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Reference
WP006
Title
Realism and Utopianism in Hegel’s Political
Thought: National Sovereignty,
International Relations and the Idea of a
‘World State’
Author
Tony Burns
Email:
[email protected]
Tony Burns
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
School of Politics & International Relations
University of Nottingham
Realism and Utopianism in Hegel’s Political Thought:
National Sovereignty, International Relations
and the Idea of a ‘World State’
Introduction
W. Warren Wagar, in a work devoted to H. G. Wells’s views on the idea of a ‘world state,’ has claimed that ‘Wells
always considered Hegel a humbug, and Hegelianism a past-time for wool gathering dons.’ 1 This suggests that
Wells’s attitude towards the philosophy of Hegel is one of contemptuous dismissal. The implication is that Wells
owed very little to Hegel as a source for his own philosophical beliefs. At least he claimed not to do so. It is not
clear to me, however, how seriously this claim is to be taken. After all, the title of one of Wells’s works is Science
and the World Mind (1942) and Wells did undertake what might be considered to be essentially an ‘Hegelian’
project, the writing of a brief excursus into world history.’ With the title A Short History of the World (1922).
Moreover, there is a distinct ‘Hegelian’ tone to what Wells says about the emerging ‘world state’ in his (1902)
Anticipations. 2 And there is also the way in which Wells’s employs the philosophical categories of ‘universal’ and
‘particular’ in his A Modern Utopia. 3
If it were carried out comprehensively this would be a major project, as there are a number of issues which
would need to be discussed. In order to make things more manageable I shall focus on Hegel’s views on world
history, and the idea of the ‘end of history.’ This discussion will lead to an examination of the idea of a ‘world
state,’ the precursor to that of H. G. Wells, an interest in which, as in the case of the idea of ‘cosmopolitanism,’
has been the subject of a revival of late, largely as a consequence of the phenomenon of ‘globalization.’
The structure of the argument is as follows. In Section I shall discuss utopianism and realism in Hegel’s political
thought, in connection with what might be referred to as ‘domestic’ or ‘national’ affairs. In Section 2 I shall do
the same thing in connection with questions of international relations. Whether one is talking about national or
international politics, in both cases there are arguments for and against associating Hegel with both ‘realism’ and
‘utopianism.’ Sections 1 and 2 will, therefore, be structured accordingly.
In Section 3 I relate a discussion of Hegel’s views on international relations in particular to the recent debate
between ‘communitarians’ and ‘cosmopolitans’ within the discipline of political theory. I suggest that this debate
is connected to the parallel debate between the advocates of the ‘realist’ and ‘utopian’ readings of Hegel. I
argue that one possible way of reading what Hegel has to say about international relations in the final sections
of his Philosophy of Right, would be to think of him as being neither a ‘strong’ cosmopolitan thinker, that is to
say, in the present context, someone who would have been sympathetic to the idea of a ‘world state,’ nor on
the other hand a strong ‘communitarian’ thinker, but rather as attempting to steer a via media between these
two opposed extremes. This way of thinking suggests that the ‘logic’ of Hegel’s argument in the Philosophy of
Right, if it is developed in a slightly different way from the way in which Hegel himself develops it, leads to the
view that some kind of higher political community might be thought of as being brought into existence at the
global level by the onward march of world history. The component elements of this political community would
be individual nation-states. The framework of international relations which would exist between these states
might be characterized as a condition of peace rather than a Hobbesian condition of war. However the idea of
such a global political community falls far short of a commitment to the idea of a ‘world state’ in the sense in
which H. G. Wells uses the term, that is to say a situation in which individual nation states, and national
sovereignty, have disappeared altogether. I do not think that such a reading of the final sections of the
Philosophy of Right could be plausibly be presented as an interpretation of Hegel’s own views. They are, rather,
an appropriation of some of them. 4 It would, however, be legitimate to claim that they are in some sense
‘Hegelian’ in spirit.
Section 1
Hegel and National Politics
1.1 Hegel as a ‘Realist’ Critic of Utopianism
Argument 1: The Inherent Conservatism of Hegel’s Political Thought
Let us begin by considering the evidence that Hegel was a ‘realist’ who rejected all forms of political
‘utopianism’ focusing specifically on the arena if national politics. On this reading, as is indicated by the Preface
to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel had nothing but contempt for ‘utopian’ theorizing, which he considered to be
‘other worldly’ and ‘unhistorical.’ He did not consider his own ideas to be ‘utopian’ at all, in any sense. As Hegel
puts it:
1
•
‘This book, then, containing as it does the science of the state, is to be nothing other than the endeavour to
apprehend and portray the state as something inherently rational. As a work of philosophy, it must be poles apart
from an attempt to construe a state as it ought to be.’ 5
•
‘It is just this placing of philosophy in the actual world which meets with misunderstandings, and so I revert to what
I have said before, namely that, since philosophy is the exploration of the rational, it is for that very reason the
apprehension of the present and the actual, not the erection of a beyond, supposed to exist, God knows where, or
rather, which exists, and we can perfectly well say where, namely in the error of a one-sided, empty, ratiocination.’ 6
See also the following, similar passages from Hegel’s Science of Logic:
•
‘Kant regards the Idea as a necessity and as the goal which, as the archetype, it must be our endeavour to set up
for a maximum and to which we must strive to bring the condition of the actual world ever nearer.’ 7
•
‘But having reached the result that the Idea is the unity of the Notion and objectivity, is the true, it must not be
regarded merely as a goal to which we have to approximate but which itself always remains a kind of beyond; on the
contrary, we must recognise that everything actual is only in so far as it possesses the Idea and expresses it. It is
not merely that the object, the objective and subjective world in general, ought to be congruous with the Idea, but
they are themselves the congruence of Notion and reality; the reality that does not correspond to the Notion is mere
Appearance, the subjective, contingent, capricious element that is not the truth.’ 8
•
‘When it is said that no object is to be found in experience that is perfectly congruous with the Idea, one is
opposing the Idea as a subjective standard to the actual; but what anything actual is supposed in truth to be, if
its Notion is not in it and if its objectivity docs not correspond to its Notion at all, it is impossible to say; for it
