In realism there is no moral dimension, so that for a realist what is successful is right and what is unsuccessful is wrong. (E.H.Carr). Comment. (15 Marks)
- In his polemical work, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, first published in July 1939, Edward Hallett Carr attacks the Wilsonian idealist position, which he describes as “utopianism.” For Idealists, war is an aberration in the course of normal life and the way to prevent it is to educate people for peace, and to build systems of collective security such as the League of Nations or today’s United Nations. Carr challenges idealism by questioning its claim to moral universalism and its idea of the harmony of interests. He declares that “morality can only be relative, not universal”, and states that the doctrine of the harmony of interests is invoked by privileged groups “to justify and maintain their dominant position”.
- Carr employs the concept of the relativity of thought, which he traces to Marx, to show that standards by which policies are judged are the products of circumstances and interests. Interests of a given party always determine what this party regards as moral principles, and hence, these principles are not universal. Policies are not, as the idealists would have it, based on some universal norms, independent of interests of the parties involved.
- Car refutes the liberals’ belief that international concord could be achieved by the widest possible application of their views of peace, harmony of interest, collective security and free trade. These are nothing but the ideologies of the dominant group concerned with maintaining their own predominance by asserting the identity of its own interest with those of the community.
- The idealist concept of the harmony of interests is based on the notion that human beings can rationally recognize that they have some interests in common, and that cooperation is therefore possible. Carr contrasts this idea with the reality of conflict of interests. According to him, the world is torn apart by the particular interests of different individuals and groups. In such a conflictual environment, order is based on power, not on morality. Further, morality itself is the product of power.
- Realists on the other hand, believed the pursuit of national power was a natural drive which states neglected at their peril. Nation states which eschewed the pursuit of power on principle simply endangered their own security. For Carr, the pursuit of power by individual states took the form of promoting national interest a term later to be more broadly defined as the foreign policy goals of every nation. For Carr, as for all realists, conflict between states was inevitable in an international system without an overarching authority regulating relations between them. For Carr ethics was a function of politics and morality was the product of power.
- Carr says that the state is not ‘expected to indulge in altruism at the cost of any serious sacrifice of its interests’. E.H. Carr''s ‘Classical’ Realism, says that the desire for power and accumulate more power is rooted in the human nature. States are continuously engaged in a struggle to increase their capabilities without restraint.
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