REALISM

HUMAN NATURE

“Universal moral principles CANNOT be applied to the actions of states.”
(Morgenthau, 1954: 9)

“The process of government is a PRACTICAL exercise and NOT a moral one.”
(Kennan, 1954: 48)

Thompson (1985: 20):
“the limitations which the sordid and selfish aspects of human nature place on the conduct of diplomacy”

Morgenthau (1970: 63):
"Man cannot achieve justice for reasons that are inherent in his nature."

THE REASONS ARE THREE:

• Man is too ignorant.
• Man is too selfish.
• Man is too poor.

"Men are motivated by other desires than the urge for power and that power is not the only aspect of international relations." (Spykman, 1942: 7)

Kenneth Thompson:
"Every man has an insatiable quest for justice."

"To do justice and to receive it is an elemental aspiration of man."
(Morgenthau, 1970)

"The law of the jungle still prevails"
(Schuman, 1941: 9)

International society is a society without central authority to preserve law and order, and without an official agency to protect its members in the enjoyment of their rights.

In international society, all forms of coercion are permissible, including wars of destruction.

The struggle for power is identical with the struggle for survival.

Pursuit of power
is the primary objective of any state.

According to Robert Art and Kenneth Waltz:

"States in anarchy cannot afford to be moral."

THE AUTONOMY OF POLITICS

Morgenthau:
"Politics is an autonomous sphere of thought of action." (1962a: 3)
that has a
"realist defense of the autonomy of the political sphere against its subversion by other modes of thought" (1954: 12)

raison d'etat
n. \re-zōⁿ-dā-tä\
"reason of state"

Communitarian philosophy explains that:
person's individuality is the product of community relationships, rather than a product derived only from personal traits

Statesman is not allowed to:

"offer the same sacrifice on behalf of all his fellow-citizens, or to impose such as self-abnegation on the rest of his society."
(Herbert Butterfield, 1953: 11)

REALIST CONCEPTION

Morgenthau:
"There is one moral code which is something objective that is to be discovered."

Realists:
"Moral values appropriate to individual relations cannot be applied to the activities of states."

THUCYDIDES

Athenians:

… if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid…

Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness, and the cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition.

Justice is rare in Thucydides' history but for him,
it is still relevant.

EFFECTUAL TRUTH

Machiavelli:
"It is necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good and to use this and not use it according to necessity."

One must USE evil,
NOT TO BECOME an evil.

Machiavelli:

The prince must not
"depart from good,
WHEN POSSIBLE"

"To use fraud in action is detestable..."

BUT SOMETIMES,
it is
"praiseworthy and glorious"

Consequentialism says that right or wrong depends on the consequences of an act, and that the more good consequences are produced, the better the act.

Deontological ethics (duty-based ethics) judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules.

Three ideal types of consequentialism:

• Egoist
• Cosmopolitan
• Nationalist

Machiavelli:
For a leader to maintain his state, a prince need only look after the interests of the people.
"For when men are well governed, they do not go about looking for further liberty."

Deontological principle:

Making people not feel too oppressed, is seen as
"good done for the wrong reasons".

According to Machiavelli:
A few must suffer for the sake of the many.

A liberal prince would sacrifice many for the few because he is too merciful to "allow disorders to continue".

HONOR, GLORY,

Machiavelli uses virtu to refer to both “Christian” moral virtues, and to a set of more particularistic “classical” virtues centered on honor.

In Christian virtu:
“One cannot call it virtue to kill one’s citizens, betray ones friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion.”

Machiavelli criticizes Christianity because, by refusing to interpret religion “in terms of virtù,”
it has “made the world weak”

“Those who by their crimes come to be princes.”
Agathocles of Syracuse –(Machiavelli’s “The Prince”)

Agathocles, Machiavelli argues, was able to
"acquire empire, but not glory”.

One who successfully demonstrates arete is worthy of, even entitled to, honor (time), praise (epainos), and reputation (doxa).
Failure to live up to the demands of arete brings shame (aischron), a reduction in socially perceived worth.

REALIST AMORALISM?

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” – Niebuhr

“We cannot ultimately find a resting place in pure realism.”
- E.H. Carr

Morgenthau claims:
“I have always maintained that the actions of states are subject to universal moral principles.”

Thucydides and Machiavelli (and Carr and Herz) treat the evil in human nature, the dangers of anarchic international relations, and the necessities of power and interest as problems and a challenge.

Morgenthau, by contrast, takes evil, anarchy, and power politics as facts of nature, and the final theoretical word.

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