would be nothing.’ 9
•
‘But if an object, for example the state, did not correspond at all to its Idea, that is, if in fact it was not the Idea of
the state at all, if its reality, which is the self-conscious individuals, did not correspond at all to the Notion, its soul
and its body would have parted; the former would escape into the solitary regions of thought, the latter would have
broken up into the single individualities.’ 10
Hegel was critical of the ‘abstract rationalism’ which is usually associated with both the (liberal) political thought
of the Enlightenment and with utopianism, a style of thinking which, as is clear from the passages above, he
associates with the philosophy of Kant. He associated this attitude of mind with a tendency towards ‘civil
disobedience’ on the part of individuals, who often appeal to ‘conscience’ or the ‘laws of reason’ as a higher
court, or higher law, than that of the laws of the society in which they live. 11 A parallel tendency towards
political ‘radicalism’ and a willingness to use violence as a means for achieving political ends: especially in the
case of the Jacobins in France: such an attitude led to ‘the terror’ of 1793. Hegel’s views on this subject are
similar to those of Edmund Burke. 12 This amounts to saying that, again like Burke (and Montesquieu) Hegel had
a strong sense of history, and of the importance of historical context when discussing political affairs. He was a
‘constitutionalist’ in the historical sense which is usually associated with Burke and traditional conservatism,
rather than in the liberal, individualist sense which is associated with, for example, Tom Paine, or the French
Revolutionaries, or Kant. 13
Hegel attaches importance to history, both at the ‘local’/’national level and at the ‘global’ level, or the level of
‘world history.’ So far as the latter is concerned, the ‘historical reason’ which Hegel associates with ‘world
history’ is one which does not call for the overthrow or complete destruction of existing constitutions. Rather, it
calls for (1) the codification of existing constitutions, 14 and (2) the reform of existing constitutions, 15 the
purpose of which is to bring them ‘up to date,’ in the light of the latest developments associated with the course
of world-history (especially the developments associated with Napoleonic France after The French Revolution of
1789). 16
This can be connected to the suggestion that Hegel is quite critical of the notion of natural law and natural
rights as these are understood by ‘liberal’ thinkers, including Kant and Paine. This has led to the suggestion
that he is some kind of moral and legal positivist. 17 There is some truth in this, although in my opinion this
reading is ‘one-sided.’ It goes too far by focusing on just one aspect of Hegel’s thinking and ignoring an other
equally important one. In fact Hegel’s position attempts to synthesise the insights of the ‘rationalist’ and the
‘positivist’ approaches to questions of politics and right. This attitude is one which I associate this with a
‘conservative’ conception of natural law, which can be traced back to Aristotle. 18
Argument 2: Hegel’s Tragic Outlook on Life and Politics
This argument is based on a particular understanding of the relationship which exists between Hegel’s
philosophy and ancient Greek tragedy. This understanding reverses, and amounts to a theoretical ‘inversion’ of
2
a more traditional view. According to that view if anyone is seriously interested in studying ancient Greek
tragedy then it is necessary that they acquaint themselves with Hegel’s philosophy, especially but not only the
Lectures on Aesthetics. This is so because, despite the employment of the technical jargon of his metaphysical
system there, Hegel’s understanding of ancient Greek tragedy is nonetheless a profound one. Whether one
likes or dislikes Hegel’s analysis, then, it is arguable that no serious student of tragedy can afford to ignore it;
although some scholars have of course dismissed it. 19
On this reading, then, Hegel’s views on tragedy are central for anyone wishing to understand ancient Greek
tragedy. However, that is not to say they are of any great significance for anyone seeking to understand
Hegel’s own philosophy. On the contrary, they might be said to be peripheral to that particular enterprise. One
can perfectly well understand Hegel’s philosophy, broadly understood (including therefore his social and political
thought) without engaging with his aesthetics – either his philosophy of aesthetics in general, or his views on
tragedy in particular.
The understanding of the relationship between Hegel’s philosophy and his views on tragedy presented here,
however, is different from this. This is so because it maintains that Hegel’s views on tragedy are not peripheral
but central for any adequate understanding of his philosophy as a whole, at least in so far as that philosophy
incorporates a social theory which touches specifically on human existence and the ethical and political
problems associated with ‘the human condition,’ problems which, by their very nature, are to be found in all
societies everywhere, and not just in ancient Greece in the 5th century BCE.
This reading of Hegel attributes to him a ‘tragic vision’ which informs all of his thinking, from his thinking about
abstract questions of metaphysics, to his views on questions of morality/ethics, to his views on world history,
and on international relations (especially his views on war). 20 It can be connected to the reading of Hegel
associated with the writings of Jean Wahl and Jean-Paul Sartre in France in the 1930s and 40s. (See above).
Drawing his inspiration from Hegel, Georg Lukács has made the extremely interesting, though also somewhat
surprising remark, given his association with the tradition of Marxist aesthetics, that ‘the contradictoriness of
social development’ and the ‘intensification of these contradictions to the point of tragic collision,’ has to do not
so much specifically with the capitalist mode of production, but is rather a ‘general fact of life.’ It is a feature of
all human existence in society. Lukács takes this notion of a ‘tragic collision’ from Hegel’s Lectures on
Aesthetics. Like Hegel, Lukács associates it with the parallel notion of a fundamental ethical dilemma. 21
Moreover, again like Hegel, Lukács considers the classic example of such a tragic collision to be the works of
Sophocles, especially the Antigone. 22
Hegel’s views on tragedy have been neatly summarized by F. L. Lucas who maintains that, so far as the moral
conflict depicted by Sophocles in Antigone is concerned, Hegel is of the opinion that both of the play’s two
central characters, Antigone and Creon, ‘were right.’ At the same time, however, Hegel also insists that they
were ‘both wrong,’ because they were ‘not right enough,’ or rather because they were ‘too one-sided in their
righteousness.’ 23 Similarly, Una Ellis-Fermor has made the interesting claim that the moral outlook associated
with Greek tragedy is associated with an attempt on the part of the dramatist to maintain an ‘equilibrium’
between two ‘opposite readings of life, to neither of which the dramatist can wholly commit himself.’ 24 This
seems to me to capture very well the outlook of Greek tragic drama as understood by Hegel.
