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Preferred Citation: Voina-Motoc, Iulia, Moral-Rule and Rule of Law in International
Politics: Common Sense, Political Realism, Skepticism, in: A Decade of
Transformation, IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, Vol. 8: Vienna 1999

Moral Rule and Rule of Law in
International Politics:
Common Sense, Political Realism,
Skepticism
Iulia Voina-Motoc
Can a state be moral? The question does violence to common opinion-arousing reactions
which might be attached to irony. Wouldn't it prove better for the speech
on ethics in international relations to be included in a history of utopia? The notion
of morals in an oversimplified acceptance as it is implied in this sentence is that of
the religions of salvation or of Kantian autonomy applied to states after World War
I.
Accordingly, one can understand how deeply and generally prevalent are the
postulates of political realism when applied to international relations today, thus
amounting to reductionist assertions of the definition of morals. Taking into
account the association between political realism and empiricism, one also can
understand the massive refusal of political philosophy to analyze politics beyond the
state borders. Are international politics a phenomenon which must be analyzed on
a case-by-case basis and from which one can hardly extract general features?
Is it possible to endow the fictitious person who is the state with the ability or
disability to act in a proper manner? Or is it in fact just another way of conceiving
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
relations between individuals beyond the borders of their own state? How can one
explain that the theory of international relations is in the first place a theory aimed
at denying international morals?
The cliché commonly attached to the theory of realism in international relations
is that of moral skepticism. There are two fundamental ways of conceiving moral
skepticism nowadays. On the one hand, there is the skepticism which equates ethics
to an ensemble of purely subjective conceptions deprived of any rational basis. On
the other hand, there is the antitheoretical approach or cognitivism-wanting principles
or theories, denying any dogmatic morals based on unique principles and proposing
the morals of circumstances.
The Reactivism of Political Realism and Its Effects
Let us begin with a simple finding which defines not only realism but also the
whole evolution of the theory of international relations. In Giovanni Sartori's view,
political realism is the expression of a deception.1 The reason for this deception is
idealism. As far as international relations are concerned, idealism is embodied in the
creation of international institutions. It is undoubtedly the best description of the
beginning of the theory of international relations.
In his book The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939, E.H. Carr argues that the
political science of international relations has two facets, idealism and realism. He
defines realism as a "reaction to the initial dreams" which tends to emphasize the
overwhelming authority of the existing relations of power. Realism insists on an
emphasis on desire implied by utopianism, thus constituting the latter’s corrective.2
The main device of this reaction is transparently comprised in the works of Hans
Morgenthau, who used the term "will-power" as a ruling principle of international
relations. Morgenthau is the only realistic classic author who began his career as a
theorist of international law. In 1929 in Paris, Morgenthau was publishing his first
book in which he attempted to demonstrate the supremacy of politics over law in
international relations. The best articulated reaction, a hallmark for the realistic
core, is given in the book he published in 1934, La réalité des normes, en particulier
des normes de droit international.
The main aim of this study was to conceive the doctrine of the fundamental legal
norm in all its consequences in order to prove the impossibility of the international
1 Sartori (1987: 39).
2 Carr (1981: 7).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
law. Hans Kelsen's influence in those times was overwhelming, and Morgenthau
does nothing else but apply Kelsen's conception in a very simple manner to the
norms of international law. The Kelsenian postulate, which is taken as a starting
point, is that any legal system is fundamental, representing the basis of a valid concatenation
established between the other norms. If validity is the essential principle
of normativity, then the association of the moral norm to the legal norm is
deprived of its consistency. The legal normativity is independent from the moral
value of the law. But what happens in international law? Precisely this validity is
precarious. The essence of this state of affairs has to do with the fact that a fundamental
element of the legal norm in its structural acceptance, namely the sanction,
is lost.
It is true that Morgenthau's theory of international law is fundamentally different
from that of Kelsen. It could be posited that there is a contradiction between
the two. International law has a key role in Kelsenian theory. The development of
international law is the only fact that could ensure the lack of permeability of the
domestic order during the revolutions and thus the autonomy of the law. This is
the reason why Kelsen foresaw the evolution of law towards a supranational order
in which the international law takes absolute priority.3
The starting point for the realistic criticism is found in the norms of international
law laid down in the Covenant of the League of Nations. Political realism
appears as a reaction to international law. Morgenthau explained the creation of the
League of Nations and of the legal norms comprised in the Covenant as an attempt
to transform moral norms into legal norms of a binding nature. The legal norms
formulated within the Covenant of the League of Nations can restore nothing from
the essence of international relations. But if law cannot restore anything, then what
is the essence of international politics?
According to Morgenthau, the "friend-enemy" criterion used by Carl Schmitt
represents a tautology and, therefore, cannot represent a criterion for politics, at
least in respect to international relations. Morgenthau does not radically distance
himself from Schmitt when he formulates the will of each state to increase its power
as the criterion applicable to international relations - "the whole foreign policy is
nothing else but the will to maintain, enhance or assert power."4
Reverting to the issue of law and its role in international relations, Morgenthau
will infer its impossibility from the political criterion in its international sphere,
3 Kelsen (1963: 420).
4 Morgenthau (1933: 61).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
namely will power. If everything connected to will power is political, then there is
no realm of the law in international relations. The political rationale is added to the
legal demonstration.
The starting point of the theory of international relations is the opposition
between idealism and realism:
The history of modern political thinking is the story of a dispute between
two schools of thought that fundamentally differ in their conception of
human nature, society and human beings. One argues that a rational and
moral order exists which arises from universal and abstract principles and
which can be reached here and now. This school also considers that a fundamental
kindness and an infinite malleability of the human nature exists
and blames the failure of social order to apply these rational standards on
the lack of knowledge and understanding, on certain outdated institutions,
of the vitiation of certain isolated individuals and institutions. The
authors belonging to this school believe in education, reform and in the
sporadic use of force to rectify these flaws.5
Opposed to this school is realism which in Morgenthau's opinion "believes that
moral principles can never be entirely fulfilled, but…can draw near their accomplishment
through a balance of interests and a precarious solution of conflicts."6
Will power, as an essence of international relations, is explained by Morgenthau's
postulates of political realism formulated in Politics Among Nations in order to give
a clear definition to political realism. These postulates, as the author formulated
them, are:
1. Theory has the role to ascertain and rationally explain international politics
which are governed by objective laws.
