James Tully says of Kant’s 'right of hospitality': "It gives Europeans the right to engage
in commerce with Aboriginal peoples and European nations the right to defend their traders if the
Aboriginal Peoples are so inhospitable to deny the right."
This could be a description of
Francisco de Vitoria's doctrine of hospitality and others' justifications for war in the New World.
Tully is wrong to attribute it to Kant. Kant is very clear there is only a right to attempt
engagement in commerce, and emphasizes that persons may "offer" to have commerce with
others.
Kant's right to attempt commerce is mistaken by Tully as a right to commerce. To back
up his claim that Kant so justifies European imperialism, Tully provides only one extensive quote
from Kant (my underscore):
'In this way distant parts of the worlds can establish with one another peaceful relations that will
eventually become matters of public law, and the human race can gradually be brought closer and
closer to a cosmopolitan constitution.'
Tully does not mention the immediately preceding sentence in Perpetual Peace:
But this natural right of hospitality, i.e. the right of strangers, does not extend beyond those
conditions which make it possible for them to attempt to enter into relations with the native
inhabitants. In this way...
The "in this way" clearly does not refer a cosmopolitan constitution coming about through a
forceful establishment of trade; a cosmopolitan constitution would come about by way of
attempts at intercourse, where some attempts may rightfully be rebuffed. The aim is a
cosmopolitan constitution (in a broad sense), not simply a cosmopolitan condition where there are
worldwide relations at the expense of relations of right.
The right to visit is not a right to have the offer accepted, but a right to make the attempt
without being treated with hostility. Nothing in this logic says that a visitor may be hostile
towards those who spurn their offer! (As I have noted, Kant explicitly says the opposite when
condemning European treatment of Native peoples.) In other words, an overture for Kant is not a
hostile act, but neither, it seems, is spurning an overture and refusing to associate with others.
64
Tully, Strange Multiplicity, p. 81.
65
Tully, Strange Multiplicity, p. 81, quoting Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey, trans.
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), pp. 118-19, underscore is my addition.
66
8:358 PP (Reiss, p. 106), underscore added.
19
Convention