D. D. Raphael has rightly said that ‘although tragedy does not have a directly moral purpose,’ it is nevertheless
‘deeply concerned with morality.’ 25 For although, Raphael goes on, the tragic author is not a preacher or a
propagandist, and his aim is not an overtly didactic one, to provide some ‘proof’ or ‘demonstration’ which will
actually solve the fundamental moral problem being dramatized in the play for his audience, nevertheless tragic
drama can be seen as an attempted ‘exploration’ of such fundamental moral problems. 26 According to Raphael,
it is in this sense only that it could be said that tragic drama ‘was the moral philosophy of fifth-century
Athens.’ 27
If this attitude is applied to other works of literature, specifically novels today, then on this view it is the task of
the novelist also, just as it was that of the tragic dramatist, to capture and evince the complex and
contradictory nature of the ethical dilemmas which lie at the very heart of all human existence, not to attempt
to resolve them. Indeed, from this standpoint, being genuine moral dilemmas, they just cannot be resolved as
there is no rational solution to them. It is obvious that, considered from this standpoint, a novelist is not and
could not be a utopian writer, or a writer of literary utopias, at least as the notion of a literary utopia has often
in the past been understood. For utopian texts are ‘one-sided,’ whereas on this view a good novel could not
possibly be. Indeed, from this standpoint, the form of the novel is necessarily associated with a critique of
utopianism, on both aesthetic as well as moral grounds. According to Frederic Jameson, for example, Lukács
maintains that although it is true that the novel ‘has ethical significance,’ the reason for this is because the
form of the novel is that of ‘concrete narration’ rather than that of the ‘abstract thought’ traditionally engaged
3
in by the authors of works of utopian literature. In Jameson’s opinion, the ‘great novelists’ of the 19th century
were, therefore, even in the ‘very formal organization of their styles’ engaged in a critique of utopian thought
and writing, which from their point of view offered what is merely a ‘pallid and abstract dream’ or an
‘insubstantial wish-fulfilment.’ By adopting the form of the novel the nineteenth century realists offered a
‘concrete demonstration of the problems of Utopia.’ 28
Although he was a philosopher, and not a creative writer, nevertheless Hegel might be thought of as someone
whose general outlook provides a philosophical justification for the attitude towards utopianism, and utopian
writing, which is adopted by the tragic dramatist and the novelist. This is another reason for thinking that Hegel
should not be thought of as a utopian writer.
Argument 3: The ‘Struggle for Recognition’ and/in World History
There is a reading of Hegel’s views on the ‘struggle for recognition’ which is ‘pessimistic’ rather than ‘optimistic’
about the possibility that this particular source of conflict/strife, which is assumed to exist in society and not in
a ‘state of nature,’ might be or could be resolved, either in the present or at any time in the future. According
to this reading Hegel condemns slavery. But he does not think of slavery as being a matter of legal status, or
something which can ever be historically overcome. After all he associates ‘slavery’ with the development of
‘self-consciousness’ in general, and therefore, presumably, in all societies everywhere, including all possible
future societies.
On this view selves cannot come into being, in any society, without the existence of that ‘struggle for
recognition’ which Hegel associates with mastery and slavery, or the master-slave relationship. Thus a certain
kind of ‘slavery’ is endemic to all human society, and to all social institutions. These are inevitably/necessarily
‘hierarchical,’ based on a ‘division of labour’ between socially designated/identified ‘unequals,’ etc. For ‘selfconsciousness’ to exist it is necessary that ‘self’ and ‘other’ have determinate social identities, associated with a
definite division of labour, and a particular framework of social institutions. But it inevitable that these will be
hierarchical, structured around the principle of inequality and not equality. On this view, Hegel is of the opinion
that for something to exist at all as an ‘individual’ it is necessary that it be different from other individuals. But
to be different is to possess one or more of a range of possible identifying characteristics, to a greater or lesser
degree. Difference and inequality are the same thing. Thus inequality and not equality is a fundamental
principle of the cosmic order of the universe, without which individual things could not exist. For without
inequality they could not be differentiated from one another. This idea might be associated with the medieval
notion of the scala naturae, or what A. O. Lovejoy refers to as ‘the great chain of being,’ a principle which, in
modern times, has often been associated with the standpoint of traditional conservatism.
This reading also associates Hegel with ‘conflict model of society.’ On this view, though, this is a kind of conflict
which could never be resolved. There is no condition of peace, harmony, stability, justice, etc which could be
associated with the ‘end of history,’ or which could be found at ‘the end of history.’ Human existence in society
is a ceaseless/perpetual struggle between erstwhile ‘masters’ and ‘slaves’ to dominate or be dominated – a
struggle which neither can win and neither must lose. This is ‘the human condition.’ This reading of Hegel’s
general philosophical outlook can be associated with the idea that he possesses a ‘tragic vision,’ and the view
that his outlook on life generally has much in common with that of ancient Greek tragedy. 29 Historically it is
associated, in France, with the work of Jean Wahl, 30 and of Jean-Paul Sartre, 31 rather than with that of
Alexandre Kojève, with which it is incompatible. 32 It has to do, not with the idea of ‘the unhappy
consciousness,’ or the unhappiness of some consciousnesses, but rather with the idea ‘unhappiness of
consciousness,’ that is to say, the unhappiness of all consciousnesses.
On this reading, there are logical difficulties associated with the attempt to connect this reading of Hegel with
any kind of critical theory which might be connected to a ‘utopian’ vision of a society which does not (yet) exist
but which ought to be. Moreover, it is difficult to argue that something which is inevitable (social conflict of the
kind associated with the ‘struggle for recognition’), because it is to be found in all societies everywhere, ought
to be morally condemned. Again, this is ‘life.’ Again, it is a fundamental aspect of the tragedy which is human
existence.
