>>2888496Hegel also welcomed the conquest of Prussia by Napoleon because of the illusions of progress. If Hegel's life was immediately threatened, I doubt he would be so enthusiastic. As for Kant himself, he only published his Critique of Pure Reason when he was 57, and so lived a life of leisurely contemplation before then. His ultimate aims for the project of Perpetual Peace was the creation of a global government, such as the United Nations. Liberals in this time also concieved of free trade as a means of ensuring mutual interests, but free trade itself is mostly an imperial interest, so we return to hegemony.
On Kant's politics, I have discovered inconsistencies, where in "Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals" (1785) he sees the "moral law" as categorical imperative by practical reason, and so we are made free by the legislative act, presuming the legislative body above the executive branch (e.g. parliament above president). This has continuity in "Perpetual Peace" (1795) where a code of international law is suggested (which before this time there was only the "law of the seas" of Grotius, 1609). This really has precedence in Rousseau, such as in his "Discourse on Political Economy" (1755), where he says that the limit of positive law grants freedom henceforth, similar to Thomas Paine in "Common Sense" (1776), where he defines government as a "necessary evil", and thus a ground for freedom by its constitutive limit. We see in Coke's "Petition of Right" (1628) a cause for the "rule of law"; a sentiment carried on into Enlightenment. Yet, in Kant's other work "Principles of Political Right" (1791) we see that Kant views Sovereignty as the right of executiveship, reversing his apparent Republicanism by favour of monarchy over democracy. Kant's attitude to royalty was always inconsistent, offering praises to the Prince in his first edition of Critique of Pure Reason. He was an opportunist, as you imply. On Kant's class interests, we also see him philosophically justify an idea of intellectual property in his text "Of the Injustice of Counterfeiting Books" (1785). Copyright Law itself was an 18th century invention, with precedence of publishing rights limited in the case of the KJV Bible (1611), which is still in effect today. Kant makes note of the "profit" of unauthorised publishers being owed to authors, and so intertwines morality and mon
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