Part I International Law and Global Security, Ch.7 Global Security and Neurophilosophy: Understanding the Human Factor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Al-Rodhan Nayef ◽  
Puscas Ioana-Maria
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
Peace And Security

This chapter evaluates the fundamental starting point in political theory: human nature. In doing so, it goes beyond conventional wisdom in International Relations. To understand conflict and to chart a way forward, we must re-examine our understanding of human nature. The two dominant theories of International Relations, Realism and Idealism/Internationalism, derived their intellectual origins from such contrasting and dichotomous views of human nature. One, exemplified by Thomas Hobbes, was pessimistic both about human nature and States. The other, exemplified by Immanuel Kant and to some extent Jean-Jacques Rousseau, believed in an innate perfectibility of humans, of States and the international society, which would evolve towards peace. Today, a growing body of evidence from neuroscience permits the re-examination of long-held claims about human nature and what it is that truly drives and motivates human behaviour. Neurophilosophy, the interdisciplinary field connecting findings from neuroscience and philosophy, is relevant for global security and for understanding what can propel good governance, peace, and security.

Leviathan on a Leash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World

States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, held liable for debts and reparations, bound by treaties, and punished with sanctions. But what does it mean to hold a state responsible as opposed to a government, a nation, or an individual leader? Under what circumstances should we assign responsibility to states rather than individuals? This book demystifies the phenomenon of state responsibility and explains why it is a challenging yet indispensable part of modern politics. Taking Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state as a starting point, the book presents a theory of state responsibility that sheds new light on sovereign debt, historical reparations, treaty obligations, and economic sanctions. Along the way, it overturns longstanding interpretations of Hobbes' political thought, explores how new technologies will alter the practice of state responsibility as we know it, and develops new accounts of political authority, representation, and legitimacy. The book argues that Hobbes' idea of the state offers a far richer and more realistic conception of state responsibility than the theories prevalent today and demonstrates that Hobbes' Leviathan is much more than an anthropomorphic “artificial man.” The book is essential reading for political theorists, scholars of international relations, international lawyers, and philosophers. It recovers a forgotten understanding of state personality in Hobbes' thought and shows how to apply it to the world of imperfect states in which we live.

3. Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-102
Author(s):  
Georg Sørensen ◽  
Jørgen Møller ◽  
Robert Jackson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Offensive Realism ◽  
Classical Realism ◽  
Defensive Realism ◽  
Power Concept

This chapter examines the realist tradition in international relations (IR), which is best seen as a research programme with several approaches using a common starting point. It highlights an important dichotomy in realist thought between classical realism and contemporary realism, including strategic and structural approaches. After describing the elements of realism, the chapter discusses the international thought of three outstanding classical realists of the past: Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes. It then analyses the classical realist thought of Hans J. Morgenthau, along with strategic realism, neorealism, and neoclassical realism. Special attention is devoted to the defensive realism of Kenneth Waltz and the offensive realism of John Mearsheimer. Furthermore, the chapter looks at the recent theoretical debate among realist IR scholars concerning the relevance of the balance of power concept and it shows that realists often disagree among themselves. The chapter concludes with an overview of how the different realist theories treat international and domestic factors.

Marking failure, making space: feminist interventions in Security Council policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 1289-1306
Author(s):  
Sam Cook
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Creative Interventions ◽  
Exquisite Corpse ◽  
Central Station

Abstract Feminist interventions in international politics are, more often than not, understood (and visible) as interventions in relation to policy documents. These policies—in this case the United Nations Security Council's resolutions on Women, Peace and Security—often feature as the end point of feminist advocacy efforts or as the starting point for feminist analysis and critique. In this article the author responds to the provocations throughout Marysia Zalewski's work to think (and tell) the spaces of international politics differently, in this case by working with the concept of feminist failure as it is produced in feminist policy critique. Inspired by Zalewski's Feminist International Relations: exquisite corpse, the article explores the material and imaginary spaces in which both policies and critique are produced. It picks up and reflects upon a narrative refrain recognizable in feminist critiques on Women, Peace and Security policy—that we must not make war safe for women—as a way to reflect on the inevitability of failure and the ostensible boundaries between theory and practice. The author takes permission from Zalewski's creative interventions and her recognition of the value of the ‘detritus of the everyday’—here a walk from New York's Grand Central Station to the UN Headquarters, musings on the flash of a particular shade of blue, and the contents of a footnoted acknowledgement, begin to trace an international political space that is produced through embodied and quotidian practice.

Human Nature in International Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Jacobi
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Starting Point

“Human nature” is not a notion that has originated from theories of world politics. On the contrary, it represents one of the oldest points of reference in various cultural traditions of thought. An aspect, however, that makes the current status of the human in international relations (IR) interesting is the fact that since the 1980s, the discipline has undergone a rigorous and critical examination of its core terminologies. Above all, this effort has led scholars to become aware of the concurrent appropriations of their terms: once as scientific concepts and once as ontological facts. However, while various aspects of the human have always found their way into the theorization of world politics, so far the actual impact of the equally diverse “models of man” on the latter has hardly been subjected to systematic consideration. Observing “human nature” not only as a “naturally given fact” but also as an observational concept connects IR with the broader literatures on how the (political) world may be interpreted and analyzed. The proposition to begin a reappraisal of “human nature’s” framing effects on the basis of the distinction of anthropological and post-anthropological approaches (Human Beings in International Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015) calls upon IR scholars to appreciate what happens when they study world politics through a lens that either places the human at the center of its observations or one that opts to decenter it to different extents. A reflection on the distinction of an international political anthropology and an international political post-anthropology as a starting point for theory building then not only draws attention to what is included and excluded in regard to the human when studying world politics. It moreover exposes how different views on the (post)human come to shape different theoretical architectures. What is more, it also reveals that such foundations do not run parallel to the classical IR heuristic of distinct paradigms. A closer look at their post-human foundations then shows how much these schools of thought, once conceived as highly coherent, have now been differentiated internally. The said absence of a systematic debate on the status of the human in the IR theories also poses a challenge to this article. Not only is the human still rarely reflected upon as a theoretical core concept; at the same time, parallel debates exist that are guided less by theoretical frameworks but rather by the problems that arise from specific ideas about the post-human. In this sense, this article also pursues a dual strategy: on the one hand, the listing either of obvious or subtle uses of post-human views by various theoretical traditions, and on the other hand, the identification of specific core problems that have formed in the wake of specific angles on the post-human. Since inquiries into the post-human also include an intersection of IR theories with other scientific literatures, the article also features text references that will help readers find their way into the state of the art of those important adjacent debates.