4
1.2 Hegel as a Utopian Thinker
1.2.1 The ‘Struggle for Recognition’ and/in World History
There are two readings of Hegel’s ambiguous remarks about the ‘struggle for recognition’ in relation to world
history, or the history of the human race, which might be appealed to in support of the view that Hegel’s
philosophy is associated with at least some form of political utopianism.
According to the first of these readings, Hegel is of the opinion that the ‘struggle’ for recognition does not take
place within the ‘state of nature,’ but within society itself and its institutions, specifically of course within the
institution of slavery. This reading is therefore associated with a conflict model of society and of its history. The
‘struggle’ (conflict) ends at a certain point in ‘world history,’ or in the historical evolution of human society,
when slavery is legally abolished. On this reading, Hegel thinks that this is the great achievement of the
modern world, where, as he says in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, not just ‘one’ is free, or ‘some’
are free, but ‘all are free.’ 33 Thus, through the course of world history, humanity has, in the European society of
his own day, within the confined of the individual nation-state, finally achieved that condition of mutual or
reciprocal recognition, or ‘freedom,’ which Hegel suggests in the Phenomenology is the ‘end,’ that is to say the
ultimate or final goal, of history. Hence, on this view, with respect to this particular issue at least, there is no
further improvement which could be made. Perfection has been achieved.
Politically, Hegel associates this ‘ideal’ state of affairs with the principle of ‘constitutional monarchy,’ to a
systematic defence of which he devotes his Philosophy of Right (1817). For present purposes the most
significant aspect of this political system is association with ‘constitutionalism,’ ‘the rule of law,’ the equal
respect owing to all those who are ‘citizens,’ and the extension of ‘citizenship’ to include all those who are
deemed worthy of it because of their possession of that ‘moral personality’ which, in Hegel’s view, is to be
found in all human beings. The ideas developed in the Philosophy of Right are, therefore, entirely consistent
with what Hegel has to say about the ‘struggle for recognition’ in his Phenomenology of Spirit. They are
associated with a normative ideal which Hegel considers to be the best possible.
On this account, then, Hegel thought that the type of ‘free society’ which he considered to be the ultimate goal
of the historical development of the human race had in fact, broadly speaking, been achieved in the postrevolutionary (post-1789) European society of his day with its commitment to the principle of ‘constitutional
monarchy,’ which (without obvious irony) Hegel thought was ‘the achievement of the modern world.’ 34 Hegel
did, therefore, think that the human race had arrived at the ‘end’ of world history. It had created both a society
which is based on the principle of mutual or reciprocal recognition between citizens, and a society within which
all (sic) human beings have (allegedly) been accorded the legal status of citizenship. Hence it had also created
a state of affairs within which the ‘struggle for recognition,’ as a major source of social and political conflict, and
even the driving motor’ of world history, at least in the domestic arena, no longer existed. Hegel suggests,
rightly or wrongly (wrongly!) that a society, or a ‘nation state,’ the internal or domestic social relations of which
were based on the principles of peace, order, harmony, stability and justice, rather than on conflict, war,
instability, injustice, domination, oppression, and so on, had in fact been achieved in Europe after the French
Revolution.
Although, on this view, there is certainly a ‘utopian’ dimension to Hegel’s thinking, nevertheless, because this is
connected to Hegel’s philosophy of history, and with the idea of ‘progress’ as Hegel understood it, it follows that
in Hegel’s thought this particular view of ‘utopia’ became associated not with a critical theory of society, but
rather with a ‘conservative’ defence of the status quo. For Hegel what ‘ought’ to be came to be identified with
what ‘is,’ rather than to be completely separated from what is and located in ‘another world,’ as in the case of
the traditional literary utopia. As we have seen, the locus classicus for this attitude of mind is the Preface to
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. This particular reading of Hegel’s philosophy, and of its relationship to utopianism,
might be associated with ‘Right Hegelianism,’ or with ‘Old Hegelianism,’ in the sense in which these expressions
were used in Germany and France in the 1830s and 1840s.
Now let us consider the second of the two readings referred to above. I have suggested that the views
associated with this ‘Right Hegelian’ reading of Hegel’s philosophy were criticized in the 1830s and 1840s by
one wing of the ‘Left Hegelian’ movement, namely the wing associated with a certain type of 19th Century
anarchism and its rejection of ‘utopianism.’ But they were also criticized by a second branch of the ‘Left
Hegelian’ movement. The ideas associated with this second group of Left Hegelian thinkers are in a sense
(intellectually, at least, though not necessarily politically) more ‘moderate’ or less ‘radical’ than those
associated with anarchist Left Hegelians like Bakunin.
5
According to this second branch of the Left Hegelian movement, there is nothing in principle wrong with the
Right Hegelian notion of the ‘end of history,’ or with speculating about the kind of society with which it is
associated. According to the advocates of this kind of Left Hegelianism, however, this is a society which so far
as the present is concerned does not yet exist. It is therefore very much a society which stands in the future.
As such it is something which represents an ‘ought to be’ for all those who inhabit the society of the present.
What is wrong with the Right Hegelian reading of Hegel’s philosophy, therefore, is simply the fact that it
identifies this ideal state of affairs, or this ideal society, with the society of the present in post-revolutionary
Europe. For those Left Hegelians associated with this group the ‘free’ society based on the principle of mutual or
reciprocal recognition promised by Hegel’s philosophy of history has in fact still to be achieved. Moreover, its
achievement will require much more than constitutional monarchy and the rule of law. Indeed, as Marx’s
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right suggests, it will require the abolition of private property (communism)
and the implementation of radical or true form of democracy.
According to the second reading of Hegel’s philosophy, as with the first reading, the ‘struggle for recognition’
does not take place within an alleged ‘state of nature,’ but within society itself, within the individual nationstate, and its institutions. This second reading, too, is therefore associated with a conflict model of society.
