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Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was one of the
Hans Morgenthau
major twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. Morgenthau's
works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory, and he is
usually considered, along with George F. Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the
three leading American realists of the post-World War II period. Morgenthau made
landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of
international law. His Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through
five editions during his lifetime.
Morgenthau also wrote widely about international politics and U.S. foreign policy
for general-circulation publications such as The New Leader, Commentary,
Worldview, The New York Review of Books, and The New Republic. He knew and
corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and writers of his era, such as
Reinhold Niebuhr,[1] George F. Kennan,[2] Carl Schmitt [3] and Hannah Arendt.[4][5]
At one point in the early Cold War, Morgenthau was a consultant to the U.S.
Department of State when Kennan headed its Policy Planning Staff, and a second
time during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations until he was dismissed by
Johnson when he began to publicly criticize American policy in Vietnam.[6] For Morgenthau in 1963
most of his career, however, Morgenthau was esteemed as an academic interpreter of Born Hans Joachim
U.S. foreign policy.[7] Morgenthau
February 17, 1904
Coburg, Saxe-
Coburg and Gotha,
Contents Germany
On moving to New York, Morgenthau separated from his wife, who remained in Chicago partly due to medical issues. He is reported
twice to have tried to initiate plans to start a new family while in New York, once with the political philosopher Hannah Arendt as
documented by her biographer,[9] and a second time with Ethel Person (d. 2012), a medical professor at Columbia University (she
documents this in her essay for the Morgenthau Centenary in 2004).[10]
On October 8, 1979, Morgenthau was one of the passengers on board Swissair Flight 316, which crashed while trying to land at
Athens-Ellinikon International Airport,[11] while he was en route on a flight destined for Bombay and Peking.
Morgenthau died after a brief hospitalization on July 19, 1980, after being admitted with a grave diagnosis of a perforated ulcer at
Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, according to the account recorded by Ethel Person.[12]
Following completion of his doctoral dissertation, Morgenthau left Germany to complete his Habilitation dissertation (license to
teach at universities) in Geneva. It was published (in French) as The Reality of Norms and in Particular the Norms of International
Law: Foundations of a Theory of Norms.[16] The legal scholar Hans Kelsen, who had just arrived in Geneva as a professor, was an
adviser to Morgenthau's dissertation. Kelsen was among the strongest critics of Carl Schmitt. Kelsen and Morgenthau became
lifelong colleagues even after both emigrated from Europe to take their respective academic positions in the United States.
In 1933, Morgenthau wrote a second book in French, The Concept of the Political, which was translated into English in 2012.[17] In
this book Morgenthau sought to articulate the difference between legal disputes between nations and political disputes between
nations or other litigants. The questions driving the inquiry were: (i) Who holds legal power over the objects or concerns being
disputed, (ii) In what manner can the holder of this legal power be changed or held accountable; (iii) How can a dispute, the object of
which concerns a legal power, be resolved; and (iv) In what manner will the holder of the legal power be protected in the course of
exercising that power. The end goal of any legal system in this context for Morgenthau is to "ensure justice and peace."
Morgenthau sought in the 1920s and 1930s a realist alternative to mainstream international law, a quest for "functional
jurisprudence". He borrowed ideas fromSigmund Freud,[18] Max Weber, Roscoe Pound, and others.
In 1940 Morgenthau set out a research program for legal functionalism in the article "Positivism, Functionalism, and International
Law".[19] Francis Boyle has written that Morgenthau's post-war writings perhaps contributed to a "break between international
political science and international legal studies." [20] However, Politics Among Nations contains a chapter on international law, and
Morgenthau remained an active contributor to the subject of the relationship between international politics and international law until
the end of his career.[21]
Starting with the second edition of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau included a section in the opening chapter called "Six
Principles of Political Realism".[25]
1. Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in
human nature.[26][27]
2. The main signpost of political realism is the concept of interest defined in terms of power, which infuses rational
order into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. [28] Political
realism avoids concerns with themotives and ideology of statesmen. Political realism avoids reinterpreting reality to
fit the policy. A good foreign policy minimizesrisks and maximizes benefits.
3. Realism recognizes that the determining kind of interest varies depending on the political and cultural context in
which foreign policy, not to be confused witha theory of international politics, is made. It does not give "interest
defined as power" a meaning that is fixed once and for all.
4. Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the tension between the
moral command and the requirements of successful political action. Realism maintains that universal moral
principles must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place, because they cannot be applied to
the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation. [29]
5. Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the
universe.[30]
6. The political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere; the statesman asks "How does this policyfect af
the power and interests of the nation?" Political realism is based on a pluralistic conception of human nature. The
political realist must show where the nation's interests dif fer from the moralistic and legalistic viewpoints.
Aside from his writing of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau continued with a
prolific writing career and published the three volume collection of his writings in 1962. Volume One was entitled The Decline of
Democratic Politics,[35] Volume Two was The Impasse of American Politics,[36] and Volume Three was The Restoration of American
Politics.[37] In addition to Morgenthau's interest and competence in writing about the political affairs of his own time, Morgenthau
[38] when faced with situations of crisis or tension.
also wrote about the philosophy of democratic theory [39]
After 1965, Morgenthau had become a leading authority and voice in the discussion
of just war theory in the modern nuclear era.[41] Just war theory was further
developed in the work ofPaul Ramsey, Michael Walzer, and other scholars.
In summer 1978, Morgenthau wrote his last co-authored essay titled "The Roots of
Morgenthau's dissent against
Narcissism," with Ethel Person of Columbia University.[42] This essay was a
Vietnam policy caused theJohnson
administration to dismiss him as an continuation of Morgenthau's earlier study of this subject in his 1962 essay "Public
advisor and to assign McGeorge Affairs: Love and Power," where Morgenthau engaged some of the themes that
Bundy to publicly oppose him in 1965 Niebuhr and the theologian Paul Tillich were addressing.[43] Morgenthau was taken
by his encounter with Tillich's book Love, Power and Justice,and he wrote a second
essay related to the book's themes.[44] More recently, Anthony Lang has recovered
and published Morgenthau's extensive course notes on Aristotle (for a course Morgenthau taught while at the New School for Social
Research during his New York years).[45] The comparison of Morgenthau to Aristotle has been further explored by Molloy.[46]
Morgenthau was a tireless reviewer of books during the several decades of his career as a scholar in the United States. The number of
book reviews he wrote approached nearly a hundred, and included almost three dozen book reviews for The New York Review of
Books alone. Morgenthau's last two book reviews were not written for The New York Review of Books and were of the books Soviet
Perspectives on International Relations; 1956–1967, by William Zimmerman[47] and Work, Society and Culture by Yves Simon.[48]
The last book review Morgenthau wrote for The New York Review of Books appeared in 1971.[49] Morgenthau's first book review,
written in 1940, was of Law, the State, and the International Community, by James Brown Scott.[50] Morgenthau also commented on
the Pentagon Papers.[51]
Criticism
The reception of Morgenthau's work can be divided into three phases. The first phase occurred during Morgenthau's life up to his
death in 1980. The second phase of the discussion of his writings and contributions to the study of international politics and
international law was between 1980 and the one hundred year commemoration of his birth that took place in 2004. The third phase of
the reception of his writings is between the centenary commemoration and the present, which shows a vibrant discussion of his
continuing influence.
Morgenthau's concern with the issues of nuclear weapons and the arms race [53] led to discussions and debates with Henry Kissinger
and others.[54] Morgenthau saw many aspects of the nuclear arms race as a form of irrational madness requiring the attention of
responsible diplomats, statesmen and scholars.[55]
Morgenthau remained throughout the Cold War an active participant in the discussion of U.S. foreign policy. He wrote in this
connection about Kissinger and his role in the Nixon administration.[56] Morgenthau in 1977 also wrote a brief "Foreword" on the
theme of terrorism as it began to emerge in the 1970s.[57]
Morgenthau, like Hannah Arendt, dedicated time and effort to the support of the state of Israel after its creation following World War
II.[58] Both Morgenthau and Arendt made annual trips to Israel to lend their established academic voices to its still young and
growing academic community during its inaugural decades as a new nation.[59] Morgenthau's interest in Israel also extended to the
Middle East[60] more generally,[61][62] including the politics of oil.[63] Morgenthau's interest in Israel extended further to related
[64]
issues of geopolitics, and issues related to Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has studied the relationship of Morgenthau's political realism to the neo-
conservativism prevailing during the G.W. Bush Administration in the context of the 2003 Iraq war.[68] For Morgenthau, the ethical
and moral component of international politics was on the whole, and unlike the positions of either defensive neorealism or offensive
neorealism, an integral part of the reasoning process of the international statesman and the essential content of responsible
scholarship in international relations.[69] Various aspects of Morgenthau's thought continue to be explored by scholars (see Further
Reading section, below).
