Moral Agents and International Politics
| Date | 01 August 1972 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711787200400309 |
| Author | Andrew Linklater |
| Published date | 01 August 1972 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
295
MORAL
AGENTS
AND
INTERNATIONAL
POLITICS
ANDREW
LINKLATER
The
sense
of
despair
has
been
a
continually
recurring
sentiment
common
to
many
Continental
thinkers
as
they
observed
the
discontinuities
which
exist
between
the
moral
standards
obtain-
ing
within
most
domestic
societies,
and
those
prevailing
in
the
relations
between
states.
Their
sense
of
hopelessness
stemmed
from
the
seemingly
unbridgeable
gulf
between
the
existence
and
general
acceptance
of
those
principles
necessary
for
domestic
social
harmony
and
the
justifiable
rejection
of
those
same
principles
as
a
necessary
condition
of
the
survival
of
the
state
within
international
society.
Machiavelli
is
the
first
major
political
thinker
to
stress
the
incompatibility
of
the
values
and
norms
within
these
respective
spheres
of
human
interaction.
He
maintained
that the
private
person
seeking
political
office
must
realise
that
the
best
interests
of
the
state
cannot
be
safeguarded
by
the
retention
of
faith
in
those
principles
which
he observed
in
his
private
relations.
As
the
relationships
between
communities
are
fundamentally
different
from
the
relationships
between
individuals,
statesmen
are
required
to
conduct
affairs
of
state
with
primary
reliance
upon
principles
to
which
only
&dquo;evil
men&dquo;
would
have
recourse
within
domestic
society.
The
statesman
must
be
prepared
to
resort
to
force
and
fraud,
to
sacrifice
hones’ty
and
trust
to
cunning
and
suspicion,
if
he
is
to
serve
his
state
well.
The
nature
of
these
extreme
poles
of
choice
’
has
intrigued
many,
and
has
continued
to
be
one
of the
dominant
themes
of
Continental
explorations
into
the
relationship
between
morality
and
international
politics.
The
posing
of
the
choice
or
dilemma
in
this
particular
way
presupposes
a
realist
theory
of
international
politics.
The
double
standard
of
morality,
which
Machiavelli
elaborated,
reflected
the
pessimistic
conviction
that
international
relations
are
necessarily
dominated
by
power
rather
than
morality.
The
attempt
to
direct
the
state’s
foreign
policy
by
moral
principle
places
it
in
a
position
of
weakness
in
its
relations
with
those
states
motivated
primarily
by
power
and
self-interest.
As
there
always
will
be
states
posing
a
threat
by
their
accumulation
of
power,
other
states
will
necessarily
have
to
respond
by
devoting
the
major
share
of
their
attention
to
strategy
rather
than
morality.
Thus,
for
example,
Friedrich
Meinecke
wrote
that
the
conflict
between
public
and
private
morality
was
’plainly
inevitable
and
as
old
as
world
history
itself’.
Max
Weber,
a
prominent
contributor
to
this
tradition,
located
the
source
of
the
moral
dilemma
in
’the
diabolic
forces’
of
inter-
national
politics.
Actions
urged
on
by
morally
praiseworthy
intentions
could
defeat
their
agents’
good
will
by
producing
evil
consequences.
Good
results,
on
the
other
hand,
could
and
did
stem
296
from
action
which
required
’the
price
of
using
morally
dubious
means,
or
at
least
dangerous
ones’.
Such
was
the
unpredictable
nature
of
international
relations
that
no
statesman
could
bend
their
laws
to
his
good
will.
The
root
of
the
above
analysis
is
then
a
‘necessitarian’
conception
of
international
politics.
The
most
striking
challenge
to
these
ideas
was
Woodrow
Wilson’s
idealist
vision
of
the
future
of
international
society.
Wilson
represents
the
other
extreme
in
international
thought.
Reacting
against
the
main
current
of
European
thought,
and
the
pracfical
techniques
such
as
balance
of
power
and
old
diplomacy
corres-
ponding
to
this
thought,
Wilson
captured
the
heart
of
his
European
audience
by
offering
the
following
hope:
’We
are
at
the
beginning
of
an
age
in
which
it
will
be
insisted
that
the
same
standards
of
conduct
and
of
responsibility
for
wrong
shall
be
observed
among
nations
and
their
governments
that
are
observed
among
the
individual
citizens
of
civilised
states.&dquo;
The
elimination
of
the
discontinuity
between
domestic
and
inter-
national
standards
of
behaviour
was
to
be
assisted
by
the
newly
established
League
of
Nations.
However,
within
fifteen
years
of
its
existence,
the
League
of
Nations,
which
the
United
States
was
never
to
join,
was
overcome
by
realist
theory
and
practice.
Those
’diabolic
forces’,
to
which
Weber
had
referred,
led
states
to
increasingly
rely
on
their
own
power
while
the
League
ideal,
which
blossomed
only
in
the
initial
euphoria
of
the
organisation’s
creation,
passed
away.
With
its
experience
in
the
nineteen-thirties
the
United
States
lost
much
of
its
original
idealism.
The
writings
of
Hans
Morgenthau
and
George
Kennan
did
much
to
discredit
Wilson’s
voluntarist
theory
of
international
relations
which
had
stressed
the
capacity
of
the
state
to
advance
moral
purpose
without
damage
to
its
interest.
Thus,
the
pursuit
of
the
national
interest
gained
accept-
ance
as
the
necessary
condition
of
the
state’s
survival.
This
might
seem
to
reinforce
the
deterministic
theory
that
a
state
seeking
to
advance
a
moral
purpose,
be
it
Christian,
Marxist-
Leninist
or
whatever,
cannot
escape
those
deeper
forces
which
will
frustrate
its
purpose.
Rousseau,
who
also
echoed
the
sentiments
of
the
tragic
vision
of
international
politics,
maintained
in
opposition
to
the
liberal
ideal
that
commerce
would
reduce
conflict,
that
the
very
existence
of
the
interdependence
of
states
would
inevitably
lead
to
the
collision
of
their
interests.
Rousseau’s
solution
to
conflict
among
states
was
simply
to
propose
a
dissolution
of
international
relations.
Only by
the
establishment
of
small,
autarchic
states,
self-
sufficient
parallels
of
the
ideal
Greek
polis,
could
the
possibility
of
inter-state
conflict
be
avoided.
There
is,
according
to
this
pessi-
mistic
outlook,
no
possible
reconciliation
of
private
and
public
morality
while
international
relations
are
not
themselves
abolished.
1
Quoted
by
E.
H. Carr
in
The
Twenty
Year’s
Crisis,
London
1962,
p.
153.
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