Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-52873-5_10
M. Wight
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Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0020
M. Wight
In this essay Wight considered several sources of legitimacy for a modern Western society. A well-functioning state bureaucracy is a necessity. Popular consultation involving the consent of the governed is also essential. In Britain elective parliamentary democracy meets this need. Citizens must agree on the principle of respecting current laws pending their revision through legal channels. A new authoritative source of legitimacy may replace an old one if citizens transfer their loyalty to it. Time may either heal the injured and legitimate the results of social conflicts or exacerbate antagonisms. Communist regimes and right-wing autocrats such as General Franco in Spain and the Shah of Iran appealed to a principle of ‘legitimation by success’. Other legitimation myths have included ‘childhood ideas of Robin Hood’, ‘the siege’, and ‘the pilgrimage’, but the most fundamental source of legitimacy resides in the blood shed for a society’s independence and the rebirth of its great founding principles. This bloodshed justifies the society’s rededication to pursuing its unfinished work. An opposing question concerns the individual dissenter’s political legitimacy, which must hinge on certain criteria (such as rationality and conscientiousness) to win moral respect. The ‘rationalist illusion’ supposes that citizens can be critical spectators in the proceedings of their own society and its politics. Such detachment is not attainable, and derives from the fallacy that political life can be reduced to the conscious and purposeful management of material needs.
在这篇文章中，怀特考虑了现代西方社会合法性的几个来源。一个运转良好的国家官僚机构是必要的。征得被统治者同意的民众协商也是必不可少的。在英国，议会选举民主正好满足了这一需求。在现行法律通过法律途径修改之前，公民必须同意尊重现行法律的原则。一个新的权威的合法性来源可能会取代旧的，如果公民转移他们的忠诚。时间可以治愈创伤，使社会冲突的结果合法化，也可以加剧对立。共产主义政权和右翼独裁者，如西班牙的佛朗哥将军和伊朗的沙阿(Shah of Iran)，都呼吁“通过成功实现合法化”的原则。其他关于合法性的神话包括“罗宾汉童年的想法”、“围攻”和“朝圣”，但合法性最基本的来源在于为一个社会的独立和其伟大的创始原则的重生而流血。这次流血事件证明了该协会重新致力于完成其未完成的工作是正当的。另一个相反的问题涉及到个别持不同政见者的政治合法性，这必须取决于某些标准(如理性和尽责性)，以赢得道德尊重。“理性主义幻觉”假设公民可以在他们自己的社会及其政治进程中成为批判性的旁观者。这种超然是不可能实现的，它源于一种谬论，即政治生活可以简化为对物质需求的有意识和有目的的管理。
{"title":"What Confers Political Legitimacy in a Modern Society?","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0020","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay Wight considered several sources of legitimacy for a modern Western society. A well-functioning state bureaucracy is a necessity. Popular consultation involving the consent of the governed is also essential. In Britain elective parliamentary democracy meets this need. Citizens must agree on the principle of respecting current laws pending their revision through legal channels. A new authoritative source of legitimacy may replace an old one if citizens transfer their loyalty to it. Time may either heal the injured and legitimate the results of social conflicts or exacerbate antagonisms. Communist regimes and right-wing autocrats such as General Franco in Spain and the Shah of Iran appealed to a principle of ‘legitimation by success’. Other legitimation myths have included ‘childhood ideas of Robin Hood’, ‘the siege’, and ‘the pilgrimage’, but the most fundamental source of legitimacy resides in the blood shed for a society’s independence and the rebirth of its great founding principles. This bloodshed justifies the society’s rededication to pursuing its unfinished work. An opposing question concerns the individual dissenter’s political legitimacy, which must hinge on certain criteria (such as rationality and conscientiousness) to win moral respect. The ‘rationalist illusion’ supposes that citizens can be critical spectators in the proceedings of their own society and its politics. Such detachment is not attainable, and derives from the fallacy that political life can be reduced to the conscious and purposeful management of material needs.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"174 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122951464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0017
M. Wight
In this essay, presented at a Sussex history seminar in 1971, Wight set out reflections on international legitimacy—supported by historical examples—in addition to those included in his two essays entitled ‘International Legitimacy’, one published as an article in 1972 in the journal International Relations, and the other as a chapter in his 1977 posthumous book Systems of States. Wight pointed out in this essay that governments on some occasions have set aside established principles of legitimacy in order to serve other purposes—maintaining a preferred balance of power, gaining territory, promoting commercial relations, or pursuing state-consolidation, sometimes with a ‘lack of scruple’. Wight observed that rules regarding legitimacy have furnished grounds ‘for argument, controversy, conflict, even war’. He nonetheless concluded that ‘the influence of principles of legitimacy upon international politics has generally been overestimated’ and ‘has declined rather than grown, with the transition from the dynastic to the popular age’. Prevailing concepts of legality and legitimacy have correspondingly enjoyed less ‘moral ascendancy’.