2. The concept of national interest defined in terms of power has the greatest
explanatory force.
3. National interest and power vary from one epoch to another.
4. The moral character of the international action has to be historically circumstantiated
and not inferred from universally applicable rules.
5. All states are liable to some moral rules, but these rules cannot be imposed by
a single nation.
5 Carr (1981: 6-7).
6 Morgenthau (1973: 6).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
6. Intellectually, there is a clear distinction between international politics, economy
and morals.
It is relatively easy to see that all the postulates of political realism comprise references
to international morals.7
As a central theory of international relations, political realism is thus the expression
of a deception due to the functioning of international institutions conceived as
an expression of "universal morals." The reactivism not only is the beginning of the
rational theory, but also illustrates its entire brief history. This is why the evolution
of the theory of international relations represents the history of four debates or
reactions: idealism-realism, traditionalism-behaviorism, neorealism-institutional
neoliberalism and rationalism-reflectivism.
The perverse effect of reactivism, of this series of debates which marks the theory
of international relations, is the relative immobility of some concepts, such as
power. Morgenthau defines political power as a psychological relation between the
one who is exercising it and the one on whom it is being exercised. The degree of
control of the person who has the power is articulated depending on the benefits
expected, the fear of drawbacks or the respect or affection for certain people or
institutions. The definition of power is based on four fundamental distinctions:
power and influence, power and force in terms of physical violence, power that can
be resorted to and power that cannot be resorted to, such as nuclear power, and
legitimate or illegitimate power. Morgenthau conceives legitimacy as legal or moral
authority.8
The main criticism Morgenthau brings to those who had defined power before
him is their tendency to reduce political power to its material aspects. The criticism
can be analyzed as a bridge between Morgenthau and Raymond Aron.
Aron acknowledges that there is a fundamental distinction between force and
power, which is recovered at the linguistic level in the distinction between puissance
et force, power and strength, Macht und Kraft. Undoubtedly, one of the main theses
of realism, of Vilfredo Pareto's sociology particularly, is the error in interpreting
power. In Pareto's view, the struggle for power is by no means averted by the legislation
regulating power. Or, Aron writes that politics has another meaning in that it
represents the search for a fair order at the same time with the fight between individuals
and groups in order to access power:
7 Ibid. pp. 4-17.
8 Ibid. pp. 31-35.
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
The one who rules by virtue of laws is actually holding more or less violence,
or the ability to impose his will, according to his influence over
partners, rivals or subordinates, or to the prestige he has in the eyes of
many or few of them. Or, irrespective of whether we refer to leaders or
groups of pressure, this power is never defined in an accurate manner
using the legal distribution of tasks or prerogatives. The level of influence
individuals actually possess, one's or another's role in the State's decisionmaking
on relations with foreign States or the relations between the factions
of the same community, depends on the means of action available to
one or another, but at the same time on the skills one has in making use of
these means. The Constitution excludes open violence but lays down the
framework which also includes the guiding rules for the fight for power.9
Aron resumes the elements Morgenthau used to define power, but organizes
them to the same level of generality. Power is made up of the weight of political
entities, the materials available and the science to turn them into weapons, and the
number of individuals and the skills to transform them into soldiers capable of collective
action, meaning "the organization of the armed forces, fighters' discipline,
quality of the civil and military headquarters during times of war and peace, citizens'
solidarity during good or bad periods of time."10 It is true that in Aron's
works the emphasis shifts from the description of power and the criticism of materialist
realism to the uncertainty of any forecast that could be attached to the evolution
of a given power.
James Rosenau, using different explanations and terminology in Turbulence in
World Politics, a Theory of Change and Continuity, describes the same phenomenon.
In order to anticipate the results, which might turn away from the expectations,
based on power differences we have to admit that political relations mean much
more than the power foundations of the actors. Equally important is the way in
which a party to a relation perceives the other party's intentions and power, and
consequently, the way in which it reacts towards the other. Subtle dynamic forces
are involved here, forces connected to perception and psychology. In any relation
important actors are at least twice as concrete as empiric ones since each also exists
in the minds of certain other participants involved in the given relation. For
instance, in a dyadic relation, actors A and B are related by the perception A has of
9 Aron (1983: 62).
10 Ibid. p. 65.
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
B and the perception B has of A. "Briefly, in any relation, dynamic forces are at
work, which are inherent because of the parties' interaction and not because of the
power each of the parties has."11
Rosenau distinguishes the fact of holding power from the relational element,
using for the first one the word "possibilities" and for the second one "control." For
Rosenau, politics are defined by those activities attempted "by an actor, citizen,
politician, terrorist, group of interests, bureaucracy, Government, State, transnational
agency or international organization, to modify or preserve behavioral models
of other actors, located, from a functional point of view, at a distance."12 It is
noteworthy that although Rosenau admits the central role of the possessive aspect
in defining power, he considers it tedious and proceeds to describe exclusively the
relational aspect and control on the basis of relations of authority, negotiations and
compulsion, as well as of relations based on proofs.
The entire theory of power seems to be marked by the monotony Rosenau
claims when he describes the element of possession in the equation of power. The
three articulations of power in which theorists of international relations (from
Morgenthau to Rosenau) are interested include the relationship between various
material elements of power, the relational elements and the ability to predict the
evolution of power relations. Morgenthau is the first to describe them, persuaded
that the aim of the theory of international relations is to predict the evolution of
power relations. Aron reorganizes the elements Morgenthau describes, brings them
to the same level of abstraction and argues the impossibility of prediction. Rosenau
makes a detailed analysis of the relational element, considering it more interesting,
in order to integrate the psychological aspects of power with a much more accurate
science of international relations. Reactivity leads to intellectual poverty.
