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The character of the history of the philosophy of international relations and the case of Edmund Burke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Extract

I doubt whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying the operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community.

Edmund Burke

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1991

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References

1 See, for example, Pocock, J. G. A., Politics, Language and Time (London, 1972);Google ScholarDunn, John, Political Obligation in its Historical Context (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, Tully, James (ed.), Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Critics (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar For a discussion of the sources from which the participants draw, and a critique of the prescriptions offered, see my Texts in Context: Revisionist Methods for Studying the History of Ideas (Dordrecht, 1985). For a discussion of the Tully volume see my review in History of Political Thought, 10 (1989), pp. 370–6.

2 See Boucher, David, ‘New Histories of Political Thought for Old?’, Political Studies, 31 (1983), pp. 112–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Ricoeur, Paul, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, Texas, 1976)Google Scholar; and ‘The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation’, and ‘Appropriation’ in Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. Thompson, J. B. (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar Cf. Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method (London, 1975), pp. 263f., and 411.Google Scholar Also see, Boucher, David, ‘Conversation and Political Thought’, New Literary History, 18 (1987), pp. 66–8;Google Scholar and Boucher, Texts in Context, pp. 24–32.

4 Boucher, Texts in Context, pp. 270–1.

5 Boucher, review of Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context, pp. 375–6; and Boucher, D., ‘Philosophy, History and Practical Life: The Emergence of the History of Political Thought in England’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 35 (1989), pp. 220–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Stanley Fish, ‘Is There a Text in This Class?’, and ‘What Makes an Interpretation Acceptable?, in Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class: The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980). Also see my ‘Ambiguity and Originality in the Context of Discursive Relations’, Objectivity, Method and Point of View edited by W. J. van der Dussen and Lionel Rubinoff (The Netherlands, 1991).

7 See, for example, ‘Are Moral and Religious Beliefs Capable of Proof?’, in Jones, Henry, Social Powers (Glasgow, 1913)Google Scholar; and, Jones, Henry, A Faith That Enquires (London, 1922), pp. 79105.Google Scholar

8 Jones, Henry, The Working Faith of the Social Reformer and Other Essays (London, 1910), p. 23.Google Scholar

9 Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. Haldane, E. S. (London, 1892), pp. 56.Google Scholar I had hoped that a justification of my approach would be unnecessary, but one of the anonymous readers admonished me for my ignorance of the methodological debates in the history of political thought, and therefore occasioned my preliminary remarks, for which I must apologise to those readers who find such discussions tedious.

10 Banks names these traditions Realism and Liberalism, ‘The Evolution of International Relations Theory’, in Conflict in World Society, ed. Banks, Michael (London, 1984), pp. 57Google Scholar, whereas E. H. Carr refers to them as Realism and Utopianism. See Carr, E. H., The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919–1939 (London, 1939), pp. 2289.Google Scholar

11 Kenneth W. Thompson suggests that: ‘We may be awaiting a new synthesis, an outlook that strives with more determination to combine the ideal and the real’. Thompson, K. W., ‘Idealism and Realism: Beyond the Great Debate’, British Journal of International Studies, 3 (1977), p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 25. Also see Hedley Bull, ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’ and ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society’ in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, ed. Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London, Allen and Unwin, 1966); Bull, Hedley, ‘Hobbes and the International Anarchy’, Social Research, 48 (1981)Google Scholar; and Wight, Martin, ‘An Anatomy of International Thought’, Review of International Studies, 13 (1987), p. 224CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Bull, Hedley, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, 2 (1976), pp. 101–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Porter, Brian, ‘Patterns of Thought and Practice: Martin Wight's International Theory’ in The Reason of States (London, Allen and Unwin, 1987), pp. 6474Google Scholar; Bull, ‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations’, p. 104. Banks names the third tradition ‘radical’. Banks, ‘The Evolution of International Relations Theory’, p. 7. Thinkers usually placed in this tradition are Kant, Marx and Mazzini. Also see Goodwin, G. L., World Institutions and World Order (London, Bell and Sons, London, 1964), p. 12.Google Scholar

13 Evans, Graham, ‘Some problems with a History of Thought in International Relations’, International Relations, 4 (1974), p. 721.Google Scholar

14 Evans, ‘Some Problems’, p. 726.

15 Evans, ‘Some Problems’, p. 726.

16 Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick (Harmondsworth, 1970), p. 268.

