The Ashgate Research Companion to Ethics and International Relations

Patrick Hayden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317043539
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

While skepticism about the role of moral considerations in international politics has been influential within the discipline of international relations (IR), those writing on topics such as war, peace, rights and trade up until the twentieth century took seriously the importance of ethical values and moral debates. The 1990s and 2000s have seen a substantial growth of attention to the ways in which IR conceives and analyzes themes of an ethical nature, and how issues, problems and policies involving ethics are addressed by a variety of actors within the international system. This indispensable research companion widens the perspective from 'ethics and international relations' to 'ethics in international relations', redressing the (mis)perception that ethical concepts, principles, norms and rules are not in part constitutive of the international system and the agents acting within that system. Necessarily cross-disciplinary, expertise is drawn from IR and also philosophy, political theory, religious studies, history and law, making this an ideal volume for any library reference collection.

PART I
ETHICAL TRADITIONS AND NORMATIVE PERSPECTIVES

1

The Origins of Realism Revisited

Gabriella Slomp

A tomato looks innocent, but it is not. It tastes like a vegetable, it is excellent in soups, its flavour is enhanced by olive oil and salt, and yet the tomato is – the experts tell us – a fruit, a cousin of the apple. Political realism looks innocent too. One wonders whether it is a fruit or a vegetable. Political theorists, like botanists, need to classify their crops. And like botanists, they look to genetics and evolution to provide answers to their questions of classification.

In textbooks and the works of specialists alike, we are presented with myriad definitions of realism: it is an ‘orientation’, a ‘tradition’, a ‘paradigm’, a ‘philosophical disposition’, an ‘attitude of mind’, a ‘framework’, an ‘approach’. For example, we read: ‘Realism is an approach to international relations that has emerged gradually through the work of a series of analysts who have situated themselves within, and thus delimited, a distinctive but still diverse style or tradition of analysis’ (Donnelly 2000, 6).

Although there is no consensus on how exactly one ought to classify political realism, there is nevertheless widespread agreement on two points: political realism has a certain origin and it incorporates specific key ideas. Unlike the tomato, which hails from Latin America, political realism is of European origin: we find it in the works of Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. Moreover, the body of ideas for which realism stands has been described thus:

Almost everyone in the field is able to identify the central tenets that are associated with realism, which typically include the following claims: that the sovereign state is the most important actor in international politics; that state behaviour can be explained rationally; that states are unitary actors; that there is a sharp distinction between domestic and international politics; that states pursue power in an anarchical self-help setting; and that the issues of war and peace are paramount (Schmidt 2002, 9).

In this chapter, we shall focus on the origins of realism with the overall aim of shedding light on its essence. This will be carried out in three steps. Firstly, we shall investigate what realists make of the works by Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes, and we shall support the camp of interpreters who emphasize the selective nature of the realists’ reading of classical texts. Secondly, we shall contend that much of what realists overlook in the discourses of Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes is relevant and arguably even central to arriving at a correct understanding of the theories of these classical writers. It will be suggested that realists have no genuine historical or analytical interest in the ‘real’ Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes. Thirdly, we shall reflect on the trend for ideologies in the twentieth century to appropriate the Machiavellian or Hobbesian ‘brand’ – and hence make claim to an illustrious progenitor – and yet show scarce interest in the complex and challenging theories of these writers. We shall conclude that from the point of view of a political theorist, realism is very much like a tomato: a fruit that pretends to be a vegetable, a colourful ideology that presents itself as a neutral approach or a scientific paradigm.

I

Thucydides is generally considered to be the earliest and most notable expression of political realism in Western political thought. From Martin Wight to R.G. Gilpin, the History of the Peloponnesian War is regarded as one of the most powerful accounts of the systematic use of force to achieve political ends: ‘One of the supreme books on power politics is the history by Thucydides of the great war between Athens and Sparta’ (Wight 2004, 24). Michael Doyle voices the opinion of many when he claims that ‘Thucydides belongs to the Realists. They belong to him’ (1997, 91).

Among the passages of the History that have particularly attracted the attention of realists, the Melian Dialogue stands out. The Melians were a colony from Sparta that refused to follow the other islanders in joining the Athenian enterprise; rather, they had remained neutral at first and had then become open enemies of Athens. During the speech to the Melian governing body, the Athenian representatives advocated the time-honoured view that justice depends on equality of power and that among parties that are unequal, the strong does what he can and the weak endures what he must.

Another dialogue in the History that arguably lends itself to a realist interpretation is the oration to the Corinthians by the Athenian ambassadors in the early stages of the Peloponnesian war. The Athenians are reported by Thucydides to have justified their expansionist policy thus: ‘We were forced to advance our dominion to what it is, out of the nature of the thing itself; as chiefly for fear, next for honour, and lastly for profit’ (Hobbes 1843, 81).1

The Athenian ambassadors imputed Athens’ behaviour to the very essence of human nature, thereby suggesting that there is no need to excuse it: ‘So that, though overcome by three the greatest things, honour, fear and profit … we have therein done nothing to be wondered at besides the manner of men’ (ibid., 82).