Reason, Humanity, and the Moral Law

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Practical Identity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Kant's Ethics

This chapter comments on Christine Korsgaard's views on reason, humanity, and moral law in the context of her ethics. In particular, it examines Korsgaard's response to the question inspired by Thomas Hobbes' second argument, the one about the sovereign: how can the subject be responsible to a law that it makes and can therefore unmake? Korsgaard's ethics descends from Immanuel Kant, but it contrasts in important ways with Kant's ethics. Korsgaard's subject is unequivocally the author of the law that binds it, for its law is the law of its practical identity, and the subject itself “constructs” that identity. In the case of the Kantian subject, we can say that it both is and is not the author of the law that binds it. The chapter considers Korsgaard's claim that morality is grounded in human nature, along with her position on the problem of normativity and on obligation.

scholarly journals Kant, the Republican Peace, and Moral Guidance in International Law

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecelia Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Ideal

Just as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes became etched into the minds of international relations scholars as the oracles of realpolitik during the Cold War, Immanuel Kant appears to be well on his way to becoming the prophet of “progressive international reform” in the post—Cold War era. Not only has Kant's thought provided the underpinnings of one of the major traditions of international law, but there is a groundswell of interest among international relations scholars today in the question of whether contemporary events, particularly the proliferation of republican states and attempts to create them, signal the march forward to the Kantian ideal of republican peace. Yet, prior to asking what contemporary events signify for the attainment of the Kantian ideal, we should analyze the conflicting interpretions fo Kantian political thought so as to understand the meaning and implications of the ideal itself. Such a task is not merely pedantie—it is necessary to determine the utility of political philosophy for providing understanding and guidance in the real world.

Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretations of Realism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie M. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Interesting Alternative

This book has been consistently cited by scholars of international relations who explore the roots of realism in Thucydides' history and the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. While acknowledging that neither thinker fits perfectly within the confines of international relations realism, the author proposes Hobbes's philosophy is more closely aligned with it than Thucydides'. The book concludes that Thucydides' approach to politics is more preferable than Hobbes's. Hobbes, despite his pessimistic assumptions about human nature, is not realistic. It also discusses how realism and neorealism, despite their differences, share the same philosophical roots. The book suggests that Thucydides has been misunderstood and that he actually provides an interesting alternative approach to realism in the study of international politics.

Michael Kelly, Hilary Footitt, Myriam Salama-Carr (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of Languages and Conflict

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ľubomír Zvada
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Speakers Of Other Languages ◽  
War And Conflict ◽  
Almost All

This Handbook maps the contours of an exciting and burgeoning interdisciplinary field concerned with the role of language and languages in situations of conflict. It explores conceptual approaches, sources of information that are available, and the institutions and actors that mediate language encounters. It examines case studies of the role that languages have played in specific conflicts, from colonial times through to the Middle East and Africa today. The contributors provide vibrant evidence to challenge the monolingual assumptions that have affected traditional views of war and conflict. They show that languages are woven into every aspect of the making of war and peace, and demonstrate how language shapes public policy and military strategy, setting frameworks and expectations. The Handbook's 22 chapters powerfully illustrate how the encounter between languages is integral to almost all conflicts, to every phase of military operations and to the lived experiences of those on the ground, who meet, work and fight with speakers of other languages. This comprehensive work will appeal to scholars from across the disciplines of linguistics, translation studies, history, and international relations; and provide fresh insights for a broad range of practitioners interested in understanding the role and implications of foreign languages in war.

Disarmament

2008 ◽  
pp. 286-299
Author(s):  
Keith Krause
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Land Mines ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Small Arms ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
World Organization ◽  
Light Weapons

This article evaluates the achievements and limitations of the world organization in the field of disarmament. It stresses the role of the UN as part of the efforts to control arms as a way to achieve international peace and security. It also notes specific cases where progress was achieved or not, as well as the more recent efforts to handle the problems of anti-personnel land mines and small arms and light weapons. The article also tries to draw out some of the broader implications for international relations of the UN experience with formal multilateral arms control, among others.

WEIRD societies may be more compatible with human nature

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 103-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Maryanski
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Traditional Societies

AbstractAre WEIRD societies unrepresentative of humanity? According to Henrich et al., they are not useful for generalizing about humans because they are at the extreme end of the distribution for societal formations. In their vision, it is best to stick with the “tried and true” traditional societies for speculations about human nature. This commentary offers a more realistic starting point, and, oddly enough, concludes that WEIRD populations may be more compatible with humans' evolved nature than are most traditional societies.

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