17 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Harmondsworth, 1972).

18 This is an observation often overlooked in discussions of Hobbes, but is admirably highlighted by Hanson, Donald W., “Thomas Hobbes's ‘highway to peace’,” International Organization, 38 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see my ‘Inter-community and International Relations in the Political Philosophy of Hobbes’, Polity, XXII (1990–91). Hobbes contends quite unequivocally that the common people ‘are like clean paper, fit to receive whatsoever by Publique Authority shall be imprinted in them’. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (Harmondsworth, 1981), 379.Google Scholar

19 Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 2.53.

20 Meinecke, Friedrich, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and its Place in Modern History (London, 1962), p. 14.Google Scholar

21 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (Harmondsworth, 1981), p. 161.Google Scholar

22 Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 6.18. Cf. Machiavelli, The Prince (Harmondsworth, 1974), p. 135, and Discourses, p. 442.

23 Hobbes, Thomas, Man and Citizen, ed. by Gert, Bernard (London, 1978), p. 261.Google Scholar Cf. Machiavelli, [The prince] ‘should never take things easy in times of peace, rather use the latter assiduously, in order to be able to reap the profit in times of adversity’, Prince, p. 90.

24 See, Frankel, Joseph, National Interest (London, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 See Meinecke, Friedrich, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and its Place in Modern History (London, 1962), p. 6.Google Scholar The conception of the three traditions in relation to the internal affairs of states owes a great deal to W. Dilthey, M. Oakeshott, R. G. Collingwood, W. H. Greenleaf, D. Germino and David Cameron. I have elsewhere been critical of W. H. Greenleaf s views on the grounds that his conception of the practice of history has no necessary connection with the triadic conception of the history of political thought. Furthermore, individual thinkers are related to the traditions in the same way as Bull related thinkers to his, that is, by explaining away, or ignoring, elements which do not fit. See, my Texts in Context, chapter three, and Boucher, David, ‘W. H. Greenleaf, Idealism and the Triadic Conception of the History of Political Thought’, Idealistic Studies, 16 (1986), pp. 237–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Collingwood's views, which are largely unpublished, see Boucher, David, The Social and Political Thought of R. G. Collingwood (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chapter three.

26 See Cameron, David, The Social Thought of Rousseau and Burke: A Comparative Study (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson for London School of Economics, 1973), pp. 4160Google Scholar; A. P. d'Entreves, Natural Law (London, 1964) chapter 4; Vincent, R. J., ‘Western Conceptions of a Universal Moral Order’, British Journal of International Studies, 4 (1978), pp. 2046CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vincent, R. J., Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 437Google Scholar; and Parkinson, F., The Philosophy of International Relations (Beverly Hills, California, 1977), pp. 926.Google Scholar

27 Mackinnon, D. M., ‘Natural Law’, in Diplomatic Investigations, ed. Butterfield and Wight, p. 79.Google Scholar

28 Machiavelli, , The Florentine History (London, 1976), p. 306Google Scholar.

29 Aquinas, Selected Political Writings, ed. d'Entreves, A. P. (Oxford, 1974), p. 127.Google Scholar

30 Cited by d'Entreves, Natural Law, p. 25.

31 Aquinas, Political Writings, p. 161.

32 Grotius, Hugo, On the Law of War and Peace, in The Theory of International Relations: selected texts from Gentili to Treitschke, ed. Forsyth, M. G., Keens-Soper, H. M. A., Savigear, P. (London, 1970), p. 66.Google Scholar

33 Cf. Parkinson, Philosophy of International Relations, p. 36.

34 Grotius, Law of War and Peace, p. 70 and 71.

35 Bull, ‘Grotian Conception of International Society’, p. 60. Also see, Lauterpacht, H., ‘The Grotian Tradition in International Law’, British Yearbook of International Law, 27 (1946)Google Scholar, and Grotius, Law of War and Peace, 78.

36 Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 25. Other philosophers of importance in this tradition would be Pufendorf, Vattel and Kant.