Selected works
Scientific Man versus Power Politics(1946) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace(1948, and subsequent editions) New Y ork NY: Alfred A.
Knopf.
In Defense of the National Interest(1951) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
The Purpose of American Politics(1960) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Crossroad Papers: A Look Into the American Future(ed.) (1965) New York, NY: Norton.
Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, 1960–70 (1970) New York, NY: Praeger.
Essays on Lincoln's Faith and Politics. (1983) Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America for the Miller Center of Public
Affairs at the Univ. of Virginia. Co-published with a separate text by David Hein.
The Concept of the Political(2012; orig. 1933) Intro. by H. Behr and F . Roesch. Trans. by M. Vidal. Palgrave
Macmillan.
For a complete list of Morgenthau's writings, see"The Hans J. Morgenthau Page" at Google Sites.[70]
See also
Morgenthau Lectures by the Carnegie Council
E. H. Carr
Kenneth W. Thompson
Stephen Walt
Committee on International Relationsat the University of Chicago
References
Notes
Further reading
Bain, William. "Deconfusing Morgenthau: Moral Inquiry and Classical Realism Reconsidered."
Review of
International Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 445–64.
Behr, Hartmut, and Amelia Heath. "Misreading in IR Theory and Ideology Critique: Morgenthau, W
altz and Neo-
Realism." Review of International Studies35 (2009): 327–49.
Bell, Duncan, ed. Political Thought and International Relations: V
ariations on a Realist Theme.Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
Bird, Kai. The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms, Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Conces, Rory J. "Rethinking Realism (or Whatever) and the W
ar on Terrorism in a Place Like the Balkans."Theoria
56 (2009): 81–124.
Cozette, Murielle. "Reclaiming the Critical Dimension of Realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the Ethics of Scholarship."
Review of International Studies34 (2008): 5–27.
Craig, Campbell. Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New
York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
Donnelly, Jack. Realism and International Relations.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Frei, Christoph. Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography
. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2001.
Gellman, Peter. "Hans J. Morgenthau and theLegacy of Political Realism."Review of International Studies14
(1988): 247–66.
Goldstein, Gordon. Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to W
ar in Vietnam, 2009.
Griffiths, Martin. Realism, Idealism and International Politics.London: Routledge, 1992.
Guilhot, Nicolas. "The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory
." International
Political Sociology 4, no. 2 (2008):281–304.
Hacke, Christian, Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, and Kai M. Schellhorn, eds.
The Heritage, Challenge, and Future of
Realism: In Memoriam Hans J. Morgenthau (1904–1980).Göttingen, Germany: V&R unipress, 2005.
Hoffmann, Stanley. "Hans Morgenthau: The Limits and Influence of 'Realism'." InJanus and Minerva. Boulder, CO.:
Westview, 1987, pp. 70–81.
Jütersonke, Oliver. "Hans J. Morgenthau on ht e Limits of Justiciability in International Law
." Journal of the History of
International Law 8, no. 2 (2006): 181–211.
Kane, John. Between Virtue and Power: The Persistent Moral Dilemma of U.S. Foreign Policy, Yale University
Press, 2008, chapter 15.
Kaplan, Robert D. (2012) The Revenge of Geography: What the Maps T
ell Us About the Coming Conflicts and the
Battle Against Fate New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6983-5
Klusmeyer, Douglas. "Beyond Tragedy: Hannah Arendt and Hans Morgenthau on Responsibility
, Evil and Political
Ethics." International Studies Review11, no.2 (2009): 332–351.
Koskenniemi, Martti. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960
(Hersch
Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures).
Lang, Anthony F., Jr., ed. Political Theory and International Affairs: Hans J. Morgenthau on Aristotle's The Politics.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
Lebow, Richard Ned. The Tragic Vision of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Little, Richard. The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Mazur, G.O., ed. One Hundred Year Commemoration to the Life of Hans Morgenthau.New York: Semenenko, 2004.
Mazur, G.O., ed. Twenty-Five Year Memorial Commemoration to the Life of Hans Morgenthau.New York:
Semenenko Foundation, Andreeff Hall, 12, rue de Montrosier, 92200 Neuilly, Paris, France, 2006.
