From: target@batstar.net
To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun, July 4, 2010 12:03 am
Subject: Re: [psysr-disc] brief article about Kant's plan for perpetual peace
Hi
Last fall I went to a public lecture at San Jose City College featuring one of the top leaders of the U.S. Institute for Peace. His advocacy maintained the flavor of "Kantian" arrangements in the negotiation of peace agendas. And it is true that that has become a common practice and from time to time has moved forward the cause of peace.
You write in
your article:Given Kant’s prominence and high esteem, and given the relentless catastrophes that war has given us, it is remarkable that there has been relatively little reference to his essay on peace. Some of his recommendations have come to pass, for example, the Geneva and Hague conventions on rules of war, the development of a League of Nations after World War I and a United Nations after World War II, and the development of world courts to adjudicate disputes between nations. However, the essay seems to have resulted in relatively little reaction.
However Kant's approach is based on the denial of relational behavior and the replacement of that with behavior ideals. Despite the contrary advocacy of Lawrence Kohlberg in moral psychology, his "ethical idealism" doesn't engage people's actual behavior very well.
In 1980 I helped out with a conference at U.C. Berkeley which is published under the title "Social Science as Moral Inquiry," edited by Haan, Bellah, Rabinow and Sullivan. I got to hear Habermas in person present on the ethical advocacy of Kant, which he affirmed. My own view is that there are important reasons for that "relatively little reaction" accounting. I think you might have, in your article, addressed the ethical side of the peace advocacy question, and the implications and ramifications thereof.
Andrew Phelps