|
A
peer-reviewed electronic journal published by the Institute
for Ethics and ISSN
1541-0099 24(2)
– June 2014 |
Moral Enhancement and Political Realism
Marcelo de Araujo
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Journal of Evolution and
Technology - Vol. 24 Issue 2 – June 2014 - pgs 29-43
Abstract
The possibility of morally enhancing the behavior of individuals by
means of drugs and genetic engineering has been the
object of intense philosophical discussion over the last few years. However, although
moral enhancement may turn out to be useful to promote cooperation in some
areas of human interaction, it will not promote cooperation in the domain of
international relations in those areas that are critical to state security.
Unlike some moral enhancement theorists, I argue that, because of the structure
of the system of states, moral enhancement cannot be used to avert such major
threats to humankind as terrorism and nuclear conflict. My analysis of the
political implications of moral enhancement is pursued through a critical
discussion of two different versions of political realism, namely human nature
realism and structural realism. I conclude that, as far as major threats to the
survival of humankind are concerned, moral enhancement can at most be used as a
means to change the present structure of the system of states.
I.
In recent decades, empirical research in the fields of biomedical
technology and neuroscience has paved the way for different forms of human
enhancement, such as, for instance, cognitive enhancement, memory enhancement,
mood enhancement, and attention enhancement. Unlike therapy or treatment, which
aims at correcting someone’s deficit in the exercise of a specific activity, enhancement aims at improving someone’s
already well-functioning capacity to perform an activity. An older person, for
example, may seek a drug as a form of treatment for his or her failing memory.
This is not enhancement, but therapy or treatment. On the other hand, a younger
and healthy person might seek the same drug as a means to improve his or her
already well-functioning memory. This is not therapy or treatment, but
enhancement. By means of drugs or genetic engineering, human
beings may become better at a wide range of activities. But could drugs or
genetic engineering also make human beings morally
better?
The supposition that in the future it will be possible to morally
enhance human beings has been the subject of some philosophical debate over the
last few years. The idea here is not
that moral enhancement will enable individuals to make better moral judgments,
or that individuals will be in a better position to provide the foundations of
their moral convictions. The idea behind moral enhancement is that empirical
research suggests that it is possible to use drugs or genetic engineering in
order to influence and modify human motivation
in ways that are relevant for morality. Moral enhancement, thus, might make
individuals more willing to help people in need, more inclined to behave
cooperatively, more disposed to be honest and truth-telling, or more sensitive
to the suffering of other individuals in their surroundings. Although the
feasibility and implementation of moral enhancement in the future are
uncertain, its mere possibility raises a number of relevant questions for both
moral and political philosophy.
Some moral enhancement theorists argue that a society of morally
enhanced individuals would be in a better position to cope with important
problems that humankind is likely to face in the future such as, for instance,
the threats posed by climate change, grand scale terrorist attacks, or the risk
of catastrophic wars. The assumption here is quite simple: our inability to
cope successfully with these problems stems mainly from a sort of deficit in
human beings’ moral motivation. If human beings were morally better – if we had
enhanced moral dispositions – there would be fewer wars, less terrorism, and
more willingness to save our environment.
Although simple and attractive, this assumption is, as I intend to show,
false. At the root of threats to the survival of humankind in the future is not
a deficit in our moral dispositions, but the endurance of an old political
arrangement that prevents the pursuit of shared goals on a collective basis.
The political arrangement I have in mind here is the international system of states.
In my analysis of the political implications of moral enhancement, I intend to
concentrate my attention only on the supposition that we could avoid major wars
in the future by making individuals morally better. I do not intend to discuss
the threats posed by climate change, or by terrorism, although some human
enhancement theorists also seek to cover these topics. I will explain, in the
course of my analysis, a conceptual distinction between “human nature realism”
and “structural realism,” well-known in the field of international relations
theory.
II.
