Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right. Georg Cavallar
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has the reputation of being a champion of religious tolerance. The frequently quoted classical statements are that ‘[r]eligions must all be tolerated’ and ‘[a]ll religions are equal and good, if only those people who profess them are honest people; and if Turks and heathens came and wanted to populate the country, we would build them mosques and churches’.38 Frederick’s religious tolerance stems from his indifference (or hostility) towards religion in general and towards sects and churches in particular. In the Political Testaments, he expressed his contempt for all religions as based on ‘incomprehensible systems of fables’, on ‘prejudices and errors’.39 Frederick rarely referred to the Enlightenment argument that the sovereign has no rightful power over the thinking and conscience of the citizens. The main argument was again pragmatic and utilitarian: religious tolerance was in the interest of the state. Frederick did not want to lose tax-paying subjects who would leave the country if they were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Above all, Frederick feared that they might emigrate to the territories of his enemies, particularly the Habsburgs, support their economy and add to their military strength. Hence prudence dictated that the king was ‘neutral between Rome and Geneva’ and that religious feelings were respected.40 Frederick did not care what his subjects were thinking about religious topics. What really mattered was that they ‘populated the country’ and behaved ‘as good citizens and patriots’.41
Kant supported Frederick’s separation of state and churches. The sole interest of the state in matters of religion should be in the teaching of religious instructors. The government may oblige them to provide for ‘useful citizens, good soldiers, and in general loyal subjects’ (VII, 60). All other religious affairs were none of its business. Like Frederick, Kant favoured religious tolerance, but his justification was different. Kant distinguished between a juridical and ethical commonwealth (VI, 95–6). Rooted in the principle of moral autonomy, morality and religion cannot and should not be enforced. The executive branch is entitled to enforce legality in external actions, but the citizen’s moral disposition is left alone. ‘That I should make it my maxim to act in accordance with right is a requirement laid down for me by ethics’ (VI, 231, 8–9).42 Again, Kant’s argument was, unlike Frederick’s, moral rather than pragmatic.
Because of Frederick’s church–state policy and religious tolerance, Kant called his age ‘the century of Frederick’. The Prussian king is the ‘liberator’ of humankind:
A prince who does not regard it as beneath him to say that he considers it his duty, in religious matters, not to prescribe anything to his people, but to allow them complete freedom … is himself enlightened. He deserves to be praised … as the man who first liberated humankind from immaturity (as far as government is concerned), and who left all human beings free to use their own reason in all matters of conscience (VIII, 40).
Frederick’s Prussia has been characterized as a state ‘owned’ by its army. Were legal freedom and Enlightenment only possible because Prussia was in a sense a military state? Many representatives of the Enlightenment answered in the negative. Johann Georg Schlosser, for instance, claimed: ‘Wherever there are standing armies, lasting freedom of the citizens is impossible.’43 Particularly after the War of American Independence, German intellectuals argued in favour of a militia, with citizens willing to defend their country. Kant agreed in principle that standing armies should be abolished in favour of an army composed of ordinary citizens (see VIII, 345). However, he did not believe that standing armies necessarily undermined political freedom. Quite to the contrary, Kant held that contemporary events in Prussia contradicted this theory. For Kant, Frederick’s rule was an example of how ‘a well-disciplined and numerous army’ may ‘guarantee public security’, the precondition of the Enlightenment process (VIII, 41, 24f.). Frederick’s army was indeed numerous. The Soldatenkönig Frederick William I had built up an army of 83,000. After 1740, the Prussian army encompassed 100,000 soldiers, and in 1786 around 200,000.44 In the Political Testament of 1752, Frederick advised his successor to choose military studies as the main subject and to be ready for war all the time. Since Prussia was surrounded by powerful neighbours, its military should be number one in the state.45
Kant was caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, he repeatedly deplored the fact that rulers wasted money on building up armies instead of financing education and the sciences. ‘[T]he state … (as Büsching laments) has no money left over to pay qualified teachers who will carry out their duties with enthusiasm, since it needs it all for war’ (VII, 93, 1–3; VIII, 28, 15–18; XXVII, 470). Financial support for education, particularly for schools in the countryside, remained indeed marginal. Frederick had no interest in educating the masses. He thought that ‘a little reading and writing’ was sufficient, and it prevented young people in the countryside from becoming ambitious.46
On the other hand, Kant admitted that, at least in Prussia, this deplorable situation had positive results. In his later historical writings, Kant attempted to explain the paradox with the concept of a heterogeneity of ends and the work of nature or providence in history. Frederick, who built an army to conquer provinces and wage war, unintentionally made it possible for philosophers to write essays on republicanism and perpetual peace, and to criticize this very policy. Kant was struck by the paradox that ‘a lesser degree of civil freedom gives intellectual freedom enough room to expand to its fullest extent’ (VIII, 41, 31–2), whereas a high degree of civil freedom seems to block intellectual freedom. Prussia was not a land of complete political or civil freedom, but the intellectuals enjoyed a considerable amount of ‘freedom of the pen’. This freedom rested on Frederick’s firm grasp on domestic policy, which emphasized a strong army. Kant did not idealize Prussia as a land of political freedom. Rather he saw it as an oppressive country that simply could afford, because it was so oppressive, to grant freedom in certain, limited areas. The British traveller John Moore commented on Prussia: ‘A government, supported by an army of 180,000 men, may safely disregard the criticisms of a few speculative politicians, and the pen of the satirist.’47
Kant distinguished between ‘public’ and ‘private’ uses of reason. People who are entrusted with civil posts or offices must obey as employees of the government. As persons of learning (Gelehrte) and members of ‘cosmopolitan society’, they are entitled to use their reason freely, ‘addressing the entire reading public’ (VIII, 37). Here Kant actually followed a distinction drawn by Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz, head of the geistliches Departement (responsible for church matters and education) and subsequently minister of justice. In two cases, Zedlitz had ruled that the clergy should enjoy freedom of speech in articles designed for the reading public, but should take responsibility as representatives of their respective churches.48 Kant was familiar with these cases; the second involved Johann Heinrich Schulz in 1783. Kant probably alluded to these events when he wrote that Frederick allowed ‘ecclesiastical dignitaries … in their capacity as scholars’ to express their opinions ‘freely and publicly’ (VIII, 40, 36–41, 2). Kant’s distinction between public and private use of reason is not only normative but also at the same time descriptive. As a consequence, it is quite difficult to distinguish between normative elements (which belong to the a priori theory), descriptive ones (based on recent experience), and those that serve as a link and mediate between the two.
In part, Kant’s essay on the Enlightenment was a document of the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between the autocratic ruler and the Enlightenment philosophers. Frederick allowed intellectual freedom, which he considered, together with Kant, as ‘innocuous’. The philosophers, for their part, accepted the command that their writings should be abstract general reflections. Some – Kant was apparently one of them – might have hoped they would eventually undermine the political system itself.49
Domestic policy IV: limits of Frederick’s domestic policy
One goal of Frederick’s policy was to preserve the Prussian aristocracy; middle-class people should have no opportunity to acquire the property of the nobility.50 The aristocracy was an indispensable reservoir for army officers that Frederick needed for his military campaigns. In this respect, Frederick was deeply conservative and wanted to preserve the old social order, again for pragmatic reasons. Like many other Enlightenment