Abstract

This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation thatcan be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams.The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealisticand outdated, and above all, as more of an activist’s manifesto than a serious contributionto either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes muchto an ambiguity of Addams’ criticisms of the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan defenseof peace as a political ideal, the ambiguity between practical-political and conceptual problems.However, Addam’s succeeds in identifying one profound problem for traditional,even enlightended institution-centered ideals of peace, the collapse of the very ideal incases of breaches of explicit peace-agreements among nations, because breaches of agreementsare tantamount to the loss of all commitment to the other nation’s rights. It reveals thatthe conditions imposed by such ideals are at most necessary, but not sufficient for peace,and hence that the concept based on them is not a complete concept of lasting peacefulconditions among humans. Once it is seen as dedicated to resolving the problems entailedby this fundamental problem, Addams’ work, and in particular her focus on resources ofsolidarity and right-granting practices beyond and outside explicit agreements betweengovernments can be understood as the development of a more adequate, coherent andcomprehensive, while also a more actionable conception of peace. In the course of thisdevelopment, Addams can also be observed to make use of crucial epistemological andmore technical philosophical tools that are most closely associated with classical pragmatism,but which partly appear (albeit largely obliquely in the course of their application toa particular case) for the first time Addams’ treatise. Addams’ work is therefore of morethan merely political activist interest for philosophers. Nonetheless, the article also explainsher status as an important contributor to proper conceptions of world peace and the understandingof certain phenomena in the organization of public will formation precisely bypointing out that without some of her future-oriented proposals, like the inseparability ofpeace-policies and development, or the need to institutionally protect and foster spontaneoussolidary action, the best contemporary work on peace would not have been possible.