Thomas Douglas seems to have been among the first to explore the idea of
“moral enhancement” as a new form of human enhancement. He certainly helped to
kick off the current phase of the debate. In a paper published in 2008, Douglas
suggests that in the “future people might use biomedical technology to morally enhance themselves.” Douglas
characterizes moral enhancement in terms of the acquisition of “morally better
motives” (Douglas 2008, 229). Mark Walker, in a paper published in 2009,
suggests a similar idea. He characterizes moral enhancement in terms of
improved moral dispositions or “genetic virtues”:
The Genetic Virtue Program (GVP) is a proposal for
influencing our moral nature through biology, that is, it is an alternate yet
complementary means by which ethics and ethicists might contribute to the task
of making our lives and world a better place. The basic idea is simple enough:
genes influence human behavior, so altering the genes of individuals may alter
the influence genes exert on behavior. (Walker 2009, 27–28)
Walker does not argue in favor of any specific moral theory, such as,
for instance, virtue ethics. Whether one endorses a deontological or a
utilitarian approach to ethics, he argues, the concept of virtue is relevant to
the extent that virtues motivate us either to do the right thing or to maximize
the good (Walker 2009, 35).
Moral enhancement theory, however, does not reduce the ethical debate to
the problem of moral dispositions. Morality also concerns, to a large extent,
questions about reasons for action. And moral enhancement, most certainly, will
not improve our moral beliefs; neither could it be used to settle moral
disagreements. This seems to have led some authors to criticize the moral
enhancement idea on the ground that it neglects the cognitive side of our moral
behavior. Robert Sparrow, for instance, argues that, from a Kantian point of
view, moral enhancement would have to provide us with better moral beliefs rather than enhanced moral motivation
(Sparrow 2014, 25; see also Agar 2010, 74). Yet, it seems to me that this objection misses the
point of the moral enhancement idea. Many people, across different countries,
already share moral beliefs relating, for instance, to the wrongness of harming
or killing other people arbitrarily, or to the moral requirement to help people
in need. They may share moral beliefs while not sharing the same reasons for
these beliefs, or perhaps even not being able to articulate the beliefs in the
conceptual framework of a moral theory (Blackford
2010, 83). But although they share some moral beliefs, in
some circumstances they may lack the appropriate motivation to act accordingly.
Moral enhancement, thus, aims at improving moral motivation, and leaves open
the question as to how to improve our moral judgments.
In a recent paper, published in The
Journal of Medical Ethics, neuroscientist Molly Crockett reports the state
of the art in the still very embryonic field of moral enhancement. She points
out, for example, that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)
citalopram seems to increase harm aversion. There is, moreover, some evidence
that this substance may be effective in the treatment of specific types of
aggressive behavior. Like
The question I would like to examine now concerns the supposition that
moral enhancement – comprehended in these terms and assuming for the sake of
argument that, some day, it might become effective and safe – may also help us
in coping with the threat of devastating wars in the future. The assumption
that there is a relationship between, on the one hand, threats to the survival
of humankind and, on the other, a sort of “deficit” in our moral dispositions
is clearly made by some moral enhancements theorists. Douglas, for instance,
argues that “according to many plausible theories, some of the world’s most
important problems — such as developing world poverty, climate change and war —
can be attributed to these moral deficits” (2008, 230).
Walker, in a similar vein, writes
about the possibility of “using biotechnology to alter our biological natures
in an effort to reduce evil in the world” (2009, 29). And Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson go as far as to defend the “the need
for moral enhancement” of humankind in a series of articles, and in a book
published in 2012.
III.
