- Title
- Realistic idealism
- Creator
- Tabensky, Pedro
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2007
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/305700
- Identifier
- vital:58605
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.3167/th.2007.5411306"
- Description
- Realists found in International Relations (IR) circles explicitly assign relatively minor importance to ethical ideals in their analyses of the international political domain, although a robust ethical ideal of sorts, implicitly for the most part qua ethical ideal, does guide their analysis of the international arena. For them, the key to order in the international arena is the balance of power reached between different nations aiming at asserting their wills, promoting their interests, in what is in effect perceived by IR realists as an international battle of wills guided primarily by the logic of power. As a purely descriptive claim regarding how nations, for the most part, actually behave, I have no axe to grind with the IR realist, or at least I do not have to grind an axe with them on this matter for the purposes of this paper, but the IR realist is committed to more than merely describing the behaviour of the international order. IR realists, implicitly and paradoxically, are forced, by the logic of their own position, to believe that the ethical ideal that ought to be guiding the international order is the balance of power between competing interests guiding the international behaviour of nations in their quest for power and (alleged) survival. The primary moral dictum of their position is that nations ought to pursue their self-interested interests relentlessly, but only to the extent that the fragile balance of power is not upset (which is, at any rate, a central ingredient for promoting national self-interest). IR realists do not altogether explicitly deny the role of ideals, but the role they assign to ideals is limited and, I will argue, ultimately incoherent, for ideals ought to be understood as flowing from the structure of our embodied existences and into every nook and cranny of our lives, understood individually and collectively, nationally and internationally. We are active creatures, as Aristotle observed, and activities are defined as such in relation to a functional ideal, an ideal of operation, which flows from our specific modes of embodiment. The norms or ends guiding the international political order ought to flow from this understanding of the human subject ideally conceived, as opposed to the largely Machiavellian pessimistic understanding of the human situation informing IR realism; a pessimism that stems from the fallacious move from raw observation to normative recommendation. To claim that our ends are Machiavellian, we shall see, is incoherent and this incoherence is at the heart of IR realism. The demands of reason, we shall see, should push us in the direction of a particular variety of optimism. By using a broadly Aristotelian teleological technique of analysis I will show that IR realists cannot be right. Without placing ideals at the centre of our understandings of our political lives we would be unable properly to understand the political domain, including the specific sphere of concern of IR specialists. The purely observational descriptions alluded to above do not provide the grounds for proper understanding. What does provide a proper understanding, we shall see, is observation through a conceptual lens informed by a teleological understanding of the human person (observation in the light of a conception of the good). That I think a robust conception of the good, of the set of ideals that out to be guiding rational human life, is necessary for properly understanding the international arena does not of course mean that I advocate any such conception of the good. As claimed above, the sort that I advocate, following Aristotle’s footsteps, flows from the specific configuration of our embodied lives. I refer to this form of idealism as realistic idealism.
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (15 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Berghahn Books
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Theoria, Tabensky, P.A., 2007. Realistic idealism: An Aristotelian alternative to Machiavellian international relations. Theoria, 54(113), pp.97-111, Theoria volume 54 number 113 p. 97 2007 1558-5816
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of Berghan Journals Polciy Statement (https://www.berghahnjournals.com/page/terms/terms-conditions)
- Rights
- Open Access
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Tabensky, Pedro (Prof)
RU Department of Philosophy
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