Essay | What would Immanuel Kant say about Russia, the threat of nuclear war and conference travel?

“Action so that you always use people as an end in themselves, not only as a means to an end,” wrote Immanuel Kant. This is a moral instruction called a categorical imperative.

Let’s think for a moment about Immanuel Kant and the threat of nuclear war. The world is closer to nuclear war than perhaps ever before. By blackmailing with nuclear weapons, you get pieces of neighboring countries, such as Russia. Or immunity and eternal monopoly, like the Kims of North Korea.

Don’t think that nuclear war means disappearing into nothingness. Ahead would be fear, burning, radiation sickness and famine – years of suffering that would destroy the majority of humanity. For this reason alone, those left behind would be a completely different race from us.

Mankind is very numb to the threat of nuclear war. There is no need to fear a nuclear war, even if there is a reason.

Finns have also made their choice, and we fall under NATO’s nuclear umbrella. At the same time, we have become the front line of a nuclear war. If the conflict between Russia and the West escalates into a major war, this city of Helsinki, my only home, will be destroyed in the first minute of the war.

Some hope that nuclear weapons will not be used, because the use of nuclear weapons also means the destruction of the aggressor. But do they affect, for example Vladimir Putin and his inner circle so reasonable? These are squinty-eyed ideologues who care about their citizens, maybe even their own lives. There are similar leaders elsewhere, perhaps soon again in our ally, the United States.

And what about the damage? Nuclear war has often come close to breaking out due to erroneous observations and assessments. You only need to make a mistake once.

Immanuel Kant spent his life in Königsberg, Germany, which is now Kaliningrad, Russia. In April, Kant’s 300th anniversary symposium was organized there, in which the former chairman of the Greens and a researcher participated Tarja Cronberg.

Cronberg examines the threat of nuclear war. He thinks that the Russians should be contacted in order to understand the threat of nuclear war. But Finnish journalists found out that since Cronberg traveled to Russia for a conference, he “took Putin’s bait”, “walked into a Russian mine” and was exploited “as a propaganda tool”. University of Eastern Finland cancelled hastily intends to award Cronberg an honorary doctorate.

A similar crime – conference trip to Russia – by the way, another retiree, climate change researcher emeritus professor, had also done it Lassi Heininen. The University of Lapland washed its hands of him with the announcement.

What Immanuel Kant would say about Russia, the threat of nuclear war and conference travel?

Perhaps he would point out that the perception of the scientific symposium as a “Russian mine” is a value judgment that does not a priori can tell nothing about reality but only about the values ​​attached to the perception of reality. In order to know whether the participants of the symposium are acting “according to Putin’s playbook”, one should know whether they are acting out of necessity or free will, Kant would say. He would point out that such motivations may not be entirely separable.

Researchers are strange people in that they are primarily interested in the object of their research, not politics. I have been to conferences a lot, dozens of times also in Russia. I once met a researcher who was an ardent supporter of Putin.

Putin’s regime is terrible, and a threat to the whole world. I can understand that the Russian universities, which have had to show support for Putin and the war he started in Ukraine, are being cut off from many kinds of cooperation. But what about individual researchers? Or scientific thoughts, contacts?

You can’t just turn them off like that, because consciousness can’t be turned off like a bedside lamp. Like art or culture, science is an autonomous system. It is not subordinate to state power. An expert in peace research or climate change remains an expert, even if the country’s leader is the devil himself.

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Russia is not Vladimir Putin.

Researchers are more citizens of the international scientific world than of a specific country, and that is exactly what gives hope for the future of humanity. Nor the Kaliningrad Kant Symposium program did not resemble Putin’s foreign policy program. The conference had sections for epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics – as well as Kant’s influence in religious philosophy and modern art.

However, science journalism is tricky. The interesting program of the Kant symposium has only been picked up in the Finnish media: a stereotypical greeting sent by Vladimir Putin. At the opening of the conference, it was read by a bored-looking deputy prime minister, and then the national anthem was played.

Putin does not write these greetings, he hardly even knows about them. The 4,000 employees of the presidential administration send Putin’s greetings to a wide variety of crackers, it’s the country’s custom.

Afternoon papers present daily “Putin’s secret plans” covering all areas of life. But other countries also practice foreign policy through science and culture policy, for example.

Exchange student activity or spreading English-language entertainment to Europe was once US foreign policy, “soft influence”. Did the tens of thousands of Finns who spent an exchange student year in the United States enter Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan mine? Are viewers who are moved by movies made in Hollywood part of a “crooked CIA plan”?

Or would it be the case that even though it is about politics, there are other sides to the matter at the same time. It’s also about cultural exchange, experience, people’s communication.

Individuals, both Russians and Finns make their choices, according to Kant’s words, “in a world of free will”, which is limited by politics, time, money and the body, but where there is always some room in the end. The categorical imperative reminds us of this. If the individual person and his situation are not remembered, brainless judging begins, for example valuing people according to which country they are from. Or according to what the country’s leader represents.

It’s stupid to remind you of this, but now you have to: Russia is not Vladimir Putin. Russia is 150 million different people, different world view and different experience of reality. I have researched scientific questions, backpacked, gotten drunk and kissed with Russians. I have experienced all this without having to think about Putin at all.

Russia is feared because it is “totalitarian”: state power is not chosen in elections, and all areas of life are wanted under state control. But what about this Finland, would we take care of its pluralism as well? I think the idea that science, people-to-people meetings and seniors’ travel to conferences should also be evaluated from the perspective of the country’s foreign policy doctrine is also a bit totalitarian.

“Whoever talks about virtue alone is corrupt”, writes Immanuel Kant. If we rush to demand the same attitude from everyone about something, be it foreign policy, economic growth or intersectional feminism, we have stepped onto the path of corruption. Anyone who sees in a person only an attitude towards current political issues has slipped to where the categorical imperative warns. There, man is seen as a tool, and at the same time, he loses his human dignity.

In reality people are very similar across all borders. We are also threatened by the same things, such as nuclear war, climate change and bad leaders.

I hate to say it, but if me and my children die in a nuclear disaster, I will no longer have the comfort of being on the right side.

The author is a linguist and a free thinker.