{"title":"Reflections on International Legitimacy","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0017","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, presented at a Sussex history seminar in 1971, Wight set out reflections on international legitimacy—supported by historical examples—in addition to those included in his two essays entitled ‘International Legitimacy’, one published as an article in 1972 in the journal International Relations, and the other as a chapter in his 1977 posthumous book Systems of States. Wight pointed out in this essay that governments on some occasions have set aside established principles of legitimacy in order to serve other purposes—maintaining a preferred balance of power, gaining territory, promoting commercial relations, or pursuing state-consolidation, sometimes with a ‘lack of scruple’. Wight observed that rules regarding legitimacy have furnished grounds ‘for argument, controversy, conflict, even war’. He nonetheless concluded that ‘the influence of principles of legitimacy upon international politics has generally been overestimated’ and ‘has declined rather than grown, with the transition from the dynastic to the popular age’. Prevailing concepts of legality and legitimacy have correspondingly enjoyed less ‘moral ascendancy’.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129885478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0004
M. Wight
This essay presents the three main traditions of thinking about international relations in Western societies since the sixteenth century, with particular attention to the ‘middle ground’ between extremes. These extremes are typified by thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes at one pole, and Kant and Wilson at the other. The via media is associated with the development of constitutional government and the rule of law, as represented by thinkers such as Grotius and Gladstone. The essay illustrates the differences among these three traditions by analysing their distinct positions concerning international society, the maintenance of order, intervention, and international morality. ‘Western values’ are most effectively supported by thinkers and leaders who neither deny the existence of international society nor exaggerate its foreseeable prospects for gaining greater cohesion and strength. The middle course—the mainstream of the ‘Western values’ tradition—respects moral standards and sees moral challenges as complex, instead of regarding them as simple or nonexistent.
{"title":"Western Values in International Relations","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This essay presents the three main traditions of thinking about international relations in Western societies since the sixteenth century, with particular attention to the ‘middle ground’ between extremes. These extremes are typified by thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes at one pole, and Kant and Wilson at the other. The via media is associated with the development of constitutional government and the rule of law, as represented by thinkers such as Grotius and Gladstone. The essay illustrates the differences among these three traditions by analysing their distinct positions concerning international society, the maintenance of order, intervention, and international morality. ‘Western values’ are most effectively supported by thinkers and leaders who neither deny the existence of international society nor exaggerate its foreseeable prospects for gaining greater cohesion and strength. The middle course—the mainstream of the ‘Western values’ tradition—respects moral standards and sees moral challenges as complex, instead of regarding them as simple or nonexistent.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130959520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0006
M. Wight
Wight drafted this note in a further effort to elucidate key points about his analysis of the three main traditions of thinking about international relations in Western societies since the sixteenth century (Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism). First, he acknowledged that there have been causative factors other than ideas, such as pursuing power and status, meeting security requirements, and serving economic interests. The historical record suggests, however, that the philosophical views of influential decision-makers in the face of perceived necessity have coloured their policies and actions. Second, the argument that new technologies such as nuclear weapons and space rockets have made traditional themes of political philosophy obsolete is a ‘dehumanizing’ proposition; it overlooks the fact that human beings have devised these new capabilities and applied them to the pursuit of human priorities. Third, there may be a ‘preselected’ relevance of the three traditions: Kantian ideals may be most suited to private and personal affairs; Grotian philosophical principles may be most useful in the domestic politics of constitutional states; and Machiavellian approaches may be required in international politics.
