“YOU KANT DO THAT!”: AN ARGUMENT THAT KANT’S PRINCIPLES FOR PEACE MANDATE A FULLY SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Abstract

This paper explores the work of Immanuel Kant in the context of the modern-day crisis of global climate change, to suggest principles that we should embrace as a global community to ensure a viable environment for future generations. Specifically, this paper focuses on three of Kant’s articles outlined in “Towards Perpetual Peace”, a treatise that proposes principles of conduct to ensure peaceable interactions between intrinsically opposed nations. In light of the certain trans-generational consequences of current climate inaction, this paper shifts the traditional geographical axis of Kant’s principles of coexistence, to examine their applications along a temporal axis. This method is paired with carefully researched evidence about the anticipated consequences of our present climate inaction to assert that we are not behaving peaceably towards future peoples. This paper concludes by suggesting three of Kant’s articles of peaceable conduct that can and should be embraced by the decision-makers of today to protect the autonomy and well-being of all future members of the social contract.