The theory of international relations is brought forward by one school's criticism
of another. The refusal of political philosophy when it comes to the theory of
international relations has a biunivocal meaning. Because the philosophers avoid
addressing international relations, the political theory formulates its concepts starting
from facts, not from ideas or beliefs. The reactivism is natural within realism
because the verrita effetuale it discovers has dynamism difficult to recover in the
pure world of ideas.
11 Rosenau (1990: 149).
12 Ibid. p. 150.
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
International Politics Between Historicism and Antitheory
Undoubtedly, one of the roots of moral skepticism applied to international relations
is historicism. If the individual living in an epoch of pluralism can find a personal
moral order, he can never reach out to absolute or universal solutions. Historicist
positions join the antitheoretical positions of moral philosophy.
The acceptance of historicism given by Karl Popper in his book published in
1957 is a definition which does not correspond to the one given to historicism or
historism by specialized literature. Aron explains this distinction at the beginning of
his lectures on German historicism at the Collège de France in 1971 and 1972.
Defined by Friedrich Meineke13 and Ernst Troeltsch at the beginning of this century,
historicism and historism are conceptions about human history, according to
which human evolution is defined through the fundamental diversity of the epoch
as well as through the plurality of the epochs and societies. One of the consequences
is the relative nature of values opposed to the conceptions of the Enlightenment.
Can the meaning of historicism be limited to a discussion that takes into account
only the modern era? Leo Strauss identifies early contestation of the existence of
natural law - which is proper to historicism - in the conventionalism of ancient
Greece, as described by Aristotle.14 As a part of classical philosophy, conventionalism
assumes that the distinction between nature and convention is the most
important one and that law and justice have no foundation in nature, but rather in
more or less arbitrary decisions taken by the community. The essential difference
between the conventionalism of classical philosophy and modern historicism consists
of the criterion used for denying natural law. If for conventionalism the criterion
is given by replacing natural law, historicism is based on the denial of the possibility
to know the natural law. Historicism appears in the nineteenth century as a
reactionary rhetoric. Paradoxically, historicism, born under conservative auspices,
ends up carrying on revolutionary judgements in that it denies any transcendental
link. Historicism is marked by social skepticism and invokes the artificial character
of the uniformity of the latter. "Historicism does not discover local and temporal
variations of the notion of justice: the obvious must not be discovered."
The analysis of international relations is substantially marked by historicism.
This is one of the assertions James Der Derian made at the beginning of his book
on the genealogical table of diplomacy.4 At the same time, it represents one of the
13 Meinecke (1963).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ?
explanations why the Foucauldian approach applied to the history of diplomacy
was a relevant methodology. It is a belated explanation of the evolution of international
relations and of its links to history. It has to be mentioned that at least classical
realism lays out its assumptions starting with the study of history.
The low interest political philosophy shows for this field becomes accountable
and directly linked with the influence historicist authors have on international relations.
One of the fundamental reproofs generally formulated by Aron to political
philosophers when he commented on Friedrich Hayek was their refusal to study
international relations.14
The antitheoretical philosophical rhetoric is also associated with historicism. An
analysis of morality in accordance with the circumstances and specificity of a given
situation accompanies the refusal of principles and theories as instruments that can
validly explain a concrete situation. Moral practice cannot be governed on the basis
of certain principles. It involves a metaphysical, epistemological refusal to identify a
moral universal knowledge and reality. The values are not only distinct but also
immeasurable.
The notion of obligation is a loose one, taking into account the ensemble of ways
in which we are related to the world. The impossibility of describing this relation
leads to the absence of a validity test for the ethical theories, to a negative ethic as
Bernard Williams describes it. These theories cannot be abstractedly assessed, but
only assessed in respect to each situation. In fact, the theorization is not aimed at
explaining a certain moral behavior since this behavior is the result of an experience.
There are internal arguments of a certain moral behavior, and thus there is no
way of trying to rationalize such relations. Endorsing certain conceptions and moral
behaviors merely represents the result of a certain experience, of a moral faith.15
In the analytical version, inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein, this skepticism
accounts for the lack of viability of the moral-abstract points of view by the fact
that the employment of ethical language depends on common practices. This type
of reflection does not proceed from a profound study of moral thinking but from
extrapolating the issues related to semantics and linguistic analysis. Thus, the analytical
antitheoretical skepticism is accompanied by a denial of the distinction
between facts and values.16
14 Aron (1978).
15 Williams (1994).
16 MacDowell (1995).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
What kind of link could possibly exist between this type of antitheoretical
reflection and the moral analysis of international relations? Is there any link
between their tendency to refuse universal principles and to replace them with the
nonconceptual and nonpropositional results of consequences devolved from psychology
and the trend of realism to accept the existence of certain final principles
aimed at the regulation of international institutions?
Both of them merely illustrate forms of partial and precise skepticism. For political
realism, the refusal of universals represents the consequence of taking into consideration
the diversity of the states’ behavior. For moral behavior, there cannot be
unique principles and unique backgrounds, and furthermore, we cannot dogmatically
adhere to these principles.
Pretending that these principles aimed at regulating international relations actually
exist represents, in fact, the history of political realism in the theory of international
relations. Realists believe that the League of Nations is the illustration of
these principles. The antitheorists17 estimate that all major moral systems proceeding
from a unique system such as Kantism or utilitarism operate in this way. In the
theoretical model used by antitheorists we recover the same refusal of a constant
moral rule and the same trend of moral circumstantiation according to a given
experience or situation. In this sense, we can consider that the authors close to classical
realism have an antitheoretical stand: Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, Carr,
Aron, and Martin Wight. Liberalism, understood in its proper meaning and concretely
determined by the creation of international institutions, is the theory that
realism rejects in its entirety, considering it a "fundamentalism."