37 Collingwood, R. G., ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy for M-T 1921’, unpublished ms. Collingwood Papers, DEP 4, Bodleian Library, Oxford, p. 16.Google Scholar

38 Hegel, G. W. F., The Philosophy of Right (Chicago, 1952), Preface, p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Dilthey, W., Selected Writings, edited and introduced by Rickman, H. P. (Cambridge, 1976), p. 236.Google Scholar

40 Cited by Ermath, Michael, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason (Chicago, 1978), p. 123.Google Scholar

41 See, for examples, Hobhouse, L. T., The Metaphysical Theory of the State (London, 1951), pp. 26–43 and 138–49Google Scholar; Routh, D. A., ‘The Philosophy of International Relations: T. H. Green versus Hegel’, Politica, 3 (1938), pp. 224–5Google Scholar; Carritt, E. F., Morals and Politics (Oxford, 1935), pp. 107 and 114Google Scholar; Carritt, E. F., ‘Hegel and Prussianism’, Journal of Philosophy, 15 (1940), pp. 315–17Google Scholar; Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London, 1977), vol. 11.Google Scholar For an interesting account of the debate regarding Hegel's responsibility for the First World War, see Morrow, John, ‘British Idealism, “German Philosophy” and the First World War’, Australian Journal of Philosophy and History, 28 (1982), pp. 380–90Google Scholar.

42 See, for examples, Jones, Henry, ‘Why We Are Fighting’, Hibbert Journal XIII (1914–15), pp. 61–5Google Scholar; and Jones, Henry, The Principles of Citizenship (London, 1919), pp. 100–3Google Scholar; Knox, T. M., ‘Hegel and Prussianism’, Journal of Philosophy, 15 (1940), pp. 5163CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the exchange between Knox and Carritt and Spender in the same volume, pp. 219–20 and 313–17; Avineri, Shlomo, ‘The Problem of War in Hegel's Thought’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 22 (1961), pp. 462–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shlomo Avineri, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge, 1972), chapter 10; Nicholson, Peter P., ‘Philosophical Idealism and International Politics: a reply to Dr. Savigear’, British Journal of International Studies, 2 (1976), pp. 76—7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vincent, Andrew, ‘The Hegelian State and International Polities’, Review of International Studies, 9 (1983), pp. 191205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Smith, Steven B., ‘Hegel's Views on War, the State, and International Relations’, American Political Science Review, 11 (1983), pp. 624–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Hegel, G. W. F., Reason in History, trans. Hartman, Robert S. (Indianapolis, 1953), pp. 6870.Google Scholar

44 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface, p. 7.

45 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 322.

46 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 331.

47 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 333 and addition to par. 339.

48 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 339.

49 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, addition to par. 339.

50 Hobbes, Leviathian, p. 187 and 202. Also see Hobbes, Man and Citizen, p. 43.

51 See, for example, Hood, F. C., The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, 1964).Google Scholar

52 Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 205 and 225; Hobbes, Thomas, The Elements of Law (New York, 1964); 164.Google Scholar

53 Hobbes, Elements of Law, p. 184.

54 Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 186.

55 Hobbes, Leviathian, p. 286.

56 Bull, ‘Hobbes and the International Anarchy’, p. 730.

57 Edmund Burke, ‘On a Motion for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal and alter certain Acts respecting Religious Opinions: May 11, 1792’ in Works (London, 1906), The World's Classics series, vol. Ill, p. 317.

58 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works, IV, p. 65.

59 Burke, ‘On a Motion… ’ etc. 1792, Works III, p. 317. It is the self-consciousness of finding a synthesis which Vincent fails to detect. Vincent, R. J., ‘Edmund Burke and the Theory of International Relations’, Review of International Studies, 10 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Burke, Reflections, Works, IV, p. 67.

61 Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 158.

62 Burke, Letters, p. 156. Harold Laski fortuitously hits on what Burke was trying to do, but without realizing its significance. He says of Burke; ‘Admitting while he did that politics must rest upon expediency, he never failed to find good reason why expediency should be identified with what he saw as right’. Laski, Harold, Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (Oxford, 1942), pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

63 On the utilitarian view, see Cameron, The Social Thought of Rousseau and Burke, pp. 67–9; and Macpherson, C. B., Burke (Oxford, 1980), pp. 4, 13–14, and 36.Google Scholar

64 Edmund Burke, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, V, p. 20.

65 Burke, Reflections, Works, IV, p. 327.

66 Burke, Reflections, Works, IV, p. 108.

67 Cited by Parkinson, Philosophy of International Relations, p. 163.

68 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 171.

