| Publication |
2012.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
When liberal democracies pursue idealistic goals they invite accusations of naivety and impracticality; if they act on strictly realistic premises they are accused of hypocrisy or betrayal of ideals. The author explores the consequences of this idealism-realism dilemma using the example of United States foreign policy and the particular case of Woodrow Wilson and the Covenant of the League of Nations. The author examines its theoretical roots by analysing the work of Immanuel Kant, who laid down the influential moral-political ideal of a democratic peace but posited so stark a theoretical gulf between morality and politics as to make the ideal seem unreachable. Kant tried to show how a world resistant to morality might nevertheless evolve towards one in which moral action had real political effect-a necessary condition, he believed, for an international federation of republics committed to peaceful coexistence. The implausibility of his account reveals the problematic nature of the idealism-realism divide, but also, in its attempt to bridge that divide, points the way towards a genuinely ethical-practical foreign policy founded in political prudence.
|