The impossibility to conceive the existence of morals in international relations
due to the diversity of people and their moral conceptions joins the relativity argument
formulated by Mackie. The fallacious character of moral judgements stems
from the huge diversity of judgements that claim, without exception, impartiality.18
It is true that there are major differences between the moral norms of the different
people that form the international community and that many of them have a tendency
to consider these realities as absolute. At the same time, the said diversity is
now bigger than ever. But if we pursue this judgement to its last consequences we
can be confident that the same diversity exists not only among nations, but also
within the same nation.
17 Clarke, Simpson (1989).
18 Mackie (1977).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
In this context, Jean Jacques Rousseau is an interesting case. On the one hand,
he illustrates the philosophers' difficulty in approaching a topic such as international
relations, and on the other hand, he criticizes empiricism and historicism.
Although Rousseau intended to write a second book following The Social Contract,
which would have been dedicated to international relations and entitled Political
Institutions, he never did so. His ideas on international relations, limited in those
times to the issues of peace and war, can only be derived from his studies on the
works of Abbé Saint-Pierre: Projet de la paix perpetuelle, Extrait du Projet de paix
perpetuelle and Jugement sur le Projet de la paix perpetuelle.
The intellectual construction that Rousseau attaches to the law of war and peace
is also emphasized in his criticism of Hugo Grotius. The two axes of this criticism
are empiricism and historicism. Grotius cannot be a genuine jurist, only a justificator.
The roots of his law are the facts. In Rousseau’s opinion, the examples
Grotius used are not only as uncertain as the entire history, but they also lead to
fallacious judgements. For Rousseau, explanations are based on concepts, not on
facts. Therefore, Rousseau's skepticism will have a metaphysical root, not an
empirical one.
The temptation to apply the social contract to international relations was
important; this should have been the intention of Political Institutions. Was it possible
for the powers of Europe, divided by religion and customs, to aggregate their
interests? Rousseau changed his ideas once he read Abbé Saint-Pierre's project. Unlike
the abuses and evil, which find their own way, anything else useful to the public
can only be brought by constraint. That is why, Abbé Saint-Pierre, who drew up
a good project, thinks in a child-like manner when it comes to implementing his
ideas.
There is no way in which international law could possibly regulate the plurality
of existing legal systems. At the same time, neither the international law nor the
cosmopolitical one can possibly exist: the former because there is no sanction; the
latter because it merely represents the transfer of the social contract to the states. It
not only is a utopia, but also it runs counter to the state's autonomy which merely
represents the expression of the general and indivisible internal will.
Being a world citizen undermines the idea of being first of all a citizen in the
same manner in which Rousseau conceived being a man. States must not participate
in the venturesome game of an international juridical union since they need to
preserve their national sovereignty.
Deploring historicism, Rousseau formulates one of the most important ideas and
explanations of international relations: the opposition between the national state
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
and jus cosmopoliticus. At the same time he formulates one of the sources of a different
type of skepticism applied to international relations - political skepticism.
International Relations - An Irrevocable Separation Between Politics and
Ethics
Born in the modern age, political realism will find a perfect pendant in the theory
of international relations. Justice loses its primordial position with the beginning of
Aufklarung. Utilitarism and positivism will accelerate this process. The reference to
natural law or justice almost ceases to exist. Nominalism and anchorage in the reality
of "the ethics of responsibility" marked the analysis of the political realm. If law
parts with justice, justice will be deprived of any relation to politics.
This is the framework in which international relations were analyzed. At least in
the first stage, positivism had to gain support from a certain history of political
ideas. The three authors who represent cogent sources of political realism, but have
different visions about the reasons of separation between politics and ethics, are
Thucydides, Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli.
The remotest source of classical realism is Thucydides. His works are the mandatory
and sometimes final reading for all the theorists of international relations.
Thucydides's multiple disciplinary claim derives from political philosophy. Is The
Peloponnesian War a work of political philosophy? Thucydides does not claim to be
either historian or political philosopher. He merely attempts to explain why and
how Athens went down in almost thirty years of war. As Thomas Hobbes, one of
Thucydides translators, noted, his text secretly briefs the reader in a manner that
concepts could never do.
It is relatively easy to understand why this claim, which also represents a closing
of the theory of international relations, exists. The theory of international relations
is not able to consider Thucydides outdated; for the trama of his book, namely the
war, maintains its central place. Until the 1960s, it represented the single subject on
the theory of international relations. Are there any clear separations between foreign
and domestic politics and between the manner in which international relations are
conducted nowadays and the manner in which they were conducted during the
time of Athenian democracy?
One of the most interesting theses in The Peloponnesian War is not necessarily
the description of the mechanism of the balance of power, the actual cause for the
irruption of the Peloponnesian War, but the subtle links between the pretext and
the real motivation, between justice and war. The Spartan Assembly decided to
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
intervene in the war to put an end to Athenian injustice. The Oracle of Delphi
promised to help the Spartans end the injustice perpetrated by Athens.19
The place ascribed to justice in the description of the Peloponnesian War draws
up the realistic parentage of Thucydides. Injustice accompanies war, thus being
inextricably tied to it. The most relevant episode is the one in which the Thracian
mercenaries kill all the innocent people as well as all the animals in the small borough
of Mycalessos. Commenting on this episode, Thucydides notes that it represented
one of the most recurrent phenomenons of wars, as it also occurred in Sicily
and Macedonia. It is the moment when justice vanishes in order to set free peoples'
actions. Human actions have no limits in times of war.
But the major discovery Thucydides made is much more profound. It refers to
human nature whose violence cannot be limited by law or justice. Thucydides can
be placed at the outset of a genealogical table of masters of suspicion. The description
of justice in respect to international relations rounds his gloomy picture.