{"title":"Machiavellian Temptations: Methodological Warning","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Wight drafted this note in a further effort to elucidate key points about his analysis of the three main traditions of thinking about international relations in Western societies since the sixteenth century (Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism). First, he acknowledged that there have been causative factors other than ideas, such as pursuing power and status, meeting security requirements, and serving economic interests. The historical record suggests, however, that the philosophical views of influential decision-makers in the face of perceived necessity have coloured their policies and actions. Second, the argument that new technologies such as nuclear weapons and space rockets have made traditional themes of political philosophy obsolete is a ‘dehumanizing’ proposition; it overlooks the fact that human beings have devised these new capabilities and applied them to the pursuit of human priorities. Third, there may be a ‘preselected’ relevance of the three traditions: Kantian ideals may be most suited to private and personal affairs; Grotian philosophical principles may be most useful in the domestic politics of constitutional states; and Machiavellian approaches may be required in international politics.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"90 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123534863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0026
M. Wight
Meinecke’s student and friend, Richard Sterling, composed this intellectual biography concerning Meinecke’s political ideas. Born in 1862, Meinecke was raised to venerate Hegel, Ranke, and Bismarck as pillars of the German State and conservative nationalism. Wight summed up Meinecke’s political evolution as follows: ‘In the first World War he justified the ultimatum to Serbia and the invasion of Belgium, he approved of unrestricted submarine warfare, and he explained to the minority peoples of the Central Powers that though the nation-state had been the proper goal for the Germans, it was their duty to remain content with the multi-national state. The shock of defeat started him on an assiduous criticism of his old beliefs. The moral autonomy of the State, the primacy of foreign policy, international relations as the fruitful competition of vigorously egotistic Powers, all gradually dissolved. He moved nearer to Goethe, and as an old man came to find the ultimate truth of politics not in the ideal, super-individual corporate personality of the nation-state, but in the martyrdom of the individual rebel against Hitler’s Reich.’
{"title":"Review of Richard W. Sterling, Ethics in a World of Power: The Political Ideas of Friedrich Meinecke (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1958; London, Oxford University Press, 1959)","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0026","url":null,"abstract":"Meinecke’s student and friend, Richard Sterling, composed this intellectual biography concerning Meinecke’s political ideas. Born in 1862, Meinecke was raised to venerate Hegel, Ranke, and Bismarck as pillars of the German State and conservative nationalism. Wight summed up Meinecke’s political evolution as follows: ‘In the first World War he justified the ultimatum to Serbia and the invasion of Belgium, he approved of unrestricted submarine warfare, and he explained to the minority peoples of the Central Powers that though the nation-state had been the proper goal for the Germans, it was their duty to remain content with the multi-national state. The shock of defeat started him on an assiduous criticism of his old beliefs. The moral autonomy of the State, the primacy of foreign policy, international relations as the fruitful competition of vigorously egotistic Powers, all gradually dissolved. He moved nearer to Goethe, and as an old man came to find the ultimate truth of politics not in the ideal, super-individual corporate personality of the nation-state, but in the martyrdom of the individual rebel against Hitler’s Reich.’","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125668794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0009
M. Wight
This essay assumes that readers will be familiar with Wight’s analysis distinguishing three traditions of thinking about international politics and will therefore recognize ‘three types’. The ‘three groups’, Wight observes, consist of (1) ‘idealists’ and ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘Utopians’ committed to serving the ‘general will’ and ‘the cause’; (2) ‘moralists’ and ‘Grotians’ dedicated to upholding treaties and the rule of law; and (3) ‘realists’ and ‘Machiavellians’ concerned with calculating how to defend and advance ‘the national interest’. With regard to survival imperatives, however, Wight holds that ‘all statesmen are realists’. He also qualifies this exposition of three traditions of thinking about international relations by pointing out that some Grotians and moralists have championed ‘a different Utopia’, an ideal distinct from the revolutionary uniformity sought by certain religions and ideologies. This different Utopia was the League of Nations, an institution designed to bring about a peaceful universal legal order. The League’s advocates expected a majority of nations, backed by world public opinion, to maintain peace and order through rational appeals and, if necessary, economic sanctions, with war as a final recourse to restore international amity.
