevance in the discipline of international relations.
The last element of Vaha’s exegesis and critical assessment of Kant’s work concerning the problem of the moral standing of the state is the discussion of international law understood as the legal relations between states as moral persons. Chapter 4 begins with analysing the analogy between suicide and state dissolution presented as the failure to fulfil the perfect duty of self-preservation. Against Byrd, Vaha argues that this analogy is not informative. The right of every state to exist cannot be understood in abstraction from the existence of its people. The dissolution of a state can put an end to its legal order, but nothing prevents it from being resurrected in a new constitution. Following Kant’s example of society on a remote island, which could dissolve with the full consent of all its members, Vaha stresses the importance of the contractual origin of a state within Kant’s philosophy. Nonetheless, the states, in general, have the duty to preserve and foster their existence as well as a corresponding, inalienable right to exist free of external intervention, as argued in the previous chapter. This legal status and moral standing, Vaha argues, determines the form of Kant’s theory of war, which stresses the right to self-defence and prohibits the destruction of any state, even in the case of an ‘unjust enemy’ (where the intervention may be possible, but must never equal total annihilation). Moreover, Kant’s discussion of the laws of war does not see him presenting a justification of war itself, but rather the legal boundaries within which war does not exclude the possibility of peace (pp. 84–5). Other laws presented in Kant’s theory of international relations include imperfect duties to assist and foster peace and a perfect duty to enter a commonwealth of nations (league of nations). Indeed, as stressed by Vaha, both the League of Nations and the United Nations Organization are very much inspired by Kant’s peace proposal and the rationale behind his understanding of the states as moral persons (pp. 87ff.).
In the fifth chapter, Vaha turns from analysing Kant’s principles to investigating the political practice in intra- and international relations. She refers to the well-known debate between realism and liberalism in the early days of the emerging discipline of international relations and juxtaposes liberal pluralists to liberal anti-pluralists within the latter theoretical current. She also addresses and refers to Doyle’s rediscovery of Kant’s liberal peace theorem (Doyle Reference Doyle1983). While insisting on the moral standing of every state, no matter how ‘rogue’ it is from the perspective of an outsider, Vaha recognizes and addresses the challenge posed to her theory by Kant’s concept of an ‘unjust enemy’. Further, presented on the canvas of the articles from Toward Perpetual Peace, Vaha explains Kant’s vision of the history of humanity and the role of morality in political practice. She concludes that, without taking into account the assumption of possible progress, one cannot truly exclude some states on the basis of their non-ideal constitution. Moreover, genuinely moral political practice requires the engagement of political prudence in the application of moral principles.
The final chapter addresses a relatively new issue of international politics, namely, disappearing states. Climate change affects many different areas of the world, but the burden is disproportionately distributed so that the most impact is suffered by less wealthy countries. Many Pacific island states are faced with the perspective of their territory either being significantly reduced by the rising waters or completely disappearing. The latter phenomenon, inconceivable in Kant’s times, is the subject of Vaha’s investigation. She asks about the extent and nature of duties that other countries have with regard to the disappearing states. While looking for solutions to preserving a state that was stripped of its entire land, she considers the possibility of conceptualizing two states sharing a territory. While a duty of a host country to assist and share its territory remains imperfect, which means that there is no corresponding right on the side of the hosted country, this is for Vaha the only chance to preserve the state’s existence without violating the rights of other states. What needs to be underlined in this context is that the conception of the moral standing of every state, even if it does not provide ideal solutions, actually makes it possible to recognize the crucial problem of disappearing states in the first place. Namely, it is not only the population of the sinking islands that need to find a new home, but also the moral person of the state which united these people should not be left to perish.
As for the argumentative value of Vaha’s interpretation of Kant, there is only one issue that may obscure the understanding of her aims. While reconstructing Kant’s theory of the state, the author never defines the clear border between a legitimate state and a political entity that ceased to be one (e.g. anarchy or a barbaric state), even though Vaha is clearly familiar with Kant’s discussions of this issue in Anthropology and the Doctrine of Right. Maybe this is just the consequence of the liberal-pluralist standpoint represented in the book; nevertheless, I believe that Kant would not want to attribute moral personality to a state which does not rest on public laws and on the idea of the united will of the people (e.g. a state which is ruled by decrees of a sovereign who understands himself as the owner of it). More clarity on this topic would be welcome. In any case, Vaha brings many topics from Kant’s political philosophy to bear in support of her claim on the moral standing of states, so I do not consider this remark as pointing to some fatal flaw.
The book by Vaha is a remarkable contribution to the literature on the Kant-inspired accounts of contemporary problems in global politics. Its main merit is the precision with which the author isolates the main question and thesis, unfolds the argumentation based on a rigorous reading of Kant’s texts and finally demonstrates the topicality of her analysis of current global problems. Moreover, one of the book’s greatest assets is the interdisciplinary approach – while mining interpretative resources from Kant and Kantian scholars, the author addresses her book to international relations theorists and engages in the debate with their traditions. This enables the book to be of importance not only for Kantian scholarship but also for the discipline of international relations.