One of the reasons Savulescu and Persson advance for the moral enhancement
of humankind is that our moral dispositions seem to have remained basically
unchanged over the last millennia (Persson and Savulescu 2012,
2). These dispositions have proved thus far quite
useful for the survival of human beings as a species. They have enabled us to
cooperate with each other in the collective production of things such as food,
shelter, tools, and farming. They have also played a crucial role in the
creation and refinement of a variety of human institutions such as settlements,
villages, and laws. Although the possibility of free-riding has never been
fully eradicated, the benefits provided by cooperation have largely exceeded
the disadvantages of our having to deal with occasional uncooperative or
untrustworthy individuals (Persson and Savulescu 2012, 39). The problem, however, is that the same dispositions that have enabled
human beings in the past to engage in the collective production of so many
artifacts and institutions now seem powerless in the face of the human capacity
to destroy other human beings on a grand scale, or perhaps even to annihilate
the entire human species. There is, according to Savulescu and Persson, a “mismatch”
between our cognitive faculties and our evolved moral attitudes: “[…]
as we have repeatedly stressed, owing to the progress of science, the range of
our powers of action has widely outgrown the range of our spontaneous moral
attitudes, and created a dangerous mismatch” (Persson and Savulescu 2012, 103; see
also Persson and Savulescu 2010, 660; Persson and Savulescu 2011b; DeGrazie
2012, 2; Rakić 2014, 2).
This worry about the mismatch between, on the one hand, the modern
technological capacity to destroy and, on the other, our limited moral
commitments is not new. The political philosopher Hans Morgenthau, best known
for his defense of political realism, called attention to the same problem
nearly fifty years ago. In the wake of the first successful tests with
thermonuclear bombs, conducted by the USA and the former Soviet Union,
Morgenthau referred to the “contrast” between the technological progress of our
age and our feeble moral attitudes as one of the most disturbing dilemmas of
our time:
The first dilemma consists in the contrast between the
technological unification of the world and the parochial moral commitments and
political institutions of the age. Moral commitments and political
institutions, dating from an age which modern technology has left behind, have
not kept pace with technological achievements and, hence, are incapable of
controlling their destructive potentialities. (Morgenthau
1962, 174)
Moral enhancement theorists and political realists like Morgenthau,
therefore, share the thesis that our natural moral dispositions are not strong
enough to prevent human beings from endangering their own existence as a
species. But they differ as to the best way out of this quandary: moral
enhancement theorists argue for the re-engineering of our moral dispositions,
whereas Morgenthau accepted the immutability of human nature and argued,
instead, for the re-engineering of world politics. Both positions, as I intend
to show, are wrong in assuming that the “dilemma” results from the weakness of
our spontaneous moral dispositions in the face of the unprecedented
technological achievements of our time. On the other hand, both positions are
correct in recognizing the real possibility of global catastrophes resulting
from the malevolent use of, for instance, biotechnology or nuclear
capabilities.
IV.
The supposition that individuals’ unwillingness to cooperate with each
other, even when they would be better-off by choosing to cooperate, results
from a sort of deficit of dispositions such as altruism, empathy, and
benevolence has been at the core of some important political theories. This
idea is an important assumption in the works of early modern political realists
such as Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. It was also later endorsed by some
well-known authors writing about the origins of war in the first half of the
twentieth century. It was then believed, as Sigmund Freud suggested in a text
from 1932, that the main cause of wars is a human tendency to “hatred and
destruction” (in German: ein Trieb zum
Hassen und Vernichtung).
Freud went as far as to suggest that human beings have an ingrained “inclination”
to “aggression” and “destruction” (Aggressionstrieb,
Aggressionsneigung, and Destruktionstrieb), and that this
inclination has a “good biological basis” (biologisch
wohl begründet) (Freud 1999, 20–24; see also Freud 1950; Forbes 1984; Pick 1993, 211–227; Medoff 2009). The attempt to employ
Freud’s conception of human nature in understanding international relations has
recently been resumed, for instance by Kurt Jacobsen in a paper entitled “Why
Freud Matters: Psychoanalysis and International Relations Revisited,” published
in 2013.
