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Kant, Immanuel

"The Science Of Right"

It is therefore a system of those laws that are requisite for
a people as a multitude of men forming a nation, or for a number of
nations, in their relations to each other. Men and nations, on account
of their mutual influence on one another, require a juridical
constitution uniting them under one will, in order that they may
participate in what is right. This relation of the individuals of a
nation to each other constitutes the civil union in the social
state; and, viewed as a whole in relation to its constituent
members, it forms the political state (civitas).
1. The state, as constituted by the common interest of all to live
in a juridical union, is called, in view of its form, the commonwealth
or the republic in the wider sense of the term (res publica latius sic
dicta). The principles of right in this sphere thus constitute the
first department of public right as the right of the state (jus
civitatis) or national right. 2. The state, again, viewed in
relation to other peoples, is called a power (potentia), whence arises
the idea of potentates. Viewed in relation to the supposed
hereditary unity of the people composing it, the state constitutes a
nation (gens). Under the general conception of public right, in
addition to the right of the individual state, there thus arises
another department of right, constituting the right of nations (jus
gentium) or international right.


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