Hans J. Morgenthau Versus E. H. Carr

Conflicting conceptions of ethics in realism

Bibliographic Data

ID23214026
AuthorsSeán Molloy (0000-0002-0431-0554, corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages83-104
Publication date2009-01-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenuePolitical thought and international relations (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780199556274.003.0006
OpenAlexW2608148108
ISBN9780199556274
LanguageEN
Citations received9

It is commonplace to assert that realism is an amoral or immoral theory of international politics, that its focus on power is to the exclusion, or at best the marginalization, of ethical concerns. The purpose of this chapter is to challenge this general criticism and to identify the ethical content in the works of two of the most foundational realist thinkers, E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau. The selection of Carr and Morgenthau is not arbitrary, for it is their work that marks the definitive entry of realism into the discourse of academic International Relations (IR)—the so-called realism of Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and so forth is significant in itself, but it is anachronistic to label these authors as realist in the IR sense. It is Carr who makes the discipline defining conceptual division between the Utopian and the Realist and Morgenthau who expounds realism as a political theory of international relations. I argue that Carr and Morgenthau provide two competing perspectives on the possibility of ethical life in international relations. Carr can be seen as a pragmatist, convinced of the social construction of norms and ethics in international society.

Carr · Epistemology · International relations · Philosophical realism · Political science · Politics · Pragmatism · Realism · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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