Here also the ‘struggle’ ends at a certain point in ‘world history,’ or in the historical evolution of human society,
when slavery is abolished. On this second reading, though, slavery is not simply a matter of legal status, and it
is not to be abolished by doing away with the legally sanctioned institution of slavery. Here ‘slavery’ is
considered to be as much a sociological as a legal phenomenon. And it is possible for individuals to remain in
some importance sense ‘slaves’ even after the institution of slavery has been legally abolished. Indeed, the
legal abolition of slavery might serve as a mask to disguise the existence of these ongoing/continuing forms of
slavery in society. E.g. what Marx refers to as ‘wage slavery’ in his Paris Manuscripts.
This is a reading of Hegel views on the ‘struggle for recognition’ in the Phenomenology which is inspired by a
familiarity with the writings of the young Marx, and perhaps also by a familiarity with the economic thought of
the young Hegel also. It is a reading which, famously, was developed by Alexandre Kojève in the lectures on
Hegel’s Phenomenology which he delivered at the Sorbonne between 1933 and 1939. 35 It is a soi-disant Marxist
or materialist reading of Hegel’s views on history and of the role which the ‘struggle for recognition’ has to play
within it.’ 36 As Kojève puts it:
•
‘The historical “dialectic” is the “dialectic” of Master and Slave. But if the opposition of “thesis” and “antithesis” is
meaningful only in the context of their reconciliation by “synthesis,” if ‘History (in the full sense of the word)
necessarily has a final term…the interaction of Master and Slave must finally end in the “dialectical overcoming” of
both of them.’ 37
•
‘Man was born and History began with the first Fight that ended in the appearance of a Master and a Slave….Man at his origin - is always either Master or Slave….true Man can exist only where there is Master and Slave. And
Universal history, the history of the interaction between men and of their interaction with Nature, is the history of
the interaction between warlike Masters and working Slaves. Consequently, History stops at the moment when the
difference, the opposition between Master and Slave disappears.’ 38
In Kojève’s ‘appropriation’ of Hegel’s philosophy, the society which stands at/as the ‘end of history’ is
associated with what Kojève himself refers to as the idea of ‘the universal and homogeneous state,’ something
which, in his view, Hegel (wrongly) associated with the Napoleonic state in the history of European society:
•
‘History can end only in and by the formation of a Society, of a State, in which the strictly particular, personal,
individual value of each is recognized as such, in its very particularity, by all..Now such a State…is possible only after
the “overcoming” of the opposition between Master and Slave…[Moreover this Particular]..is no longer a Particular:
he is an Individual…[i.e.]…a Citizen of the universal and homogeneous State.’ 39
•
‘[T]he Master-Slave opposition’ is ‘the motive principle of the historical process…[U]niversal history, therefore, is
nothing but the history of the dialectical – i.e. active – relationship between Mastery and Slavery. Hence, History will
be completed at the moment when the synthesis of the Master and the Slave is realized, that synthesis that is the
whole Man, the Citizen of the universal and homogeneous state created by Napoleon.’ 40
In his Lectures Kojève explicitly associates this ‘universal and homogeneous state’ with the idea of ‘perfection’
and that of a ‘perfect state.’ Thus, for example, at one point he maintains that:
•
‘As long as History continues, or [what is the same thing] as long as the perfect State is not realized’ 41
Moreover Kojève also maintains, against Hegel himself as he understands him, that this universal and
homogeneous state is something which is yet to be created. The idea of it is associated with the ‘ideal’ or
‘perfect’ society of the future, a society which is yet to come:
6
•
‘[W]e must see..if the current state of things actually corresponds to what for Hegel is the perfect State and the end
of History..The answer to the…question seems very easy at first sight – the perfect State? Possible, of course, but we
are indeed far from it. However, at the time of writing the Phenomenology in 1806, Hegel, too, knew full well that
the State was not yet realized indeed in all its perfection. He only asserted that the germ of this State was present in
the World and that the necessary and sufficient conditions for its growth were in existence.’ 42
On this second reading of Hegel’s philosophy, the notion of ‘true recognition,’ as Hegel understands it, does
provide a means for subjecting existing societies to critical evaluation from the moral point of view. It provides
at least an outline sketch, grounded in a particular understanding of ‘world history,’ of how all societies ought to
be. From the standpoint of this moral ideal, no society should be a ‘slave society.’ On this view, there would
be/will be no ‘slaves’ in any sense of the term in the ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ society which stands at the end of
history. Or what amounts to the same thing, at least on this view, there will be, or there will no longer be, any
‘slaves’ (again in any sense) in the society which stands at/as the ‘end of history,’ and which is yet to be
achieved.
Thought of in this way, Hegel’s ideas might be associated with the second kind of utopian thinking referred to
above, namely the utopian thought of the Enlightenment. This reading of Hegel postulates the existence of a
vision of an ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ society in the future, a vision which might indeed be used to criticize the society
of the present. But this is a vision which is in some important sense rooted in world history, and therefore by
implication in the society of the present. It is assumed that the seeds for the existence of this ‘ideal,’ or at least
‘better,’ society of the future are already here, germinating in the society of the present. There is, therefore, a
sense in which this critique must be said to be an historical critique of the society of the present. It is an
immanent rather than a transcendent critique of that society. On this view, however, this is not a reason for
thinking that this critique is not ‘utopian.’
To summarize, the important point for present purposes is the connection which exists between this particular
reading of Hegel’s philosophy, and of Hegelianism, and the idea of utopia or utopianism, as this is understood
by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. On this view, Kojève’s reading of Hegel is one which does, in a sense,
present Hegel as a ‘utopian’ thinker. It locates him, in effect, within the utopian tradition, at least within what I
have referred to as the tradition of Enlightenment utopianism.
