Political Philosophy Now

Kant’s Critique of Hobbes:

Sovereignty and Cosmopolitanism

Howard Williams

‘ . . . an excellent introduction to the main principles of Kant's own political philosophy . . . The book is clearly written, the arguments eminently accessible and the text well documented . . . The appearance of the work is timely: the increase of terrorism as a political weapon on a world wide scale may well shift the focus of political philosophy from the defence of the liberal agenda as found in the works of John Rawls to threats to our security. A shift from Locke and Kant to Hobbes. All the more reason why we should be reminded of what is at stake when the terrorist threatens our security and if and when methods used to defeat the terrorist such as the use of pre-emptive strikes against the terrorist threatens our civil liberties.’ D. O. Thomas www.gwales.com

‘Williams’ short book offers an extremely readable, carefully conceived, and often insightful comparative analysis of Hobbes’s and Kant’s political thought. The book should be especially welcome to those who are new to Kant’s political writings . . . ’ History of Political Thought

‘Howard Williams’s clear and analytically acute comparison of Kant and Hobbes forcefully brings home the affinities and disaffinities between these seminal contributions to the liberal tradition. Williams lays out impressively both Kant’s self-conscious debt to Hobbes, and his crucial, if sometimes subtle, disagreements with him. The volume has the added strength of situating Kant in his larger political milieu, with a view more to clarifying his argument than to ‘contextualizing ’ it historically.’ Political Theory

‘ . . . Williams’ book is both accessible and well-written. It has the merit of introducing us to two political philosophies from the standpoint of their different conceptions of human nature. In the process his monograph has significantly enriched our understanding of both.’ Philosophy in Review

In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes lays out the theoretical basis of the Westphalian Order – dominant in European politics from the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 until the end of WWII – in which sovereign and absolutist national states compete against each other for power and influence. In opposition to Hobbes, Immanuel Kant develops a theory of cosmopolitan right in which state sovereignty is matched with a gradually developing world federation of free states. Similarly, Kant opposes Hobbes’s in egotistic moral theory with a moral theory which is based on the self and the community.

Kant’s Critique of Hobbes is a unique systematic study of the relationship between the two thinkers. In it, Howard Williams demonstrates the viable alternative to Hobbes’ orthodoxy that can be found in Kant’s political writings. Looking closely at the main concepts that are in contention in Kant’s relationship with Hobbes – freedom, equality and independence – the book sheds new light on ideas that lie at the foundations of contemporary political order. Williams shows also how Kant helps anticipate the development of a world-wide political system and suggests that through Kant’s political philosophy, the sovereignty of the individual state and cosmopolitanism (world-citizenship) can be brought into agreement.

Howard Williams holds a personal chair in Political Theory in the department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and is the general editor of the Political Philosophy Now series. He is the author of many books and articles, including Kant’s Political Philosophy (1983), Concepts of Ideology (1988), International Relations and the Limits of Political Theory (1996) and Francis Fukuyama and the End of History (with D. Sullivan and G. Matthews, 1997).