The recent discussion on the uselessness, and hence unethical nature, of advocating the impossible sent me back to Immanuel Kant. All Kant did was think and write: in 1795 he decided to muse about how there could be an end to war. Kant was not one to accept “Do something!”; he would always try to figure out what would or might accomplish the desired result. Of course, being a philosopher, he left it to others to execute his plan for the betterment of humanity.

His essay “Toward Perpetual Peace” proposes structural and moral conditions necessary if war is going to be eliminated from civilization. Kant, not being deluded, did not believe peace natural to humanity, rather he argued that peace must be carefully constructed through a clear legal framework. His six Preliminary Articles (immediate steps to prevent conflict) and three Definitive Articles (the long-term foundations required for permanent peace) were the magic formula.

The Six Preliminary Articles (Immediate Steps)

These are immediate prohibitions of legal, financial, and military conditions that make future wars inevitable.

1. No flawed peace treaties. No treaty of peace is valid if it is signed with a secret reservation or loophole that could restart a war in the future. A treaty must represent a genuine end to hostilities, not just a temporary truce.

2. Don’t treat states like property: An independent state must never be acquired by another through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or gift, because a state is a society of human beings with its own right to self-determination.

3. No standing armies, because, Kant argued, keeping standing armies threatens neighboring states and ensures a never-ending arms race, making pre-emptive wars more likely.

4. Governments must not create national debts to fund military buildup or foreign intervention.

5. No forcible interference in other nations, because violating a nation’s sovereignty is an offense against the independence of all peoples.

6. “Dishonorable tactics” during war must be banned. Atrocities that destroy the underlying trust required for future peace.