Politics Among Nations

Morgenthau declares that his theory of international politics is “empirical” and “pragmatic” instead of “abstract.” Also, he writes that any theory of international politics must address the two major schools of modern politics. One school is based on the idea that politics involves “universally valid abstract principles” (3), the fundamental goodness of humanity, and the belief that problems can be addressed by spreading knowledge and political reforms. The other school, political realism, argues that universal moral values do not exist—at least none that can be completely enacted in the real world. Instead, this approach argues that politics are shaped by an “objective” human nature and that navigating such dynamics requires parsing apart people’s self-interest and rival agendas.

Next, Morgenthau lays out six principles for political realism. He first asserts the existence of a universal and unchanging human nature, arguing that such an understanding has to be approached through reason.

The second principle asserts that politicians act out of self-interest in order to safeguard their own power and that politicians can only be judged by their actions and their capacity to carry out actions, not by their “motives” and “ideological preferences” (5). The author argues that because such politicians are limited by “concrete circumstances of time and place,” they draw “a sharp distinction between the desirable and the possible” (8).