{"title":"Is There a Philosophy of Statesmanship?","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This essay assumes that readers will be familiar with Wight’s analysis distinguishing three traditions of thinking about international politics and will therefore recognize ‘three types’. The ‘three groups’, Wight observes, consist of (1) ‘idealists’ and ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘Utopians’ committed to serving the ‘general will’ and ‘the cause’; (2) ‘moralists’ and ‘Grotians’ dedicated to upholding treaties and the rule of law; and (3) ‘realists’ and ‘Machiavellians’ concerned with calculating how to defend and advance ‘the national interest’. With regard to survival imperatives, however, Wight holds that ‘all statesmen are realists’. He also qualifies this exposition of three traditions of thinking about international relations by pointing out that some Grotians and moralists have championed ‘a different Utopia’, an ideal distinct from the revolutionary uniformity sought by certain religions and ideologies. This different Utopia was the League of Nations, an institution designed to bring about a peaceful universal legal order. The League’s advocates expected a majority of nations, backed by world public opinion, to maintain peace and order through rational appeals and, if necessary, economic sanctions, with war as a final recourse to restore international amity.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126402106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0010
M. Wight
This essay analyses the distinctive effects of Marxist-Leninist ideology and Communist practice on states ruled by Communist parties and states with non-Communist or ‘bourgeois’ regimes. Communist regimes assert that they are historically destined to triumph over ‘capitalist’ and ‘imperialist’ governments. From 1917 to 1944, the Soviet Union was the sole Communist-governed state. Since 1944 there have been multiple Communist-ruled states. Such states generally have formal state-to-state relations in addition to Communist party-to-party relations. Non-Communist-ruled states may have oppositional relations with domestic and foreign Communist parties as well as formal relations with the foreign ministries of Communist-led states. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has claimed that its decisions bind all Communist parties, but it has also accepted the primacy of a global gathering of Communist parties. Disputes among Communist parties over doctrine and interests that are theoretically congruent raise questions about the coherence of the ideology. Forming a Communist world-state to suppress national rivalries could offer a solution, but at the cost of abandoning national state sovereignties and the autonomy of specific Communist parties.
{"title":"The Communist Theory of International Relations","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This essay analyses the distinctive effects of Marxist-Leninist ideology and Communist practice on states ruled by Communist parties and states with non-Communist or ‘bourgeois’ regimes. Communist regimes assert that they are historically destined to triumph over ‘capitalist’ and ‘imperialist’ governments. From 1917 to 1944, the Soviet Union was the sole Communist-governed state. Since 1944 there have been multiple Communist-ruled states. Such states generally have formal state-to-state relations in addition to Communist party-to-party relations. Non-Communist-ruled states may have oppositional relations with domestic and foreign Communist parties as well as formal relations with the foreign ministries of Communist-led states. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has claimed that its decisions bind all Communist parties, but it has also accepted the primacy of a global gathering of Communist parties. Disputes among Communist parties over doctrine and interests that are theoretically congruent raise questions about the coherence of the ideology. Forming a Communist world-state to suppress national rivalries could offer a solution, but at the cost of abandoning national state sovereignties and the autonomy of specific Communist parties.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120944706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0015
M. Wight
In this essay Wight advanced four main criticisms of the proposal by Walter Millis for the abolition of what Millis called ‘the war system’. First, the proposal disregards ‘the positive or constructive functions of war in international society’, such as bringing about ‘desirable change’, gaining independence, preserving independence, and maintaining the balance of power. Second, the proposal to abolish war understates ‘the intractability of international conflicts’ and exaggerates the role of armaments and military formations in causing war. The true causes of war reside in ‘human passions and conflicting interests’, not weapons. Third, the proposal to eradicate war fails to recognize the price that must be paid to defeat aggression and establish order. Fourth, no effective alternative institution has been found to replace ‘the war system’ as a means to perform certain functions, including the prevention of detrimental change. The vision of an ‘international government’ ruling the world without war ultimately implies ‘a monopoly of power’, including nuclear arms, perhaps under ‘an American–Russian dyarchy’, despite ‘the intrinsic instability of dyarchy’ and its ‘disagreeableness’ for the rival powers, such as China and France.
