The Moral Standing of the State in International Politics
A Kantian Account
Description:... 1) The book provides the reader an in-depth analysis of Kant’s theory of moral personality of the state. In doing so the book expands both the Kantian scholarship in IR and IR’s debates on moral agency of the state.
2) The book provides an account of moral agency with moral standing, therefore contributing to the philosophical debate whether or not the state can be considered an actor with moral standing. It therefore challenges accounts according to which moral standing can only be contributed to individual human beings. The book aims to prove that while different from the moral standing of individuals, the state has one. This does not need to mean, however, that the state has to be unnecessarily anthropomorphised or individuals overstepped (as critics of moral standing of the state argue). It simply means that, to this respect, states can and should be treated as separate agents from individuals constituting them in order to understand the claims of their moral agency we make.
3) The book provides a more statist reading of Kant’s international politics, therefore challenging some more cosmopolitan approaches to his work predominant in the field of International Relations. It helps the reader to understand how the account of moral personality of the state may explain these realist, statist features of Kant’s politics.
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