ABSTRACT
For Kant, as for Hobbes, the chief problem of human existence is the problem of war. But for Hobbes, seeking peace is the prudent thing to do — something necessary for the protection of life and other things that individuals value — and he thought that the problem would be solved well enough if people could manage to live at peace within states. The law of nature which enjoins us to seek peace does not require that we make peace universal. Kant, on the other hand, was convinced that as long as war or the threat of war exists, the security of citizens cannot be assured and civilised life is not truly possible. If things do not change, he says, how can we avoid the conclusion ‘that discord natural to our race, may not prepare for us a hell of evils, however civilised we may now be, by annihilating civilisation and all cultural progress through barbarous devastation’ (1784: 20)?