So far as the relationship of Hegel’s philosophy to utopianism is concerned, it should perhaps be noted that
Kojève’s pronouncements on this subject are ambiguous, and they are ambiguous because they are
inconsistent. On the one hand there is evidence that Kojève does not associate the particular reading
(‘appropriation’) of Hegel’s philosophy which he himself endorses with ‘utopianism.’ The reason for this is that
Kojève insists that, strictly speaking, the idea of utopia ought to be associated only with forms of speculation
which imply a ‘transcendent’ as opposed to an ‘immanent’ critique of existing society. In his view, therefore,
neither Hegel nor Marx could/should be said to be contributors to the ‘utopian’ political tradition. As Kojève
himself puts it:
•
‘The history of the Christian world…is the history of the progressive realization of that ideal State…But in order to
realize this State, Man must look away from the Beyond, look toward this earth and act only with a view to this earth.
In other words, he must eliminate the Christian idea of transcendence. And that is why the evolution of the Christian
world is dual: on the one hand there is the real evolution, which prepares the social and political conditions for the
coming of the “absolute” State; and on the other, an ideal evolution, which eliminates the transcendent idea, which
brings Heaven back to Earth, as Hegel says.’ 43
In his Lectures, although Kojève does maintain that this universal and homogeneous state might be associated
with a ‘perfect’ society which stands at the end of history, nevertheless he never uses the word ‘utopia’ or
‘utopian’ to characterize it. Nor does he refer to it as a ‘utopia’ in his debate with Leo Strauss. Indeed, in that
debate, he expressly denies that the vision which the philosopher has of this universal, homogeneous State is
‘utopian.’ 44 This is one of the points of disagreement between Kojève and Strauss. Moreover, the reason why
Kojève denies this is that, in his view, the universal and homogeneous state which was first postulated by Hegel
is a real, practical possibility which has been generated by the course of world-history. So we are indeed talking
here about an immanent rather than a transcendent political ideal. In Kojève’s view, however, to be ‘utopian,’
in the strict sense of the term, a political ideal has to be transcendent and not immanent. Thus, in his opinion,
Hegel’s political vision could not and should not be characterized as ‘utopian.’ On the other hand, however,
Kojève also states that:
•
‘[I]n our day the universal and homogeneous State has become a political goal as well….[Thus]…the tyrant [Stalin?]
who here initiates the real political movement toward homogeneity consciously followed the teaching of the
intellectual [Marx?] who deliberately transformed the idea of the philosopher [Hegel?] so that it might cease to be a
7
“utopian” ideal (which, incidentally, was erroneously thought to describe an already existing political reality: the
Empire of Napoleon).’ 45
Here the type of society which Hegel associated with the ‘end of history’ is indeed characterized as constituting
a utopian vision/ideal, albeit one which already corresponded with the existing reality of the Napoleonic state.
But it follows from this that if we were to argue, as Kojève does, that although Hegel’s universal and
homogenous state is indeed an ‘ideal’ or even a ‘perfect’ state, albeit in Kojève’s case one which is thought of
as not yet existing, then there is no good reason for thinking that this state and the society associated with it
should not be characterized as ‘utopian.’
In short, Kojève is uncertain in his Lectures as to whether the universal and homogeneous state which he
associates with Hegel’s ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ society at the end of history could or could not be said to be ‘utopian.’
Sometimes he says it is not a utopian, society because it is associated with an immanent and not a
transcendent political ideal. At other times he says that it is a utopian society, because it is associated with an
ideal which has not yet been achieved/realized and which, in consequence, can be used to criticize the society
of the present.
Kojève agrees with what he takes to be Hegel’s view, namely that the struggle for recognition is not just the
motor of history and historical development, but also the key to understanding politics, insofar as politics has to
do with the management and/or resolution of conflict in society. For example, he states in his debate with Leo
Strauss that:
•
‘the desire to be “recognized”..is, I believe, the ultimate motive of all emulation among men, and hence of all
political struggle. 46
It follows from this that were the universal and homogenous state postulated by Kojève’s appropriation of
Hegel ever to be achieved, this would amount in effect to the cessation of conflict in (domestic) society and,
consequently, to the end of (national) politics as this has traditionally been understood.
This is an attitude which, in the sphere of international relations rather than domestic politics, is usually
associated with the name of Carl Schmitt, 47 whose views I shall discuss in the next section. So far as domestic
politics is concerned, this attitude has been adopted more recently by Chantal Mouffe, whose thinking owes a
good deal to that of Schmitt. 48 Not surprisingly, despite Kojève’s protestations to the contrary, commentators
like Schmitt, Strauss and Mouffe have suggested that this kind of thinking just is ‘utopian’ in some sense of the
term. Indeed, Kojève’s ideas, which might be identified with a certain reading (‘appropriation’) of Hegel’s
philosophy, have been criticized by Leo Strauss, precisely because Kojève, in Strauss’s view, is a closet
‘utopian’ thinker who refuses to acknowledge explicitly the value of the idea of utopia, and of ‘utopian’ thought,
in his own writings. 49
As we shall see, Strauss’s critique of Kojève also has an affinity with the thinking of Carl Schmitt. 50 This is
interesting because it is clear that Schmitt’s political thought, in its turn, is in at least some respects heavily
indebted to a particular reading of the philosophy of Hegel, and of the views on international relations which
were developed by Hegel in Part Three of his Philosophy of Right. 51 In other words, the debate between Kojève,
on the one hand, and Strauss (Schmitt) on the other, 52 might plausibly be characterized as a debate about the
interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy, specifically in relation to the issue of whether or not Hegel’s views on
international relations might be associated with ‘utopianism.’ In this debate, one reading of Hegel (that of
Schmitt) is employed to criticize the views associated with another (that of Kojève).
