汉语翻译英文six principles of classical realism of Hans Morgenthau

2021年1月22日发(作者：ringworm)

Hans J. Morgenthau,
Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power
and Peace
, Fifth Edition, Revised, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978,
pp. 4-15

SIX PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL REALISM
cal realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by
objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is
first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these
laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of
failure.
Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also
believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however
imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the
possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion-between what is
true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and
what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed
by prejudice and wishful thinking.
Human nature, in which the laws of politics have their roots, has not changed since
the classical philosophies of China, India, and Greece endeavored to discover these
laws. Hence, novelty is not necessarily a virtue in political theory, nor is old age a
defect. The fact that a theory of politics, if there be such a theory, has never been
heard of before tends to create a presumption against, rather than in favor of, its
soundness. Conversely, the fact that a theory of politics was developed hundreds or
even thousands of years ag~as was the theory of the balance of power-does not create
a presumption that it must be outmoded and obsolete. A theory of politics must be
subjected to the dual test of reason and experience. To dismiss such a theory because
it had its flowering in centuries past is to present not a rational argument but a
modernistic prejudice that takes for granted the superiority of the present over the past.
To dispose of the revival of such a theory as a
assuming that in matters political we can have opinions but no truths.
For realism, theory consists in ascertaining facts and giving them meaning through
reason. It assumes that the character of a foreign policy can be ascertained only
through the examination of the political acts performed and of the foreseeable
consequences of these acts. Thus we can find out what statesmen have actually done,
and from the foreseeable consequences of their acts we can surmise what their
objectives might have been.
Yet examination of the facts is not enough. To give meaning to the factual raw
material of foreign policy, we must approach political reality with a kind of rational


outline, a map that suggests to us the possible meanings of foreign policy. In other
words, we put ourselves in the position of a statesman who must meet a certain
problem of foreign policy under certain circumstances, and we ask ourselves what the
rational alternatives are from which a statesman may choose who must meet this
problem under these circumstances (presuming always that he acts in a rational
manner), and which of these rational alternatives this particular statesman, acting
under these circumstances, is likely to choose. It is the testing of this rational
hypothesis against the actual facts and their consequences that gives theoretical
meaning to the facts of international politics.
2. The main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape
of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power. This
concept provides the link between reason trying to understand international politics
and the facts to be understood. It sets politics as an autonomous sphere of action and
understanding apart from other spheres, such as economics (understood in terms of
interest defined as wealth), ethics, aesthetics, or religion. Without such a concept a
theory of politics, international or domestic, would be altogether impossible, for
without it we could not distinguish between political and nonpolitical facts, nor could
we bring at least a measure of systematic order to the political sphere.
We assume that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as power, and the
evidence of history bears that assumption out. That assumption allows us to retrace
and anticipate, as it were, the steps a statesman--past, present, or future--has taken or
will take on the political scene. We look over his shoulder when he writes his
dispatches; we listen in on his conversation with other statesmen; we read and
anticipate his very thoughts. Thinking in terms of interest defined as power, we think
as he does, and as disinterested observers we understand his thoughts and actions
perhaps better than he, the actor on the political scene, does himself.
The concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline upon the
observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the
theoretical understanding of politics possible. On the side of the actor, it provides for
rational discipline in action and creates that astounding continuity in foreign policy
which makes American, British, or Russian foreign policy appear as an intelligible,
rational continuum, by and large consistent within itself, regardless of the different
motives, preferences, and intellectual and moral qualities of successive statesmen. A
realist theory of international politics, then, will guard against two popular fallacies:
the concern with motives and the concern with ideological preferences.
To search for the clue to foreign policy exclusively in the motives of statesmen is both
futile and deceptive. It is futile because motives are the most illusive of psychological
data, distorted as they are, frequently beyond recognition, by the interests and
emotions of actor and observer alike. Do we really know what our own motives are?
And what do we know of the motives of others?


Yet even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge would
help us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well lead us astray. It is true
that the knowledge of the statesman's motives may give us one among many clues as
to what the direction of his foreign policy might be. It cannot give us, however, the
one clue by which to predict his foreign policies. History shows no exact and
necessary correlation between the quality of motives and the quality of foreign policy.
This is true in both moral and political terms.
We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign policies
will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful. Judging his motives, we
can say that he will not intentionally pursue policies that are morally wrong, but we
can say nothing about the probability of their success. If we want to know the moral
and political qualities of his actions, we must know them, not his motives. How often
have statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended by
making it worse? And how often have they sought one goal, and ended by achieving
something they neither expected nor desired?
Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired
by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power
than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to
assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to make the Second
World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men. Sir Winston
Churchill's motives, on the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much
more narrowly directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies
that sprang from these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and political
quality to those pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was
one of the most virtuous men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that
very virtue that made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the
scaffold, and destroyed the revolution of which he was a leader.
Good motives give assurance against deliberately bad policies; they do not guarantee
the moral goodness and political success of the policies they inspire. What is
important to know, if one wants to understand foreign policy, is not primarily the
motives of a statesman, but his intellectual ability to comprehend the essentials of
foreign policy, as well as his political ability to translate what he has comprehended
into successful political action. It follows that while ethics in the abstract judges the
moral qualities of motives, political theory must judge the political qualities of
intellect, will, and action.
A realist theory of international politics will also avoid the other popular fallacy of
equating the foreign policies of a statesman with his philosophic or political
sympathies, and of deducing the former from the latter. Statesmen, especially under
contemporary conditions, may well make a habit of presenting their foreign policies
in terms of their philosophic and political sympathies in order to gain popular support
for them. Yet they will distinguish with Lincoln between their

