(Page 9 of 17) - Kant and Bentham on Publicity: Implications for Transparency and the Liberal Democratic Peace authored by Marquardt, James.

Marquardt, “Kant, Bentham, and International Relations”

gal claim, he declares, is “publicly knowable.”

Without this condition, there is neither

justice nor right nor peace. Kant does not exactly define what he means by publicness,
but he says that, with the use of reason, “it is very easy to judge whether or not it is
present in a particular instance.”

“All actions affecting the rights of other human beings

are wrong,” he asserts, “if their maxim is not compatible with their being made public.”

Unjust actions are actions that are undertaken in secret. Politics and morality are in har-
mony when right and publicity are compatible. Kant identifies three categories of unjust
actions. There is the action one does not declare openly because doing so, firstly, con-
flicts with the intentions behind it and, secondly, must be kept secret to succeed. Thirdly,
there is also the action that, if publicly known, would generate the opposition of others
because, in and of itself, it is unjust and poses a threat to others. The action is threatening
because the actor undertaking it does so with the intention of deceiving others because his
intention is to cause them harm. Because it is the obligation of humankind to advance a
condition of public right, Kant says publicity is a crucial instrument to escape the state of
nature and to achieve perpetual peace among nations.

As for international right, Kant considers several examples of maxims where there

is a tension between politics and morality and, therefore, state actions are unjust in rela-
tion to publicity. In each instance, he demonstrates that secrecy is linked with injustice.
First, Kant asks whether the ruler of a state can unburden himself from the promises he
makes to other states, such as aid and alliances, when his state’s welfare is generally un-
derstood to be at risk. Of course, issuing a declaration of this sort would evidently have
the effect of encouraging other states to be suspicious of and proceed cautiously in their
relations with this state. That publicity would be politically harmful to the state making
such a declaration reveals the injustice of this maxim. Second, Kant condemns declara-
tions of preventive and preemptive war. A maxim publicized by one state that opens the
way for it to attack another state simply because it fears the other’s formidable and
greater power is unjust. It would have the effect of encouraging the latter to launch its
own attack in anticipation of receiving an attack and, in turn, make the former all the
more determined to initiate an attack. “This maxim of political expediency,” Kant writes,
“if acknowledged publicly, necessarily defeats its own purpose and is consequently un-
just.”

Third, it is also unjust for a larger state to occupy a smaller state with the sole

purpose of improving its security situation relative to it. For such a policy to succeed, the
larger state would be compelled to keep it secret. “One can easily see that the larger state
must on no account let it be known that it has adopted such a maxim,” Kant writes, be-
cause a public declaration of this policy would compel the threatened state to undertake
measures to protect its own security, which in turn would complicate the ability of the
first state to invade and occupy the other state. Consequently, because “the plan would
be rendered impracticable if it were made public” it would be “an injustice of very great

Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 125.

Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 126.

Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 127.