These three motives for action – fear, prestige and profit – are central to Thucydides’ narration. Fear in particular plays a crucial role in the History: fear is motivated by uncertainty, results in diffidence, brings about anticipation and affects human deliberation. In the few passages where Thucydides reveals his own point of view, he suggests that the war arose chiefly because of the fear by the Lacedaemonians of Athens’ increasing power and desire to rule: ‘The causes why they broke the same [league], and their quarrels, I have therefore set down first … the truest quarrel. Though least in speech, I conceive to be the growth of the Athenian power; which putting the Lacedaemonians into fear necessitated the war’ (ibid., 27).

Throughout the narration it is suggested that the havoc of war destruction is bound to be repeated throughout human history with no possibility of salvation. The History conveys the impression that one of the reasons for being pessimistic about the future is people’s incredible optimism. During the Mytilenean debate, for example, Diodotus puts forward an argument that recurs in the History, namely that people and cities are guided in their actions more by hope for success than by fear of failure; he argues that deterrents such as capital punishment do not work as human beings hope to achieve their objectives with impunity; in his words: ‘encouraged by hope, men hazard themselves … They have it by nature, both men and cities, to commit offences; nor is there any law that can prevent it’ (ibid., 311, emphasis added). To sum up, various features of realism can be found in Thucydides’ work: his analysis of the conflict between expediency and ethics, his pessimistic view of human nature, his interpretation of political motivations and behaviour leading to conflict and war, and his investigation into the notion of self-interest and power all adhere to realism’s central tenets.

Michael Doyle defines Thucydides’ position as ‘complex realism’ and recognizes in it the seeds from which different species of realism will grow. Indeed, according to Doyle, the rejection of the ‘unity thesis’ of realism is consistent with the defence of the ‘continuity thesis’ according to which ‘realism does hark back to Thucydides’ (1997, 50). Jack Donnelly, however, is among those interpreters who harbour reservations about the extent of Thucydides’ realism. Donnelly insists rather forcibly that it is not the whole of Thucydides’ History but ‘the Melian Dialogue [that] is an important touchstone in the realist tradition’ (2000, 24). Donnelly stresses that although the Melian Dialogue provides ‘perhaps the best known, and certainly one of the strongest, statements of realist amoralism’ (ibid., 167), the argument for justice introduced by the Melians constitutes an important thread in Thucydides’ narration. Donnelly concludes: ‘Justice is rarely triumphant in Thucydides’ History. It is however regularly present, relevant, and even important’ (ibid., 170).

Although we have shown above that realism in the History is not at all confined to the Melian Dialogue, Jack Donnelly’s problems with the realist interpretation of Thucydides’ stand on justice seem reasonable. In the last twenty years, a number of interpreters have emphasized that ‘Thucydides is not for every theorist of international relations an unremitting Realist’ (Boucher 1998, 67) and denounced the privileging of certain hand-picked aspects of the History by realists. Although in Thucydides’ narration there are indeed reflections or claims that are consistent with a realist standpoint, there are also important discourses that do not conform to the realist approach and that seriously undermine the ‘continuity thesis’ that grounds realism in Thucydides’ History. One could go even further and argue that although the Athenians emerge as enthusiastic supporters of power politics, the verdict of Thucydides’ History is, in fact, that the realist approach to politics cost the Athenians their empire, their wealth and their domestic stability. This hardly amounts to an endorsement.

II

Niccolò Machiavelli is also regarded as having made an important contribution to the development of the realist creed. Machiavelli is the father of ‘fundamental realism’ for Michael Doyle (1997), a voice of ‘empirical realism’ for David Boucher (1998), one of the six realist paradigms for Jack Donnelly (2000), and an inspiration for Realpolitik according to Howard Williams (1992). In Doyle’s words:

Machiavelli’s realism rests causally and directly – fundamentally – on the individual leader, citizen, or subject and his or her ambitions, fears, and interests. … [Machiavelli] takes what was one element in Thucydides’ view of interstate politics and distils from it a practical guide to the behaviour of new princes and the leaders of expansionist republics (1997, 93–4).

The Prince, The Discourses on the First Decade of Livy and The Art of War are regarded as important contributions to the development of political realism. Many themes that one finds in Thucydides are developed by Machiavelli: a negative notion of human nature, the importance of power and self-interest, the conflicting claims of conventional morality and expediency, and the battle of necessity and chance in human affairs.

Friedrich Meinecke’s classic work arguably offers one of the most stimulating readings of Machiavelli. For Meinecke, Machiavelli’s ‘whole political way of thought is nothing else but a continual process of thinking about raison d’état’ (1957, 29). Even if the expression itself did not exist, as Meinecke points out, the concept did and Machiavelli made a tremendous contribution to its development.

