The Development of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

In his 1784 essay ‘Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective’, Kant advocates the establishment of a worldwide federation of states. He writes that a ‘cosmopolitan condition’, which such a global federative body would create, is required for the security and stability of its member states. The security and stability of states, in turn, is required in order to facilitate the complete development of human predispositions for the use of reason, which Kant suggests is the final end of human history. The ideal of an international federation of states returns many times in Kant’s later writings, for instance