I shall end this section by making a few remarks about the relevance of this for those who are interested in the
history of utopian/dystopian thought and literature, specifically in relation to the work of H. G. Wells and
Zamyatin. It is not difficult to think of, for example, Wells’s The Time Machine or his The Sleeper Awakes, or
about Zamyatin’s We, as being attempts, in works of literature, to speculate about the nature of the society and
state which ‘Hegelian’ thinkers postulate as constituting the ‘end of history,’ a society and state which, in the
view of both Wells and Zamyatin, are thought of by the Hegelians in question as being ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect, in
short as ‘utopian.’ In other words the society and state portrayed in, say, Zamyatin’s We just is Kojève’s unified
and homogeneous state as Zamyatin understands it. The difference between Zamyatin and Kojève, of course, is
that in Zamyatin’s opinion this is very far from being an ideal society or a ‘utopia.’ Rather, to the contrary, it
should be thought of as a dystopia. In the words of Mark Hillegas, it represents ‘the future as nightmare.’ 53 It is
a commonplace to think of the idea of ‘dystopia,’ in contrast to the idea of ‘utopia,’ as being associated with the
notion of ‘extrapolation,’ the imaginative projection into the future of trends which already exist in present
society, but which are considered by the author to be morally and/or politically undesirable. Although there are
of course other ways of thinking about it, in my view the origins of this idea might fruitfully be thought of as
having arisen as a consequence of a critical engagement with the philosophy of Hegel by writers such as Wells
and Zamyatin at the beginning of the 20th Century.
8
Section 2: Hegel and International Relations
As a number of commentators have noted, a good way in to a discussion of Hegel’s views on international
relations is to relate them to the contemporary debate between ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘communitarianism.’ 54
Within this debate ‘utopianism’ is usually associated with a commitment to cosmopolitanism and an enthusiasm
for Kant’s approach to international relations, especially his views on the possibility and the desirability of a
condition of ‘perpetual peace.’ 55 Conversely, the rejection of utopianism is associated with a commitment to
communitarianism, a critique of Kant’s views on perpetual peace, and with the ‘realist’ view that conflict and
war in the international arena are either inevitable, or desirable, or both. According to Derek Heater,
communitarians ‘believe that the central role of the community (usually equated with the state) as the provider
of ethical political standards should at all costs be preserved.’ 56 But where does Hegel stand in this debate? Is
he a cosmopolitan theorist, and therefore a utopian thinker, or is he a communitarian and therefore a ‘realist’
so far as questions of international relations are concerned?
When discussing this question, it is again convenient to distinguish between views which might be said to be
‘Hegelian’ because they are the ones which Hegel himself actually held, and views which might be said to be
‘Hegelian’ because, although Hegel did not himself hold them, it is arguable that he could have done, because
these views are logically consistent with his own basic philosophical principles, and perhaps even that he should
have done because they are more consistent with his own philosophical principles than the views which he
actually held. To employ the terminology I have developed elsewhere, a reading of Hegel which focuses on the
views which he actually held is what I refer to as an ‘interpretation’ and a reading which does not do this,
indeed makes no attempt to do it, but focuses on developing Hegel’s views in a particular direction, or down a
path which Hegel himself did not follow and perhaps deliberately chose not to follow, is what I refer to as an
‘appropriation.’
2. 1 Hegel as a Realist Critic of Utopianism in International Relations
According to one reading of Hegel’s philosophy, which is the traditional reading of Hegel’s views on international
relations held by most commentators, Hegel decisively rejects all of the ideas associated with cosmopolitanism.
On this view, Hegel is not a cosmopolitan thinker at all, in any sense, but an ‘out-and-out’ communitarian. This
reading of Hegel is held by a number of commentators, including Chris Brown, David Boucher, Derek Heater
and Janna Thompson. In a survey of international relations theory structured around the debate between
cosmopolitanism and communitarianism published in 1992, Brown chose Hegel as the best representative of
the standpoint of communitarianism. Hegel, Brown claims, offers ‘the most complete account of the world from
a communitarian position.’ 57 This is also the view of Derek Heater, who insists that Hegel is a communitarian
thinker, and therefore one of the arch-critics of cosmopolitanism, especially as this is to be found in the writings
of Kant. 58 Finally, David Boucher has cited with approval Janna Thompson’s claim that Hegel’s approach to
international relations is associated with a ‘radical rejection of universal morality’ and with a corresponding
‘assertion of the “moral primacy” of the community.’ 59
On this reading, it is arguable that Hegel is strongly critical of Kant, both so far as moral philosophy in general
is concerned, and so far as Kant’s views on international relations are concerned. Hegel, therefore, emphatically
rejects the idea of a cosmopolis or a ‘world state.’ Rather, his views on international relations focus on the
nation-state, and on relations between nations states, which he considers to be essentially conflictual – one of
‘perpetual war,’ not perpetual peace. Indeed, on this view, the source of intellectual inspiration for Hegel’s
views on international relations is not the philosophy of Kant but that of Thomas Hobbes. Following Hobbes,
Hegel maintains that within the international arena individual nation-states are in a ‘state of nature,’ which
again is a condition not of peace, but of war, or at least the ever-present possibility of war. 60
This attitude leads Hegel to prioritize positive law over natural law, in the domestic arena, and therefore to
reject the notion of natural law in anything like the liberal/Stoic/Kantian sense completely. More to the point for
present purposes however, so far as international relations are concerned, although Hegel does acknowledge
the existence of such a thing as ‘international law,’ he does not think of it as a ‘higher’ substantive standard of
justice which might be appealed to as a normative standard for the regulation of the conduct of individual
nation-states in the international arena. For Hegel, international law is a matter of treaty or convention.
9
In short, on this reading, Hegel’s views on international relations are robustly ‘realist’ and not at all ‘utopian.’
