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Kant, Immanuel

"The Science Of Right"


This is therefore a right which comes in as an accessory (in
subsidium) of another original right, in order to prevent the
nations from falling from right and lapsing into the state of actual
war with each other. It thus issues in the idea of a foedus
amphictyonum.
55. Right of Going to War as related to the
Subjects of the State.
We have then to consider, in the first place, the original right
of free states to go to war with each other as being still in a
state of nature, but as exercising this right in order to establish
some condition of society approaching the juridical And, first of all,
the question arises as to what right the state has in relation to
its own subjects, to use them in order to make war against other
states, to employ their property and even their lives for this
purpose, or at least to expose them to hazard and danger; and all this
in such a way that it does not depend upon their own personal
judgement whether they will march into the field of war or not, but
the supreme command of the sovereign claims to settle and dispose of
them thus.
This right appears capable of being easily established. It may be
grounded upon the right which every one has to do with what is his own
as he will. Whatever one has made substantially for himself, he
holds as his incontestable property.


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