Cosmopolitical Rights

Standing up for our Cosmopolitical Rights

By John Taylor; 2006 June 20

In yesterday's essay, "Facing Cosmopolitical Reality" we looked from several angles at "cosmopolitics," literally, "universe politics," a word Kant used to describe the political order that will come about under a permanent peace pact, as opposed to the warring, partisan politics that are the mark of a truce -- a truce is only a cessation of hostilities in order to rest and make yet more preparations for further, endless war. Only a permanent pact is worthy of the name "peace," and its cosmopolitics would be a wholly different animal from the violent struggle we call politics. Baha'is, we noted, are cosmopolitically involved but disengaged politically.

Kant was directly inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and we briefly looked over the latter's understanding of law. Law, he said, is a human attempt to implement universal justice by assuming a state of total equality among all members. Acts performed under the rule of law are of a different moral order because all are acting on all for the sake of divine justice. Kant called this jus cosmopoliticum, or cosmopolitical right; from this primal right are derived freedom, equality, and all other human rights.

The nature of law requires that a moral agent take a first step to make law universal, that is, by making peace universal. Otherwise, as Rousseau had pointed out, those who obey the law are gulled by the lawless, those who disobey. If a few can evade paying taxes, those who do pay are made into fools, unnecessarily shackling themselves by submitting to authority. It is all or none -- none, total removal from law was called at the time the "state of nature." The same moral imperative that requires taking the first step to peace reciprocally requires of others that they not rebuff such initiatives. Here is how Kant puts it, continuing where we left off yesterday in the concluding pages of Kant's Science of Right.

"... the morally practical reason utters within us its irrevocable veto: There shall be no war. So there ought to be no war, neither between me and you in the condition of nature, nor between us as members of states which, although internally in a condition of law, are still externally in their relation to each other in a condition of lawlessness; for this is not the way by which any one should prosecute his right."

The big problem, then as now, is that the Cosmopoliticum does not exist, nor is there any evidence that it can ever be practicable. Peacemakers are demoralized and Realpolitik seems much more realistic. What moral authority can a non-existent order exert over inhabitants of the real world?

"Hence the question no longer is as to whether perpetual peace is a real thing or not a real thing, or as to whether we may not be deceiving ourselves when we adopt the former alternative, but we must act on the supposition of its being real. We must work for what may perhaps not be realized, and establish that constitution which yet seems best adapted to bring it about (mayhap republicanism in all states, together and separately)."

It takes faith, a leap of imagination, to start what has never existed before, but it is also our prime moral duty. For a writer, drawing up and perfecting the "constitution" Kant mentions is the most important conceivable work. Kant's later essay "Perpetual Peace" was intended, I believe, as the first draft of a constitution for any future United Nations. I went over it a few years ago, and I plan to go over it again soon. There is nothing more important to do.

Let us step back for a moment. What we are talking about here is what is prophesied in the prayer, "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." The seventh beatitude says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." A son of God may strive for justice and know that peace is the font of law, but how to raise a world foundering in violence to a high and mighty, far-off kingdom of heaven? Where God is unknown, who cares whose son you are, we are? Somehow the kingdom, the cosmopoliticum, must be modeled, portrayed, and yet God is by definition the reverse of what can be imaged, He is Spirit. We will never see Him, any more than our eyes will ever see themselves. Consider this conversation in a play of the Bard,

Brutus: "No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things."

Cassius: "Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear: and since you know you cannot see yourself so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself that of yourself which you yet know not of."

We know and imagine peace by seeing our own son-ship of God reflected in ourselves and each other. But maintaining that vision over a lifetime is impossible without an exemplar, a Perfect Son who said, "Look at me, follow me, be as I am," and who underwent such terrible persecution over a long lifetime. In Him we see the plenitude of reason played out. That is why I think `Abdu'l-Baha, our Exemplar, is of such tremendous importance. He offers an example of how to end violence and war by taking the first steps to peace, for example with His Tablets of the Divine Plan, and by His forgiveness and longsuffering in the face of the persecution of Himself and His followers in Iran, violence that is still going on. Let me close with three quotes from Baha'u'llah on this theme.

"On their tongue the mention of God hath become an empty name; in their midst His holy Word a dead letter. Such is the sway of their desires, that the lamp of conscience and reason hath been quenched in their hearts..." (Kitab-i-Iqan, 29)

"It was against God that they unsheathed the swords of malice and hatred, and yet they perceive it not. Methinks they remain dead and buried in the tombs of their selfish desires, though the breeze of God hath blown over all regions." (Baha'u'llah, Summons, 50)

"They all lie as dead within their own shrouds, save those who have believed and repaired unto God, who rejoice in this day in His celestial paradise, and who tread the path of His good-pleasure." (Baha'u'llah, Gems of Divine Mysteries, p. 20)

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John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com