Analysis Of Kant's Perpetual Peace

Conflicting ethics and unexpected guests

In his Perpetual Peace, Kant expounds upon the concept of cosmopolitical rights, founded on the right of visit belonging to every human being. The key factor here is the notion of hospitality: every individual has the right “not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another” . This perspective leads to a series of considerations.

The first consideration concerns the nature of hospitality. It is directed towards the foreigner, the 'other', who expresses his difference through his unexpected, unforeseen and chance presence. This presence carries uncertain consequences. If the other is not integrated according to the rule of inclusion, if he does not become 'one of us', he runs the risk of existing as a foreigner and hence, of being identified as an enemy . What emerges here is a process whereby, on the one hand, an apparatus is developed to remove the foreigner by labelling him an enemy and driving him beyond the frontier; and, on the other, a levelling tendency whose explicit aim is to erase foreignness and all its distinguishing features. Integration within the citizen body limits differences or even tends to erase them completely. Exclusion, by contrast, preserves the identification of the foreigner as the enemy and eventually leads to his expulsion.
The diversity embodied by the foreigner may translate into hostility, distrust, a desire to distance oneself, and hence, conflict. The possibility of this occurring can in no way be foreseen. What risks compromising the relation of hospitality even further is precisely the impossibility of providing any certain answers with regard to the behaviour and attitude of the foreigner who is being hosted, and hence the possible risks faced by the host