In Search of Lost Realism. Comparison of Kant’s and Morgenthau’s Political Thinking

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of classical realism as an important tradition
of thinking in IR. The aim is to survey the philosophical and ethical
background of this tradition. The political and ethical thinking of Hans
Morgenthau, one of the fathers of classical realism, was compared to the
philosophy of Immanuel Kant – a crucial source of idealism in IR. These
authors suprisingly share common beliefs in ethics, non-utopianism, and
their common challenge: examining the possibilities of good/just politics.
The aim was to locate the point of disagreement between Kant (idealism)
and Morgenthau (classical realism) on the level of ethics/anthropology. The
main assumption is an intepretation of realism as a theory of politics based
on knowledge of the tragical being in the world, where good and evil are
inseparably mixed.