Justice is always on the side of the powerful. This is the Athenian thesis embodied
in the well-known excerpt of The Peloponnesian War. This is also why Athens
found it right to expand and to legitimate to become an empire. Isn't that, in fact,
the law governing the conduct of fortresses in the relations between them? Isn't the
increase of power by any means what actually fuels any foreign policy?
Again Thucydides’s answer does not have an explicitly universal or definitive
nature. It can be inferred from the analysis of other fortresses' foreign policies. The
hegemonic tendencies of Athens were not mirrored in Sparta, which could not
afford them due to its large and important number of slaves. Only out of fear of a
slave revolt was Sparta pushed to act, as it would have been natural, augmenting its
power by means of territorial expansion.
What then about justice inside the fortress? It could be contaminated, in turn, by
these wars, but is not. On the contrary, it preserves its hierarchies, which allows it
to impose certain rules for government - rules and hierarchies that are not reflected
in the policy between the fortresses. Thucydides is the first author to determine that
there is a separation between foreign and domestic policy as far as the role of justice
and rules is concerned.
Where does this first separation between the politics and the ethics come from?
Certainly, war is the term which intercedes and produces it. War opposes violence
to justice and excludes the latter. At the same time, when internal circumstances
allow, each fortress attempts to increase its power, and eventually to obtain hegem-
19 Thucydides (1954).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
ony. As a consequence, war becomes inevitable. Excluding justice from the sphere
of war is still a long way from anticipating Machiavellian explicitness. According to
Machiavelli, not just war, but politics in its entirety, are fated to injustice.
Hobbes, who is Thucydides’s translator, is the one who for the first time uses the
argument of the state of nature in international relations. As long as people live outside
a power which holds them together, they cannot be but in a state of war. Hobbes
formulates one of the classical arguments of the realistic theory of international
relations.
Political theory, in all its interpretations, retained from the Machiavellian works
the idea of political autonomy and excluded the idea of a permanent conflict
between politics and ethics. The same might not be necessarily valid as far as international
relations are concerned. In postulating the irrevocable separation between
ethics and politics, Machiavelli has a decisive influence. The same applies for the
conflict between politics and ethics and, in fact, between real and normative.
Which of Machiavelli's interpretations have influenced the theory of international
relations? The closest description of the way the theorists of international
relations thought is the one formulated by Ernst Cassirer. Machiavelli was not a
philosopher, but an author who studied and interpreted the political phenomenon
in the same way Galileo Galilei analyzed the falling corps phenomenon a century
later. Both the argument of Machiavelli and the theory of international relations
resort to history as a methodological tool. History is less a spiritual adventure than a
place of repetition where passions and human interests are identically expressed.
Historical knowledge covers past, present and future.20
The instrumentalization of history by the theory of international relations will be
twofold. On the one hand, history will allow conclusions with a legitimation pretense
stemming from classical realism. On the other hand, the empirical material
for the entire scientific theory of international relations will be history condensed in
statistics. Ritter and Meinecke place Machiavelli between two types of adventures
which mark human history: the truth of power and the truth of utopia. In Ritter's
opinion, Machiavelli is essentially different from the ancient thinkers because,
starting from the thesis regarding evil's influence on human behavior, he is in
search of the ways in which the state becomes possible.
Here we reach a fundamental point of demonstration. The history of conversion
is the one determining the irreparable difference between internal and foreign pol-
20 Cassirer (1946).
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icy. Converting the fundamentally evil person into a political subject beyond state's
borders proves impossible.
Machiavelli inextricably links power and relations of force with politics. The
opposition Ritter creates between Machiavelli and Thomas Morus anticipates the
evolution of international relations, a binomial in which Morus is placed in the
proximity of the international institutions created by the Versailles system. The part
of Ritter's analysis of Machiavelli that is original is his speech on the role of irrationalism,
cited by Claude Lefort.21 It is only natural for irrationalism to play an
important part where force and power relations prevail.
Is Machiavelli a moral skeptic? It is difficult to state that a criticism of morals
applies with respect to Machiavelli, irrespective of its form. Machiavelli denies neither
the two categories of good and evil nor the value of the truth. The essential
change he brings is that these cannot be applied to politics, a field in which they
have to be ignored. This accounts for Machiavelli being regarded as cynical and not
skeptical.22
Does a clear separation exist between internal and foreign policy in the works of
Thucydides or Machiavelli? Another assumption will be that the forerunners of
realism are in fact authors who generally identify politics with the will of power.
This latter assumption also represents Aron's reproach to realism since it did not
emphasize this distinction enough. Obsessed with the rejection of contractualist
philosophy, a version of liberalism according to which the individual can be disciplined
by respect for law and morals, realists invented a new anthropology opposed
to the old one, which proposed to replace law with power. They defined politics in
terms of power and did not agree to define international politics by reference to the
absence of a referee or police.23
Is Classical Realism a Moral Skepticism?
For sure, it is impossible to consider that one single moral conception informs this
model. Although all the authors have the same approach on the institutions created
by Versailles as the dangerous application of a moral utopia, there are many differences
in the ways morality is conceived in international politics. Assuming that
21 Lefort (1986).
22 Compte-Sponville (1990: 191-215).
23 Aron (1983: 583).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
moral realism is a skeptical doctrine, we shall attempt to discuss these differences
starting from the criticism directed by the realist speech to morality.
The book which marks the moral skepticism of classical realism is Moral Man
and Immoral Society, written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1932. "With his will for
power and his prestige deprived by both his own limits and the constraints of social
life, the ordinary person on the street projects his own ego on the nation."24 The
autonomy of the state cannot be limited by international institutions, just as Rousseau's
contract cannot be extended to international politics. Niebuhr's criticism is
simple but suggestive.