duty,


is to think and act in terms of the national interest, and their

wish,
to see their own moral values and political principles realized throughout the world.
Political realism does not require, nor does it condone, indifference to political ideals
and moral principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction between the desirable
and the possible-between what is desirable everywhere and at all times and what is
possible under the concrete circumstances of time and place.
It stands to reason that not all foreign policies have always followed so rational,
objective, and unemotional a course. The contingent elements of personality,
prejudice, and subjective preference, and of all the weaknesses of intellect and will
which flesh is heir to, are bound to deflect foreign policies from their rational course.
Especially where foreign policy is conducted under the conditions of democratic
control, the need to marshal popular emotions to the support of foreign policy cannot
fail to impair the rationality of foreign policy itself. Yet a theory of foreign policy
which aims at rationality must for the time being, as it were, abstract from these
irrational elements and seek to paint a picture of foreign policy which presents the
rational essence to be found in experience, without the contingent deviations from
rationality which are also found in experience.
Deviations from rationality which are not the result of the personal whim or the
personal psychopathology of the policy maker may appear contingent only from the
vantage point of rationality, but may themselves be elements in a coherent system of
irrationality. The conduct of the Indochina War by the United States suggests that
possibility. It is a question worth looking into whether modern psychology and
psychiatry have provided us with the conceptual tools which would enable us to
construct, as it were, a counter-theory of irrational politics, a kind of pathology of
international politics.
The experience of the Indochina War suggests five factors such a theory might
encompass: the imposition upon the empirical world of a simplistic and a
priori
picture of the world derived from folklore and ideological assumption, that is, the
replacement of experience with superstition; the refusal to correct this picture of the
world in the light of experience; the persistence in a foreign policy derived from the
misperception of reality and the use of intelligence for the purpose not of adapting
policy to reality but of reinterpreting reality to fit policy; the egotism of the policy
makers widening the gap between perception and policy, on the one hand, and reality,
on the other; finally, the urge to close the gap at least subjectively by action, any kind
of action, that creates the illusion of mastery over a recalcitrant reality. According to
the
Wall Street Journal
of April 3, 1970,
levels of Government and may overpower other 'common sense' advice that insists the
U.S. ability to shape events is negligible. The yen for action could lead to bold policy
as therapy.
The difference between international politics as it actually is and a rational theory
derived from it is like the difference between a photograph and a painted portrait. The


photograph shows everything that can be seen by the naked eye; the painted portrait
does not show everything that can be seen by the naked eye, but it shows, or at least
seeks to show, one thing that the naked eye cannot see: the human essence of the
person portrayed.
Political realism contains not only a theoretical but also a normative element. It knows
that political reality is replete with contingencies and systemic irrationalities and
points to the typical influences they exert upon foreign policy. Yet it shares with all
social theory the need, for the sake of theoretical understanding, to stress the rational
elements of political reality; for it is these rational elements that make reality
intelligible for theory. Political realism presents the theoretical construct of a rational
foreign policy which experience can never completely achieve.
At the same time political realism considers a rational foreign policy to be good
foreign policy; for only a rational foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes
benefits and, hence, complies both with the moral precept of prudence and the
political requirement of success. Political realism wants the photographic picture of
the political world to resemble as much as possible its painted portrait. Aware of the
inevitable gap between good
—
that is, rational
—
foreign policy and foreign policy as it
actually is, political realism maintains not only that theory must focus upon the
rational elements of political reality, but also that foreign policy ought to be rational
in view of its own moral and practical purposes.
Hence, it is no argument against the theory here presented that actual foreign policy
does not or cannot live up to it. That argument misunderstands the intention of this
book, which is to present not an indiscriminate description of political reality, but a
rational theory of international politics. Far from being invalidated by the fact that, for
instance, a perfect balance of power policy will scarcely be found in reality, it
assumes that reality, being deficient in this respect, must be understood and evaluated
as an approximation to an ideal system of balance of power.
3. Realism assumes that its key concept of interest defined as power is an objective
category which is universally valid, but it does not endow that concept with a
meaning that is fixed once and for all. The idea of interest is indeed of the essence of
politics and is unaffected by the circumstances of time and place. Thucydides'
statement, born of the experiences of ancient Greece, that
surest of bonds whether between states or individuals
century by Lord Salisbury's remark that
nations is
of government by George Washington:
A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part
of mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that almost every man is more or
less, under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular
instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they