Morgenthau himself was deeply influenced by Freud’s speculations on the
origins of war.1 Early in the 1930s, Morgenthau wrote an essay called “On the Origin of the Political from the Nature of Human Beings” (Über die Herkunft des Politischen aus dem Wesen
des Menschen), which contains several references to Freud’s theory about the
human propensity to aggression.2 Morgenthau’s
most influential book, Politics among
Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, first published in 1948 and then successively revised and edited, is
still considered a landmark work in the tradition of
political realism.
According to Morgenthau, politics is governed by laws that have their origin in human
nature: “Political realism believes that
politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have
their roots in human nature” (Morgenthau 2006, 4). Just like human enhancement theorists,
Morgenthau also takes for granted that human nature has not changed over recent
millennia: “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” (Morgenthau 2006, 4). And since, for Morgenthau, human nature prompts human beings to act
selfishly, rather than cooperatively, political leaders will sometimes favor
conflict over cooperation, unless some superior power compels them to act
otherwise. Now, this is exactly what happens in the domain of international
relations. For in the international sphere there is not a supranational institution
with the real power to prevent states from pursuing means of self-defense. The
acquisition of means of self-defense, however, is frequently perceived by other
states as a threat to their own security. This leads to the security dilemma
and the possibility of war. As Morgenthau put the problem in an article
published in 1967: “The
actions of states are determined not by moral principles and legal
commitments but by considerations of interest and power” (1967, 3).
Because
Morgenthau and early modern political philosophers such as Machiavelli and
Hobbes defended political realism on the grounds provided by a specific
conception human nature, their version of political realism has been frequently
called “human nature realism.” The literature on human nature realism has
become quite extensive (Speer 1968; Booth 1991; Freyberg-Inan
2003; Kaufman 2006; Molloy 2006, 82–85; Craig
2007; Scheuerman 2007, 2010, 2012; Schuett 2007; Neascu 2009; Behr 2010, 210–225;
Brown 2011; Jütersonke
2012). It is not my intention here to present a fully-fledged account of the
tradition of human nature realism, but rather to emphasize the extent to which
some moral enhancement theorists, in their
description of some of the gloomy scenarios humankind is likely to face in the
future, implicitly endorse this kind of political realism. Indeed, like human nature realists, moral enhancement theorists
assume that human nature has not changed over the last millennia, and that
violence and lack of cooperation in the international sphere result chiefly
from human nature’s limited inclination to pursue morally desirable goals.
One may, of course, criticize the human enhancement project by rejecting
the assumption that conflict and violence in the international domain should be
explained by means of a theory about human nature. In a reply
to Savulescu and Persson, Sparrow correctly argues that “structural issues,”
rather than human nature, constitute the main factor underlying political
conflicts (Sparrow 2014, 29). But he does
not explain what exactly these “structural issues” are, as I intend to do
later. Sparrow is right in rejecting the human nature theory underlying the
human enhancement project. But this underlying assumption, in my view, is not trivially
false or simply “ludicrous,” as he suggests. Human nature realism has
been implicitly or explicitly endorsed by leading political philosophers ever
since Thucydides speculated on the origins of war in antiquity (Freyberg-Inan
2003, 23–36).
True, it might be objected that
“human nature realism,” as it was defended by Morgenthau and
earlier political philosophers, relied upon a metaphysical or psychoanalytical
conception of human nature, a conception that, actually, did not have the
support of any serious scientific investigation (Smith
1983, 167). Yet, over the last few years there has been much empirical
research in fields such as developmental psychology and evolutionary biology that
apparently gives some support to the realist claim. Some of these studies
suggest that an inclination to aggression and conflict has its origins in our
evolutionary history. This idea, then, has recently led some authors to resume
“human nature realism” on new foundations, devoid of the metaphysical
assumptions of the early realists, and entirely grounded in empirical research.