Niebuhr is considered to be the one who inspired the moral skepticism applied
to international relations. Apparently paradoxical, Kenneth Waltz, who introduced
positivism in international relations, admits that pinning the political evil on
human nature is a recurrent thesis in the thinking of St. Augustine of Hippo and
Benedict de Spinoza as well as Niebuhr and Morgenthau.25
Admitting there is no unity among classical realists, Morgenthau formulates the
first criticism addressed to foreign policy. According to Morgenthau, the democratization
of foreign policy is the cause of moral skepticism. He lives in an age when
foreign policy is no longer conducted by aristocracy - a time when Alexis de
Tocqueville was happy not to have lived.
For Morgenthau, the governing of a state by certain people is the prerequisite for
the existence of international ethics. Where the government's responsibility is distributed
to a great number of persons with (or without) different conceptions of
international politics, international morality as an international system becomes
impossible.
It is interesting to note that Morgenthau's skepticism regarding international
relations is historically circumstantiated. Ethics become impossible in international
relations at the beginning of the nineteenth century when international politics
cease to be the making of the prominent aristocratic families, and become the
product of the peoples. The morals of the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries are
the universal morals of sovereigns of the same aristocratic family. The morals of the
nineteenth century are morals of the peoples and of the nation-states - that is, impossible.
24 Niebuhr (1932).
25 Waltz (1979: 27)
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
What happens when foreign policy ceases to be exclusively determined by aristocracy?
Is the natural state of international relations only the consequence of the
aristocracy losing its command over foreign affairs?
For Morgenthau there is no equivalence between the natural state and the
absence of wars. On the contrary, universal morals, lost with the appearance of the
nation-state, represent the conflict that lies at the foundation of international relations.
The conduct of those wars was governed by certain rules which disappeared
with the interference of people in foreign affairs.
It is interesting to note that Morgenthau's skepticism is one related to the modernity
of politics. What brings international relations to the so-called "zero degree"
of morality is the nation-state. His skepticism does not stem from the individual
and from the inherent evil of individuals, but from the way they are organized - the
nation-state. Once estranged from universal morals - the only morals possible prior
to the formation of the state - the most significant danger becomes the universalization
these morals. Morals are no longer naturally universal, but national morals
pretending to be universal.
Morgenthau and the other realists share a certain conception of international
action. Since international morals do not exist, acting in terms of morality is the
most erroneous enterprise. This is why the arguments of Alexander Hamilton and
Thomas Jefferson, whose philosophies were contrary to the ideas of Woodrow Wilson,
won the unconditional admiration of Morgenthau.
Morgenthau's skepticism is precise and subtly differentiated. A morality of international
relations cannot exist once the aristocracy no longer governs the states.
The morality that international institutions are trying to introduce is completely
different from the international morality of the eighteenth century.
Martin Wight, considered to be the founding father of the English School of
international relations analysis, belongs to the same school of thought. In his book
International Theory: The Three Traditions, he describes the theory of international
relations through three tendencies: revolutionary, rationalist and realist. Although
Wight realizes the former imperfections when he fails to define rationalism on this
basis, he complies with a general temptation of the international-relations theory
that summarizes a subject through schools, paradigms and models.26
What sets apart and unifies the English School is the epistemological position, a
traditional approach to classify and separate the theorists of this school27 from
26 Wight (1991: 15).
27 Neumann, Weaver (1998: 25).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
American political science which was dominated by behaviorism at the end of the
1960s. Wight wrote a fundamental book on the theory of international relations,
creating at the same time a distinctive world that evokes the era prior to the radical
and artificial separation of human sciences. In order to explain the politics of
power, he refers to William Shakespeare and Edmund Burke, Aristotle and Bartolus,
Giovanni Botero and Immanuel Kant. "Power politics" represents a world in
which the typical character of the contemporary era, obsessed with immediate
interests, balance of power and classified data, distrustful of theories and convinced
of his inutility, feels lonesome.
The English School's refusal to formulate laws of international relations based on
statistical data was firm. Hendley Bull, Wight's disciple and editor, was directly
involved in the traditionalism-behaviorism debate which dominated the theory of
international relations at the end of 1960s and the beginning of 1970s.
The theoretical scaffolding of "power politics" is built first and foremost with the
help of history. Political history is the subject that fuels the emergence of international
relations studies at the end of World War I. The realist school, built as a
reaction to the creation of international institutions, used history as a validation
criterion to prove that states’ behavior in international relations runs permanently
counter to the principles of the Covenant of League of Nations. The boundary
between political history and the theory of international relations was sensitive in
the 1930s and 1940s when it began to stand out as a subject. The concerns of the
first theorists to explain the failure of the League of Nations converged with those
of the historians associated with the Annals School, which attempted to explain the
events of the 1940s through historical means. Next to Marc Bloch, Gheorghe Bratianu
illustrates this latter tendency in his book L'Organisation de la paix dans l'
histoire universelle.28
Using history to theorize international relations, Wight perceives the risk of
attributing finality to history, that is the risks entailed by historicism, as described
by Karl Popper. Revolutionary powers are dangerous as they try to extend their
ideologies to a universal scale. Wight is not seduced by the German realism of
Machtpolitik. He implicitly identifies what Aron explicitely perceives in the analogy
he makes between the German idealism of power politics and the juridical idealism
of universal peace. Therefore, someone like Heinrich von Treitschke is hardly
credible; his definition of dominant power is not the expression of generalized
German hegemony in Europe.
28 Bratianu (1997).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
The refusal of social science as a type of ideological legitimization is visible in
Machtpolitik in the pages dedicated to geopolitics. Geopolitics is a pseudo-science,29
and Sir Halford John Mackinder's theory on the strategic advantage of the continental
power is refuted by modern history. Mackinder's demonstration is based on
the system of classical antiquity. Describing geopolitics makes Wight come closer to
the postmodern authors of the theory of international relations.
The reason why Wight is reserved towards the possibility of international relations
existing as a science is more complex than its utilization as ideological legitimization.
A possible science of international-relations theory seems to him a largely
mechanical presentation. Ignoring human conventions and motivations in international
politics is for Wight one of the most serious errors that can occur in its study.
