Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace

Kant is widely acknowledged for his critique of theoretical reason, also for his universalistic ethics and maybe too for his theory of aesthetics. Yet the fact that he is also a preeminent philosopher of law and government is usually forgotten. But indeed four innovations that are still relevant today can be attributed to Kant:

1. He is the first, and to date the only, thinker to have elevated the concept of peace to the status of a foundational concept of philosophy.

2. He links this concept to the political innovation of his time, a republic devoted to human rights.

3. He expands this concept by a cosmopolitical perspective: the right of nations and cosmopolitan law.

4. And finally he democratizes Plato's notion of philosopher kings with a concept of ›kingly people‹.