The realist feature of Machiavelli’s thinking is aptly captured by the following quotation from The Prince that summarizes many of his views on politics:

But my hope is to write a book that will be useful … and so I thought it sensible to go straight to a discussion of how things are in real life and not waste time with a discussion of an imaginary world. For many authors have constructed imaginary republics and principalities that have never existed in practice and never could; for the gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has taught how to destroy himself, not how to preserve himself. For anyone who wants to act the part of a good man in all circumstances will bring about his own ruin, for those he has to deal with will not all be good. So it is necessary for a ruler, if he wants to hold on to power, to learn how not to be good, and to know when it is and when it is not necessary to use this knowledge (1995, 48).

Realist values are not confined to The Prince. In the Discourses we read:

This counsel merits the attention of, and ought to be observed by, every citizen who has to give advice to his country. For when the safety of one’s country wholly depends on the decision to be taken, no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice, to kindness or cruelty, or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious. On the contrary, every other consideration being set aside, that alternative should be wholeheartedly adopted which will save the life and preserve the freedom of one’s country (1970, 515).

There is a multiplicity of reasons that explains Machiavelli’s classification as an early realist: he was not interested in what people ought to do but in what people actually do, he did not see politics as the pursuit of the good life but as the attempt to achieve and retain power, he had a pessimistic view of human nature, he considered power and security to be fundamental concerns, and he subordinated all other considerations to political success. Indeed, for Machiavelli, the pursuit and protection of political power justifies the use of all means. As Meinecke explains:

Enemies learn to use each other’s weapons. Virtù has the task of forcing back fortuna. Fortuna is malicious, so virtù must also be malicious, when there is no other way open. This expresses quite plainly the real spiritual origin of Machiavellism: the infamous doctrine that, in national behaviour, even unclean methods are justified, when it is a question of winning or of keeping the power which is necessary for the State (1957, 36).

In The Prince, Machiavelli focuses on historical examples of rulers or statesmen such as Cesare Borgia, Maximilian and Pope Julius II. He emphasizes the differing abilities of these leaders to cope with good and bad luck; he reflects on the ill effects of procrastination in politics, on the need for prudence in careful balance with a willingness to take risks, on the importance of self-confidence and being prepared to be ruthless and disliked when required, on the relevance of appearances, and on the impossibility of a government resting on force alone. In The Prince, Machiavelli comes to the conclusion that the rarest of qualities – but also the one that is most crucial to making a leader successful – is the ability to adapt in the face of changing historical circumstances.

In the Discourses, Machiavelli again stresses the paramount importance of being flexible when confronted with variable and unfamiliar events, problems and conditions: the mixed constitution of Rome meant to ensure this degree of adaptability to changing sociopolitical landscapes. This flexibility is explained and discussed throughout Machiavelli’s writings by means of three related concepts: virtù, fortuna and necessità. As Meinecke has pointed out: ‘virtù, fortuna and necessità are three words which keep on sounding again and again throughout his writings with a kind of brazen ring’ (ibid., 37).

Although many reflections related to these concepts have a realist flavour, some do not. Indeed it is here – at this crucial juncture of his political thought, the complex relationship of virtù, fortuna and necessità – that Machiavelli shows the non-realist aspects of his theory and the reasons why legions of interpreters have associated his name with humanism and even idealism. Meinecke, for example, sees in Machiavelli’s theory of virtù a ‘striking mixture of pessimism and idealism’ (ibid., 33); he points out that over time, ‘the ethical aim of statecraft’, his ‘ancient heathen idealism of the State’ were no longer understood by his readers; all they understood was ‘the ancient heathen realism of his statecraft’ (ibid., 45).

In the first half of the twentieth century, we have philosophers such as Benedetto Croce who claimed that Machiavelli was a humanist crucified between the conflicting claims of ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’; in the second half of the century, Quentin Skinner argued forcibly that Machiavelli is an exponent of classical republicanism and the supporter of a specific notion of freedom. Even among interpreters of international political thought there seems to be consensus that Machiavelli ‘was indeed a much more complex thinker than Realist interpretations generally allow’ (Boucher 1998, 91). According to Donnelly, for example, ‘Machiavelli, like Thucydides, insists on the relevance, even centrality, of considerations of justice, decency and the common good’ (2000, 174): ‘Machiavelli simply does not prefer or recommend an amoral politics of power and interest’ (ibid., 177).

III

At the high table of the founding fathers of realism, a special place is usually reserved for Thomas Hobbes. Unlike Thucydides who was a general and Machiavelli who was a diplomat, Thomas Hobbes was a tutor and not a man of action. Hobbes’s life was touched only slightly by international affairs. From the biographical notes written by one of his contemporaries, we know that on 5 April 1588 Thomas’s ‘mother fell in labour with him upon the fright of the invasion of the Spaniards’ (Aubrey 1982, 150); indeed Hobbes used to joke about his mother giving birth to twins, himself and fear. He was well aware of European politics because as tutor to the Earl of Devonshire he travelled extensively in Europe; we know from his correspondence that he had sometime to interrupt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I ETHICAL TRADITIONS AND NORMATIVE PERSPECTIVES
• PART II THE ETHICS OF WAR AND PEACE
• PART III THE ETHICS AND POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS
• PART IV DIMENSIONS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
• PART V THE ETHICS OF A GLOBAL SOCIETY
• Index