69 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 174.

70 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 156.

71 Edmund Burke, ‘Letter to John Farr and John Harris, Esqrs., Sheriffs of the City of Bristol; on the Affairs of America, 1777’, Works, II, p. 252.

72 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 156.

73 Burke, Reflections, Works, IV, p. 97.

74 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 157.

75 Burke, Reflections, Works, IV, p. 157.

76 Burke, Regicide Peace, IV, p. 157.

77 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 156.

78 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 259.

79 Edmund Burke, ‘A Letter from Mr. Burke to a Member of the National Assembly’, Works, IV, p. 292.

80 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 170.

81 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 159.

82 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 160.

83 Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, II, p. 481.

84 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 161.

85 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 161.

86 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 86.

87 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, pp. 85 and 163. For an interesting discussion of Burke's views on nationality see Cobban, A. B. C., ‘Edmund Burke and the Origins of the Theory of Nationality’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 2 (1926), pp. 3647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, p. 141.

89 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, p. 105.

90 Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, Works, II, p. 279.

91 Edmund Burke, ‘Speech on Conciliation with America’, Works, II, p. 184.

92 Burke, ‘Speech’, Works, II, p. 191.

93 Burke, ‘Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol’, Works, II, p. 273.

94 Burke, ‘Conciliation with America’, Works, II, p. 185.

95 Burke, ‘Conciliation’, Works, II, p. 184.

96 Burke, ‘Conciliation’, Works, II, p. 190. In his ‘Speech on American Taxation’, Burke makes a more explicit appeal to interest. Addressing the House of Commons, Burke contends: ‘Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun’. Works, II, p. 149.

97 Burke, ‘Speech on American Taxation’, Works, II, p. 150. Cf. ‘Conciliation’, Works, II, p. 199.

98 Idem. Burke, ‘Speech on American Taxation’, Works, II, p. 199.

99 Burke, ‘Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol’, Works, II, p. 272. In justifying his various opinions on foreign affairs Burke says of himself:

He never abused all republics. He never professed himself a friend or an enemy to republics or to monarchies in the abstract. He thought that the circumstances and habits of every country, which it is always perilous and productive of the greatest calamities to force, are to decide upon the form of its government.

Edmund Burke, ‘An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs’, Works, V, p. 44.

100 See, for example, Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, I, pp. 21, 23, 40, 60, 61, 92 and 93. Burke conveniently summarizes Warren Hastings' responsibilities as a British Governor:

he was bound by the laws and statutes of this kingdom, both in letter and spirit, so far as they were applicable to him and to his case; and above all, that he was bound by the act to which he owed his appointment…

The next point which we established, and which we now call to your lordship's recollection, is, that he was bound to proceed according to the laws, rights, laudable customs, privileges, and franchises of the country that he governed.

101 Cited in Greenleaf, W. H., ‘Burke and State Necessity: The Case of Warren Hastings’ in Staatsrason, ed. Schnur, R. (Berlin, 1975), p. 358.Google Scholar

102 Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, I, p. 99.

103 Burke, Speeches on Hastings, I, p. 231.

104 Burke, Speeches on Hastings, I, p. 120. Cf. ‘The law is the security of the people of England, it is the security of the people of India, it is the security of every person that is governed, and of every person that governs. There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity: the law of nature and of nations’. Ibid., p. 504.

105 Burke, Speeches on Hastings, II, p. 410.

106 For attempts to relate Burke to the Natural Law School see, Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor, The Problem of Burke's Political Philosophy (Oxford, 1967), pp. 189Google Scholar; and Sigmund, Paul E., Natural Law in Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), chapter 7.Google Scholar

107 Freeman, Michael, Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (Oxford, 1980), p. 17.Google Scholar

108 Burke, Regicide Peace, Works, VI, pp. 84 ad 182.

109 Burke, French Revolution, Works, IV, pp. 98–9.

110 Burke, French Revolution, Works, IV, p. 107.

111 Burke, French Revolution, Works, IV, p. 64.

112 Cf. Weston, John C., ‘Edmund Burke's View of History’, The Review of Politics, 23 (1961), pp. 209–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113 Burke, Speeches on Warren Hastings, pp. 108–114.

114 Burke, Speeches on Hastings, I, pp. 103 and 118.