Indeed, some recent works in the field of international relations theory
already seek to call attention to evolutionary biology as a possible new start
for political realism. This point is clearly made, for instance, by Bradley
Thayer, who published in 2004 a book called Darwin
and International Relations: On the
Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict. And in a paper published
in 2000, he affirms the following:
Evolutionary theory provides a stronger foundation for
realism because it is based on science, not on theology or metaphysics. I use
the theory to explain two human traits: egoism and domination. I submit that
the egoistic and dominating behavior of individuals, which is commonly
described as “realist,” is a product of the evolutionary process. I focus on
these two traits because they are critical components of any realist argument
in explaining international politics. (Thayer 2000, 125; see also Thayer 2004)
Thayer basically argues that a tendency to egoism and domination stems from
human evolutionary history. The predominance of conflict and competition in the
domain of international politics, he argues, is a reflex of dispositions that can
now be proved to be part of our evolved human nature in a way that Morgenthau
and other earlier political philosophers could not have established in their
own time. Now, what some moral enhancement theorists propose is a direct
intervention in our “evolved limited moral psychology” as a means to make us
“fit” to cope with some possible devastating consequences from the predominance
of conflict and competition in the domain of international politics (Persson and Savulescu 2010, 664).
Moral enhancement theorists comprehend the nature of war and conflicts,
especially those conflicts that humankind is likely to face in the future, as
the result of human beings’ limited moral motivations. Compared to supporters
of human nature realism, however, moral enhancement theorists are less skeptical
about the prospect of our taming human beings’ proclivity to do evil. For our
knowledge in fields such as neurology and pharmacology does already enable us
to enhance people’s performance in a variety of activities, and there seems to
be no reason to assume it will not enable us to enhance people morally in the
future. But the question, of course, is whether moral enhancement will also
improve the prospect of our coping successfully with some major threats to the
survival of humankind, as Savulescu and Persson propose, or to reduce evil in
the world, as proposed by Walker.
V.
The point to which I would next like to call attention is that “human
nature realism” – which is implicitly presupposed by some moral enhancement
theorists – has been much criticized over the last decades within the tradition
of political realism itself. “Structural realism,” unlike “human nature realism,”
does not seek to derive a theory about conflicts and violence in the context of
international relations from a theory of the moral shortcomings of human
nature. Structural realism was originally proposed by Kenneth Waltz in Man, the State and War, published in
1959, and then later in another book called Theory
of International Politics, published in
Waltz’s thesis is that the thrust of the political realism doctrine can
be retained without our having to commit ourselves to any theory about the
shortcomings of human nature. What is relevant for our understanding of
international politics is, instead, our understanding of the “structure” of the
international system of states (Waltz 1986). John Mearsheimer, too, is an important
contemporary advocate of political realism. Although he seeks to distance
himself from some ideas defended by Waltz, he also rejects human nature realism
and, like Waltz, refers to himself as a supporter of “structural realism” (Mearsheimer
2001, 20).
One of the basic tenets of political realism (whether “human nature
realism” or “structural realism”) is, first, that the states are the main, if
not the only, relevant actors in the context of international relations; and
second, that states compete for power in the international arena. Moral
considerations in international affairs, according to realists, are secondary
when set against the state’s primary goal, namely its own security and
survival. But while human nature realists such as Morgenthau explain the
struggle for power as a result of human beings’ natural inclinations,
structural realists like Waltz and Mearsheimer argue that conflicts in the
international arena do not stem from human nature, but from the very
“structure” of the international system of states (Mearsheimer
2001, 18). According to Waltz and Mearsheimer, it is this structure
that compels individuals to act as they do in the domain of international
affairs. And one distinguishing feature of the international system of states
is its “anarchical structure,” i.e. the lack of a central government analogous
to the central governments that exist in the context of domestic politics. It
means that each individual state is responsible for its own integrity and
survival. In the absence of a superior authority, over and above the power of
each sovereign state, political leaders often feel compelled to favor security
over morality, even if, all other things being considered, they would naturally be more inclined to trust and
to cooperate with political leaders of other states. On the other hand, when
political leaders do trust and cooperate with other states, it is not
necessarily their benevolent nature that motivates them to be cooperative and
trustworthy, but, again, it is the structure of the system of states that
compels them. The concept of human nature, as we can see, does not play a
decisive role here. Because Waltz and Mearsheimer depart from “human nature
realism,” their version of political realism has also sometimes been called
“neo-realism” (Booth 1991, 533).
