On the Road to Irrelevance: Study of International Relations without Normativeness

Abstract

This article presents the idea that the social sciences are by nature
normative and so simply cannot exist without normativeness at all. Their
purpose is to understand and help solve social problems. The choices of
issues, problems and questions are neither random nor objective, but are
the results of normative consensus of their specific social-scientific
discipline, as well as the greater social environment in which social
scientists make them. This argument is applied to the polemics between
Marek Loužek and Petr Drulák. I show that contrary to Loužek's assertions,
the realism of E. H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau is strongly and explicitly
normatively oriented. It is therefore unjustified to distinguish between
normative idealists and scientific realists. The final section deals with the
question what this conclusion means for the study of international relations.