Symmetrically, Kenneth Waltz, a pure theorist of international-relations science,
found it necessary to exclude any reference to state foreign policy, purporting that
he is theorizing international relations while foreign policy represents a distinct
field. Any reference to subjectivism would have diminished the accuracy of the
explanation.
A specificity that brings Wight closer to Raymond Aron is the marginal, if not
non-existing, place reserved for economics. In his last text, which is the foreword to
the eighth edition of Paix et guerre entre les nations, Aron explains the low interest
of describing the world economic system by separating the domination of diplomatic-
strategic relations from economic domination and, at the same time, by the
central place diplomatic-strategic relations had at the beginning of the 1980s. There
is yet another reason why both Aron and Wight avoid explaining the international
system through the economic one, namely their common anti-marxist views. Representing
the international system as one of economic domination is, for them, of
Marxist inspiration. Closer to Marxism through his neoliberal theoretical sources,
E.H. Carr, one of Wight's contemporaries, proposes economic equality among
states as a solution to the international crisis of the 1930's.30
Wight’s book Diplomatic Investigations, published in 1966, includes an article
entitled "Why is there no international theory?" Even though his book was supposed
to defend the reintegration of the theory of international relations with the
more ample and developed subject of political theory, Wight is unable to surpass
his skepticism. He explains the inconsistency of international-relations theory by
comparing it to political theory through the nature of the object of study. Theo-
29 Wight (1991: 52).
30 Carr (1981).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
rizing international relations cannot achieve consistency since international relations
themselves have not registered any progress.
Postulating the lack of progress in the evolution of international relations,
explaining international politics as power politics, and distinguishing clearly
between internal and external politics place Wight in the gallery of the realistic
theorists of international relations.
Like Raymond Aron and the neorealist Kenneth Waltz, for Martin Wight the
essential characteristic of international relations is international anarchy - the
absence of a central government system. Wight does not deny the existence of
international law, and deems that "while in internal politics the struggle for power
is governed and framed by laws and institutions, in international politics, the laws
and institutions are framed by the struggle for power."31 In Wight's opinion, there
are two principles mitigating international anarchy. To the classical balance of
power he adds the common interest represented by the dominant power. The
common interest of the dominant power can bring genuine benefits or can lead to a
dangerous ideology.32 Is the comparison of relations between states to that of a
chessboard, which Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote of in his book The Grand Chessboard,
a valid one to describe the mission the United States has at the end of the century?
The unity of political realism in the theory of international relations represents
the result of an unacceptable simplification, and Wight is one of the authors who
consequently refused mechanical and restrictive descriptions. Classical realism is the
most fertile theory because of the diversity of authors it comprises.
What individualizes Wight's figure is his conservatism. This appears clearly in
Wight's confession addressed to Burke, "the supreme commentator," but especially
in the role he sees for the revolution. The revolution, beginning with the French
one, is for Wight, as for Burke, the most dangerous phenomenon. The hierarchical,
but also individual order, which is the result of the English political order described
by Burke, is extended by Wight to the universal order untouched by the revolution.
The evil in international relations does not arise from the existence of war, which
is a natural phenomenon, but from the lack of distinction between peace and war
introduced by the revolutionary powers. The revolution introduces passion and
fanaticism in international relations, reduces the distinction between external and
internal politics and mixes diplomacy with espionage.33 The evil in international
31 Wight (1991: 102).
32 Ibid. p. 280.
33 Ibid. p. 120.
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
relations is called "stasis" and appears in the international community when various
groups of people gain loyalties which attach them more to some groups of people
belonging to other states than to their own citizens.34 Wight is not a nationalist. He
is ironic about nationalist statements, saying that "small countries have produced
the big culture," and considers them an inaccurate historical sentimentalism,35
reminding his readers that Giuseppe Mazzini is the author of a guerrilla manual.
As every conservator, the author of Power Politics believes in a natural order. The
system of states should be a hierarchical world, as the one of the Greek philosophy
in which states compared with the Olympus deities take their natural places. Natural
alliances are the expression of the natural and hierarchical order, a horizontal
order. The feeling of compromise and measure, typically conservative, induces
Wight to define a large mature power as a power that knows its limits. It is easily
noticed that the skepticism of Morgenthau, the founding father of classical realism,
is very close to Wight's. Both are better known as founders of a school of a different
orientation than as "realists."
Aron adds to the classical distinction between idealism and realism, the one
between ideological and juridical idealism at the institutional level, thus creating
the difference between the German and English schools. American realism is nothing
but a pragmatic version, and also an ethical version of the German idealism of
power politics. The only author mentioned by Aron is Treitschke.36 The most suggestive
expression of Treitschke is the one by which he moots any moral debate
within the state: "The human being fulfills the moral calling only within and for
the State. States accomplish their calling only in togetherness, and in the end the
war is not a barbary but the sacred that commands the destiny of peoples." We find
again in this quote, in a genuine form, the fundamental ideas of German voluntarism
and vitality. The state is the only person existing within the sphere of international
relations; being a juridical and moral person, the state is also a will. The state
is a "macht" power only if it maintains itself close to other independent states.
Effective sovereignty is defined through the right to resort to war, called
"rechtspfledge." Only a really powerful state can meet these demands. A small state is
ridiculous, and all the more if it wishes to seem powerful.
What then is the relationship between politics and morals? Certainly, it is not
placed in Machiavelli's line. The lie is not a diplomatic means; on the contrary, it
34 Ibid. p. 140.
35 Ibid. p. 62.
36 Aron (1983).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
diminishes the honor of the state. There is no conflict between morals and politics.
In international relations, morals are identical to politics. It is morals (staatliches
Gesetz) which imposes on states to fulfill their calls, namely to increase their power.