Thus, even if human beings turn out to become morally enhanced in the
future, humankind may still have to face the same scary scenarios described by
some moral enhancement theorists. This is likely to happen if, indeed, human
beings remain compelled to cooperate within the present structure of the system
of states. Consider, for instance, the incident with a Norwegian weather rocket
in January 1995. Russian radars detected a missile that was initially suspected
of being on its way to reach Moscow in five minutes. All levels of Russian
military defense were immediately put on alert for a possible imminent attack
and massive retaliation. It is reported that for the first time in history a
Russian president had before him, ready to be used, the “nuclear briefcase”
from which the permission to launch nuclear weapons is issued. And that
happened when the Cold War was already supposed to be over! In the event, it
was realized that the rocket was leaving Russian territory and Boris Yeltsin did not
have to enter the history books as the man who started the third world war by
mistake (Cirincione 2008, 382).3 But under
the crushing pressure of having to decide in such a short time, and on the
basis of unreliable information, whether or not to retaliate, even a morally enhanced
Yeltsin might have given orders to launch a devastating nuclear response – and
that in spite of strong moral dispositions to the contrary.
Writing for The Guardian on the basis of recently
declassified documents, Rupert Myers reports further incidents similar to the
one of 1995. He suggests that as more states strive to acquire nuclear
capability, the danger of a major nuclear accident is likely to increase (Myers
2014).
What has to be changed, therefore, is not human
moral dispositions, but the very structure of the political international
system of states within which we currently live. As far as major threats to the
survival of humankind are concerned, moral enhancement might play an important
role in the future only to the extent that it will help humankind to change the
structure of the system of states.
While moral enhancement may possibly have desirable results in some
areas of human cooperation that do not badly threaten our security – such as donating food, medicine, and money to poorer countries – it will not motivate political leaders to dismantle their nuclear weapons.
Neither will it deter other political leaders from pursuing nuclear capability,
at any rate not as long as the structure of international politics compels them
to see prospective cooperators in the present as possible enemies in the
future.
The idea of a “structure” should not be understood here in metaphysical
terms, as though it mysteriously existed in a transcendent world and had the
magical power of determining leaders’ decisions in this world. The word
“structure” denotes merely a political arrangement in which there are no
powerful law-enforcing institutions. And in the absence of the kind of security
that law-enforcing institutions have the force to create, political leaders
will often fail to cooperate, and occasionally engage in conflicts and wars, in
those areas that are critical to their security and survival. Given the
structure of international politics and the basic goal of survival, this is
likely to continue to happen, even if, in the future, political leaders become
less egoistic and power-seeking through moral enhancement. On the other hand,
since the structure of the international system of states is itself another
human institution, there is no reason to suppose that it cannot ever be
changed. If people become morally enhanced in the future they may possibly feel
more strongly motivated to change the structure of the system of states, or
perhaps even feel inclined to abolish it altogether. In my view, however, addressing
major threats to the survival of humankind in the future by means of
bioengineering is unlikely to yield the expected results, so long as moral
enhancement is pursued within the present framework of the international system
of states.
It might be objected now that if
this account of political realism is correct, then we would have to admit that
structural realists, too, have to take for granted a specific conception of
human nature, namely that human beings naturally strive for security and
survival. Waltz himself admits that there is a basic “wish for survival” common
to all states (Waltz 2001, 203). Yet, if there is a
conception of human nature at issue here, it is a very modest one. This
is, actually, the assumption that makes intelligible a wide range of human activities.
