Kant and Perpetual Peace

It is inconceivable that Kant was not affected by knowledge of the American and French revolutions, though the Terror in the latter had degenerated into "despotism of the people" (4), which Kant deplores. The full effect of Napoleon's career was not yet felt. By 1818, when Frankenstein was published, Napoleon was in exile, but the Europe he had tried and failed to conquer had been successfully and permanently changed.

The ideal governance structure Kant posits marks civilization off from a hopelessly savage natural state, though he also cites the "inhospitable actions of the civilized and especially of the commercial states of our part of the world" (7) toward the "savages" of Africa and the Americas. In other words, his hopeful cosmopolitan vision is qualified by knowledge of how supposedly civilized nations have historically behaved.

Shelley's Frankenstein both authorizes and undercuts Kant's cosmopolitan ideal because the narrative and characterization a

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"a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated notion." Kant continues: It is a supplement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, indispensable for the maintenance of the public human rights and hence also of perpetual peace. One cannot flatter oneself into believing one can approach this peace except under the condition outlined here (Kant 8). Reason applied to nature will guarantee the success of Kant's world federation. Conflict between nations is organized so that "they must compel themselves to submit to coercive laws" (Kant). Even a state that might secretly want to invade another refrains from doing so to protect its reputation and because other states are allied with it: "nations which could not have secured themselves against violence and war by means of the law of world citizenship unite because of mutual interest. . . . In this manner nature guarantees perpetual peace by the mechanism of human passions" (Kant; emphasis added). In Frankenstein, emphasis is on the disconnect between vision and enactment. Robert Walton's letters express grandiose dreams of exploration and glory as if he were searching not for undiscovered country but for the Holy Grail: "I have often attributed my attachm
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1210
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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