POL 3102 Lecture Notes - Perpetual Peace, Arms Race, Standing Army
11 Feb 2014
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Document Summary
In kant"s republic: people are the authors of the laws. These laws are what people, as being in rational beings, would recognize as being in their best interest. But his definition of this is very vague. Kant: if we"re really going to protect the freedom of citizens, we have to secure relations between states as well as relations between the people within the state. Most of the time, states are in the condition of war. Doesn"t mean they"re always fighting each other, but are always on alert and ready to fight each other. There is war if there is threat of the outbreak of war-we"re on war footing during that entire time. Perpetual peace is also to get rid of the threat of war, not just war itself: he thinks this is the crucial factor to securing freedom. There will be no security within a state if it is always on war footing.