We strive to make safer cars, better medicines, and earthquake-resistant
buildings on the assumption that people will generally prefer security and
survival rather than danger and death. Human institutions, just like cars,
medicines and buildings, can also be designed to promote the basic goals of
security and survival. Both positive law, in the context of domestic politics,
and the system of states as a whole, are institutions that clearly reflect the
human quest for security and survival. Positive laws can certainly make our
lives more secure in the context of states, where a powerful institution is in
a position to enforce them. But in the context of interaction among states, the
absence of such an institution means that states will have to rely upon
themselves in order to promote the basic goals of security and survival.
Once we have understood how the
structure of international relations often constrains actors operating within
the structure to prefer war over peace, as well as conflict over cooperation
and mistrust over trust, in situations in which everyone would be better-off by
acting otherwise, we can ask more pertinent questions. In particular, we can ask
ourselves whether, given the goals of security and survival in a world in which
weapons of mass destructions are becoming so readily available, we would not
have reasons to radically change this structure or even get rid of it. My intention
here is not to propose a blueprint for the implementation of radical change in
world politics. I simply intend to explain why this option is not incompatible
with the realist approach, nor with the project of the moral enhancement of
human beings. Quite the opposite: the idea of a “world state,” devoid of state
borders and ruled by “supra-national institutions,” was perfectly in line with
the original project of some human nature realists, although it eventually
disappeared in the works of the so-called “neo-realists,” such as Waltz and Mearsheimer.
VI.
The suggestion that the
system of states could one day be abolished might perhaps be dismissed as a
far-fetched idea and, indeed, as wholly incompatible with political realism
itself. For political realism presupposes the very existence of the system of
states. Should the system of states ever disappear, political realism would
fail to make any sense. It is not entirely clear, however, whether political
realism must be understood as both a descriptive
and a prescriptive theory. If
political realism is both descriptive and prescriptive as a theory of the structure
of the international relations, then the objection is justified. For one could
not endorse political realism and, at the same time, prescribe the dissolution
of the system of states as part of a solution to a range of problems to which
some moral enhancements theorists rightly draw attention. But although some
realists do advocate political realism on both descriptive and prescriptive
grounds, it seems to me that we can coherently retain only the descriptive
aspect of the theory. Consider, for instance, the following passage from Mearsheimer’s book The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics:
It
should be apparent from this discussion that offensive realism is mainly a
descriptive theory. It explains how great powers have behaved in the past and
how they are likely to behave in the future. But it is also a prescriptive
theory. States should behave
according to the dictates of offensive realism, because it outlines the best
way to survive in a dangerous world. (Mearsheimer 2001, 11)
Political realism, in my view,
correctly describes the structure of the international relations in a world
devoid of central government. The absence of an institution with the real power
to enforce laws for mutual benefit on a global scale means that the states can
only count on self-help in their attempts to guarantee their own security and
survival. But if the survival of humankind in the
future becomes threatened for some of the reasons to which moral enhancement theorists plausibly call attention, then abolishing
the system of states, rather than following the “dictates of offensive realism,” may very
well be the best prescription to follow.
It is interesting to
note that, unlike Waltz or Mearsheimer, Morgenthau and other realists writing in
the aftermath of World War II did not always defend their theories on normative
grounds.4 As I stressed earlier, Morgenthau understood that the
greatest threat to the survival of humankind consisted in a “contrast” between
our technological capability for mutual destruction, on the one hand, and the
poor “moral commitments” and “political institutions” of the present age, on
the other (Morgenthau 1962, 174). However,
Morgenthau’s proposed solution to the “survival
of mankind” consisted, not in enhancing our moral
dispositions, but in subverting the system of states. Morgenthau realized that,
if the primary function of the state is to ensure the security and survival of
its own citizens, then the state, conceived as a means to an end, had become
“obsolete” by the time the United States and the former Soviet Union had both concluded
their first thermonuclear tests. As he put the problem in 1966, there is really
no point in trying to protect oneself in the event of a major nuclear war, for
all one can hope is to avoid such a war in the first place. And this goal could
only be achieved, he assumed, by creating a “world state” operating within the
framework of a “supra-national
political order” (Morgenthau 1962a,
175; Morgenthau 1962b,
284; Morgenthau 1966,
10).