The absence of moral skepticism in Treitschke's works is manifest. The prestige
and honor of the states is instrumental only through war. How can a state possibly
maintain the internal order if outside it does not submit to legality? His enemies
permanently threaten a state that does not abide by legality and faith. The state
does not own the power for itself, but defend its highest values and assets. War does
not create a foundation for the law, only honor does.37
One recognizes in Aron's comments on Treischke, Morgenthau’s lost paradise -
the golden age when war was a honor and the unique way for states to command
recognition. Treitschke does not outlive the Versailles system; certainly he would
have been one of its biggest enemies. The one who continues his ideas is Carl
Schmitt. For him, the Versailles institutions represent one of the most dangerous
achievements of the human spirit, precisely because the system tries to replace the
moral conduct of states, which can assert themselves only through war, with a false
morality of a rhetorical nature that outlaws war. In fact, the Versailles system places
international morality on one side - the side of the winners.
The criticism of international institutions created around the interdiction of the
use of force is not only an exclusively pragmatic criticism, but also a moral one.
Introducing the moral criterion, as a legitimization of its own actions, the winning
states are in fact acting immorally.38
The argument is carried on in its entire genuineness in Aron's analysis of the idealistic
illusion under its legal or moral form. The criticism of the idealistic illusion
is not only pragmatic, but also moral. Idealistic diplomacy often slides into fanatism.
It divides states into good and bad, into peaceful and warring. It figures out
lasting peace as a punishment inflicted on the first states and as a triumph for the
newest states. Persuaded that it can put an end to power politics, idealistic diplomacy
overestimates its negative aspects. Sometimes states abide by their principles
irrespective of the color of the enemies to the very end of war and victory. Otherwise,
when their interests are at stake or when they are forced by circumstances, the
same states subject their conduct to those circumstances.
The link between Schmitt and Treitschke is profound and centers on vitalistic
morals attached to the state. Their moral line of thinking is not particularly sinu-
37 Ibid.
38 Schmitt (1976).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
ous. If there is a moral skepticism about these authors, then it is certainly one of a
historicist nuance. It is inspired by the Versailles system, which is not an illustration
of morality in international relations, but rather of legal illusion.
We have reached an important point, namely the one of separation between
morality and legality. In spite of a widespread opinion, there is no assimilation of
moral norms with legal norms. Legal skepticism is a common feature of the realities,
or, more precisely, the skepticism relative to the possibility of the international
law expressed by the Versailles institutions to regulate international relations. This
is not identical with moral skepticism. On the contrary, the criticism of morality,
which the Versailles system tends to introduce, is widespread.
We can identify two different kinds of criticisms of the moral normativity
entailed by the juridical normativity of the Versailles system. The first, represented
by Morgenthau, is founded in a historicist and aristocratic moral skepticism. The
second, with Schmittean roots, is a demystification of international morals, which,
in fact, conceals the winners’ immorality. The label of moral skepticism attached to
international relations is arguable as far as Raymond Aron is concerned.
In Aron's approach, there is an important distinction between the idealism and
realism of power politics. Crossing the Atlantic and becoming "power politics,"
Treitschke's machtpolitik changed, first of all, from the spiritual point of view. It
became a fact and not a value. Authors who, according to a common opinion in the
United States, belong to the realist school note that states animated by the will of
power are in a perpetual rivalry. These authors do not express sympathy and do not
consider it as part of a divine plan. The refusal of states to submit to a common law
or arbitration is considered by these authors as incontestable, intelligible, but definitely
not sublime, for war is not at all sublime to them.39
Aron's statements comprise, in their turn, multiple nuances. This is the difference
between German idealism, which normativizes the will of power, and American
realism which considers it not to be very important. To accept the difference
between friend and foe as a criterion of politics in international relations, to recognize
the irrational and permanent nature of strains among states, is to implicitly
admit that their disappearance might lead to the disappearance of politics too. The
international institutions are utopian, precisely because they propose such a transformation.
The most important reflection which seems to be comprised in Paix et guerre
entre les nations is whether moral skepticism actually exists in the works of writers
39 Aron (1983: 579).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
belonging to political realism. Another assumption to be made here would be that
the realists' antijuridism was taken for a moral skepticism.
For Raymond Aron, the political realism is not only pragmatic, but also ethical.
The standard political person described by realists has to take into account his
state's interests, but cannot ignore altogether the interests of the other communities.
If realism is ethical, irrespective of the content of values it represents, then it is
obvious that it cannot be skeptical.
Aron attaches juridical idealism to the ideological idealism of the will of power,
although from the intellectual point of view, the latter is placed next to realism. In
Aron's antinomical sketches, prudence is the one opposing these idealisms, not
realism.
What is prudence? If prudence does not express skepticism, as Aron states, what
then is its moral content? Prudence, in fact, expresses a refusal to determine rationally
which are the moral norms. The morals of wisdom, optimal at the level of both
facts and values, does not solve the antinomies of diplomatic and strategic conduct,
but tries to find in each case the most acceptable compromise. This phrase belongs
to Aron, but its Humeian source is obvious.
David Hume refers to prudence as being made up of good sense and obvious
judgements. Prudence is the one that has to rule the relations between states. For
Hume, the best way to determine the moral norms is not that of A Treatise of
Human Nature, namely inferring from experience what the behavior is that best
suits all the needs, but The Balance of Power, which best expresses this way of acting
cautiously.
As regards the classical realism of the American authors who are also active in
politics, it is much more simple and dogmatic. The opposition between national
interest and ethics becomes obvious and entails little nuance for George Kennan.
Morgenthau's Spenglerian conception disappears together with the portrait of the
statesman, as opposed to the indefinite mass of people involved in decision-making
in foreign policy. Kennan40 is not interested why or since when there are no ethics
in international relations, but merely takes note of their absence. Thus, for Kennan,
ethics cease to exist beyond the state's borders.
40 Kennan (1953).
IULIA VOINA-MOTOC: MORAL-RULE AND RULE OF LAW IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS ??
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