Mearsheimer, John J. "Hans Morgenthau andthe Iraq War: Realism Versus Neo-Conservatism."
openDemocracy.net (2005).
Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen (2007). The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-17772-4.
Milne, David. America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War, 2008.
Mollov, M. Benjamin. Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience.Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
Molloy, Sean. "Aristotle, Epicurus, Morgenthau and the Political Ethics of the Lesser Evil."Journal of International
Political Theory 5 (2009): 94–112.
Molloy, Sean. The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics.New York: Palgrave, 2006.
Murray, A. J. H. "The Moral Politics of Hans Morgenthau." The Review of Politics 58, no. 1 (1996): 81–107.
Myers, Robert J. "Hans J. Morgenthau: On Speaking rTuth to Power." Society 29, no. 2 (1992): 65–71.
Neacsu, Mihaela. Hans J. Morgenthau's Theory of International Relations: Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Peterson, Ulrik. "Breathing Nietzsche's Air: New Reflections on Morgenthau's Concept of Power and Human
Nature." Alternatives 24, no. 1 (1999): 83–113.
Pin-Fat, V. "The Metaphysics of the NationalInterest and the 'Mysticism' of the Nation-State: Reading Hans J.
Morgenthau." Review of International Studies31, no. 2 (2005): 217–36.
Rice, Daniel. Reinhold Niebuhr and His Circle of Influence. University of Cambridge Press, 2013.
Rösch, Felix. "Pouvoir, Puissance, and Politics: Hans Morgenthau’s Dualistic Concept of Power?." Review of
International Studies 40, no. 2 (2013): 349-65. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210513000065
Rösch, Felix. Power, Knowledge, and Dissent in Morgenthau’s Worldview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Rohde, Christoph. Hans J. Morgenthau und der weltpolitische Realismus: Die Grundlegung einer realistischen
Theorie. P. Weidmann und Christoph Rohdevon VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (16. Februar 2004)
Rosenthal, Joel H. Righteous Realists: Political Realism, Responsible Power
, and American Culture in the Nuclear
Age. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
Russell, Greg. Hans J. Morgenthau and the Ethics of American Statecraft.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1990.
Scheuerman, William E.Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond.Cambridge: Polity, 2009.
Scheuerman, William E. "Realism and the Left: The Case of Hans J. Morgenthau."
Review of International Studies
34 (2008): 29–51.
Schuett, Robert. "Freudian Roots of Political Realism: The Importance of Sigmund Freud to Hans J. Morgenthau's
Theory of International Power Politics."History of the Human Sciences20, no. 4 (2007): 53–78.
Schuett, Robert. Political Realism, Freud, and Human Nature in International Relations: The Resurrection of the
Realist Man. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Shilliam, Robbie. "Morgenthau in Context: German Backwardness, German Intellectuals and the Rise and Fall of a
Liberal Project." European Journal of International Relations13, no. 3 (2007): 299–327.
Smith, Michael J. Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
Spegele, Roger D. Political Realism in International Theory
. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.
Thompson, Kenneth W., and Robert J. Myers, eds. Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau. augmented
ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1984.
Tickner, J. Ann. "Hans Morgenthau's Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation."
Millennium: Journal
of International Studies17, no.3 (1988): 429–40.
Tjalve, Vibeke Schou. Realist Strategies of Republican Peace: Niebuhr
, Morgenthau, and the Politics of Patriotic
Dissent. New York: Palgrave, 2008.
Tsou, Tang. America's Failure in China, 1941–50.
Turner, Stephen, and G.O. Mazur. "Morgenthau as a Weberian Methodologist."European Journal of International
Relations 15, no. 3 (2009): 477–504.
Walker, R.B.J. "Realism and Change," inInside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory(Cambridge U.P.,
1993), pp. 104–124.
Williams, Michael C., ed.Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans Morgenthau in International Relations.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Williams, Michael C. The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
Williams, Michael C. "Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the
Moral Construction of Power Politics."International Organization58 (2004): 633–65.
Wong, Benjamin. "Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism."Millennium: Journal of International
Studies 29, no. 2 (2000): 389–409.
Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth.Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition, Yale University Press, 2004.
Zambernardi, Lorenzo.I limiti della potenza. Etica e politica nella teoria internazionale di Hans J. Morgenthau.
Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010.
External links
Guide to the Hans Morgenthau Collectionat the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.
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