Modern
technology has rendered the nation state obsolete as a principle of political
organization, for the nation state is no longer able to perform what is the
elementary function of any political organization: to protect the lives of its
members and their way of life. [...] Under the technological conditions of the
pre-atomic age, the stronger nation states could, as it were, erect walls
behind which their citizens could live in safety while the weaker states were
protected by the operation of the balance of power, which added the resources
of the strong to those of the weak.
The
modern technologies of transportation, communications, and warfare, and the
resultant feasibility of all-out atomic war, have completely destroyed this
protective function of the nation state. No nation state is capable of
protecting its citizens and their way of life against an all-out atomic attack.
Its safety rests solely in preventing such an attack from taking place. (Morgenthau
1966, 9).5
Although a world state might not eliminate every form of violent conflict
among competing groups, it would certainly end competition among states, which
would be at the root of any possible grand scale nuclear war. True, violent
conflicts among competing groups within states have often escalated to ethnic
cleansing and genocide. And these internal conflicts have also frequently claimed
far more human lives than wars among
states. Yet, it is the system of states itself that makes international
intervention in these cases sometimes nearly impossible, or at least slow and
ineffective.
The idea of a “world
state” has recently been revived in books such as Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government,
by Torbjörn Tännsjö, published in 2008, and The
Realist Case for Global Reform, by William Scheuerman, published in 2011. Scheuerman
calls Morgenthau’s theory “progressive realism.” Ken Booth, on the other hand, refers
to Morgenthau’s project for a “world state” as “utopian
realism.” There is, indeed, no reason to assume that the prospect for the
emergence of a “world
state” is less “utopian” today than it was fifty years ago. Yet,
the urge to think of strategies in order to cope with possible threats to the
future of humankind may be even stronger now than it was during the Cold War.
At the end of the day,
moral enhancement, conceived as a tool to avert major catastrophes in the
future, may be no less “utopian” an idea than the project for a world state. Even
if moral enhancement turns out to prove effective and safe in the future, it
will not yield the expected results in the domain of international politics, as
I have attempted to show, unless the structure of the system of states is also
radically changed, or perhaps even abolished.
Notes
1.
On the influence of Freud on the work of some early realist thinkers, see
Schuett 2007, 2010.
2.
The original MS is available at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, in the
collection Hans J. Morgenthau Papers,
ID No. MSS61675, Box 151. The online catalog record for this collection is
available from: http://lccn.loc.gov/mm84061675.
For a detailed analysis of Morgenthau’s unpublished MS, see Schuett 2007.
3. See also Hoffman 1998; Pry 1999. For other cases
similar to the incident with the Norwegian weather rocket, see Schlosser 2013; Forsyth and Davis 2007.
4.
For accounts of early realists who also supported the idea of a “world state,”
see Booth 1991, 2008; Scheuerman 2007, 2010, 2012.
5. See also Morgenthau 1948, 419: “If the world state is unattainable in our
world, yet indispensable for the survival of that world, it is necessary to
create the conditions under which it will not be impossible from the outset to
establish a world state.”
Acknowledgements
This
research was developed at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University
of Oxford, and at the University of Konstanz, Germany. It benefited from
financial support granted by CAPES (Brazilian Higher Education Coordinating
Agency) in 2013, and by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2014. I am
especially grateful to Julian Savulescu and to Peter Stemmer for the invitation
that enabled me to research the issues in Oxford and Konstanz in 2013 and 2014,
respectively.
I would also like to thank Ingmar Persson and
Thomas Douglas for their careful reading and helpful comments on an earlier
draft. The responsibility for the
content of this article rests with the
author.
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