{"title":"On the Abolition of War","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0015","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay Wight advanced four main criticisms of the proposal by Walter Millis for the abolition of what Millis called ‘the war system’. First, the proposal disregards ‘the positive or constructive functions of war in international society’, such as bringing about ‘desirable change’, gaining independence, preserving independence, and maintaining the balance of power. Second, the proposal to abolish war understates ‘the intractability of international conflicts’ and exaggerates the role of armaments and military formations in causing war. The true causes of war reside in ‘human passions and conflicting interests’, not weapons. Third, the proposal to eradicate war fails to recognize the price that must be paid to defeat aggression and establish order. Fourth, no effective alternative institution has been found to replace ‘the war system’ as a means to perform certain functions, including the prevention of detrimental change. The vision of an ‘international government’ ruling the world without war ultimately implies ‘a monopoly of power’, including nuclear arms, perhaps under ‘an American–Russian dyarchy’, despite ‘the intrinsic instability of dyarchy’ and its ‘disagreeableness’ for the rival powers, such as China and France.","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114949063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0027
M. Wight
In Wight’s view, ‘Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that it does not mention Morgenthau’s colleague at Chicago, Leo Strauss [ … ] Agreed in their concern about the retreat of political science into “the trivial, the formal, the methodological, the purely theoretical, the remotely historical”, they are divided by the gulf of natural law.’ Morgenthau asserted, however, that Wight in his review had made ‘a factual error’. Morgenthau quoted another one of his books, In Defense of the National Interest: ‘There is a profound and neglected truth hidden in Hobbes’s extreme dictum that the state creates morality as well as law and that there is neither morality nor law outside the state. Universal moral principles, such as justice or equality, are capable of guiding political action only to the extent that they have been given concrete content and have been related to political situations by society.’ Morgenthau wrote in criticism of Wight’s review: ‘To say that a truth is “hidden” in an “extreme” dictum can hardly be called an endorsement of the dictum. To call a position “extreme” is not to identify oneself with the position but to disassociate oneself from it. In the quoted passage I was trying to establish the point, in contrast to Hobbes’s, that moral principles are universal and, hence, are not created by the state.’ Wight replied: ‘I am sorry to have misinterpreted Professor Morgenthau, but I rejoice that my error has evoked an authoritative exegesis of a disputed passage.’
{"title":"Review of Hans J. Morgenthau, Dilemmas of Politics, and Correspondence (University of Chicago Press; and London, Cambridge University Press, 1958)","authors":"M. Wight","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198848219.003.0027","url":null,"abstract":"In Wight’s view, ‘Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that it does not mention Morgenthau’s colleague at Chicago, Leo Strauss [ … ] Agreed in their concern about the retreat of political science into “the trivial, the formal, the methodological, the purely theoretical, the remotely historical”, they are divided by the gulf of natural law.’ Morgenthau asserted, however, that Wight in his review had made ‘a factual error’. Morgenthau quoted another one of his books, In Defense of the National Interest: ‘There is a profound and neglected truth hidden in Hobbes’s extreme dictum that the state creates morality as well as law and that there is neither morality nor law outside the state. Universal moral principles, such as justice or equality, are capable of guiding political action only to the extent that they have been given concrete content and have been related to political situations by society.’ Morgenthau wrote in criticism of Wight’s review: ‘To say that a truth is “hidden” in an “extreme” dictum can hardly be called an endorsement of the dictum. To call a position “extreme” is not to identify oneself with the position but to disassociate oneself from it. In the quoted passage I was trying to establish the point, in contrast to Hobbes’s, that moral principles are universal and, hence, are not created by the state.’ Wight replied: ‘I am sorry to have misinterpreted Professor Morgenthau, but I rejoice that my error has evoked an authoritative exegesis of a disputed passage.’","PeriodicalId":126645,"journal":{"name":"International Relations and Political Philosophy","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117106454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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