He has more in common with Callicles, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Nietzsche and, more recently, Carl Schmitt, than
he does with Kant or Kant’s predecessors, the great natural law theorists of the 17th and 18th centuries. At least,
as Robert Williams as suggested, even if he is not an out and out ‘realist’ in this sense it is arguable that
Hegel’s attitude towards international relations is one which is informed by his ‘tragic vision’ generally. On this
view, if war exists this is not so much because of a conflict of ‘interests,’ but rather because of a conflict of
different conceptions of ‘right’ between individual states, in a situation where there is no ‘higher’ right to which
one can appeal in order to resolve the conflict in question. 61
Hegel’s approach to questions of international relations in the Philosophy of Right is analogous to his approach
to the understanding of the relations between individuals. The ‘individual’ in each case is seen as an
‘autonomous’ entity,’ a ‘person.’ This individual seeks recognition from ‘others,’ and in the case of an individual
state these are other states. Hegel alludes to the Hobbesian idea that these individuals are in a ‘state of nature’
with one another, which is a condition of at least potential conflict and war (§333). There is a’ law of nature,’
here, which is the principle of pacta sunt servanda – ‘perform your covenant’s made’ (§333). However, there is
no ‘praetor,’ or equivalent of the sovereign at the national/domestic level, to make sure that these
contracts/treaties are kept (§333R). There is no international equivalent of Hobbes’s civil law, understood as
the command of a sovereign. There is no international law in that sense. That is to say, on one reading of
Hobbes, there is no law at all, in the strict sense of the term ‘law,’ in the international arena.
This amounts to an admission, on Hegel’s part, that there is no ‘world state,’ or ‘cosmopolis,’ at least not yet.
So there is no ‘global political community,’ in what might be referred to as the ‘strong’ sense of that term. But
this does not mean that there could not be such a community in some weaker sense than this. For there are
shared characteristics and relationships of ‘identity’ between individual nation-states, which lead them to enter
into peaceful relations with one another, as well as those relationships of ‘difference’ which Hegel associates
with their proclivity for conflict and war.
Hegel’s views on international relations generally, and on war in particular, in The Philosophy of Right are
informed by his notion of ‘recognition,’ and his account of the ‘struggle for recognition’ in the Phenomenology of
Spirit. The demand to be recognized is a principal source of conflict in the international arena also. Nor, it would
seem, does Hegel think that such conflict will ever be resolved, or could ever be resolved. For Hegel there is no
equivalent at the global level of the state of ‘mutual or reciprocal’ recognition which he associates with the ‘end
of history,’ at what might be termed the domestic or national level. If the struggle for recognition, between
masters and slaves, at the lower level results in the creation of a certain kind of state within which masters and
slaves no longer exist, but all are ‘citizens,’ free and equal, under one and the same law, Hegel is adamant that
this has not happened, and sometimes suggests that it could not possibly happen, within the international
arena.
If for Hegel the emergence and development of one’s identity is associated with the ‘struggle for recognition,’ if
one sense of self is defined in relation to one’s comprehension of that which is ‘other,’ and if one’s identity does
have something to do with nationalism and culture, then it would seem that it is not possible to separate
domestic from international relations. I am who I am, or we are who we are, because we stand against ‘others’
who are different from ourselves. This for Hegel, on one reading, is inevitably a relationship of antagonism and
conflict. Indeed, Hegel suggests at one point that cohesion, peace, order and stability ‘at home’ are created and
sustained precisely by war ‘abroad.’ The latter is therefore a necessary precondition of the former:
•
‘[S]uccessful wars have checked domestic unrest and consolidated the power of the state at home.’
62
On this reading, Hegel emphatically does not postulate the emergence or even the possibility of the emergence
of a cosmopolis or ‘world state’: (1) of which each and every human being is a citizen; (2) within which all
human beings are subject to one and the same law, which regulates their interactions with one another; and (3)
which is associated with the demise of sovereignty and of the ‘nation state,’ the entity which Hegel thinks of as
being the basic ‘unit’ actor within the sphere of international relations.
So far as Hegel’s views on international relations are associated with the notion of the ‘struggle for recognition,’
one interesting question is whether, as at the level of the nation state, so also in the international arena Hegel
thought that the ‘struggle for recognition,’ this time between individual nation-states, had ‘ended’ when he
wrote The Philosophy of Right. Did Hegel think that in European society after the Treaty of Westphalia that the
relationship between individual states, also, was one of true/reciprocal recognition and mutual respect? At
times Hegel does suggest this, although it should be noted that in his view this does not necessarily imply an
end to conflict and war. Hegel did not seem think that the end of conflict and war is a necessary precondition
for the existence of relationships of mutual recognition and respect between states (§338). At other times,
however, Hegel talks as if the principles of ‘mastery’ and ‘slavery’ still existed in the international arena of his
day. For example when talking about colonialism in the Philosophy of Right (§351) he seems to be suggesting
10
that colonial peoples have been enslaved, and will continue to be slaves until they have achieved independence,
with an autonomous nation-state of their own, something which all peoples or all ‘nations’ have a right to do
(§§322, 331, 349).
It is arguable that Hegel’s views on international relations have a striking affinity with those of Carl Schmitt,
who might indeed be said to be in some sense an ‘Hegelian’ thinker. Both Hegel and Schmitt take the view that
cohesion, unity and social stability ‘at home,’ the creation of a ‘we’ or an ‘us,’ depends on the existence of
something which is ‘other,’ an ‘enemy’ abroad which will unite ‘us’ against ‘them.’ In both cases, therefore, one
reason for being sceptical about the possibility of the emergence of a ‘world state’ of which all human beings
are the member citizens is the fact that to postulate the existence of such a thing appears to presuppose
(wrongly) that it is possible for there to be a ‘self’ without an ‘other.’
See for example Hegel’s claim that:
•
‘[P]erpetual peace is often advocated as an ideal towards which humanity should strive. With that end in view, Kant
proposed a league of monarchs to adjust differences between states, and the Holy Alliance was meant to be a league
of much the same kind. But the state is an individual, and individuality essentially implies negation. Hence even if a
number of states make themselves into a family, this group as an individual must engender an opposite and create
an enemy.’ 63
Compare this with Schmitt’s assertion, in The Concept of the Political, that:
•
‘[R]ationally speaking, it cannot be denied that nations continue to group themselves according to the friend enemy
antithesis, that the distinction still remains actual today, and that this is an ever present possibility for every people
existing in the political sphere.’ 64
And with Schmitt’s claim that:
•
‘the solemn declaration of outlawing war does not abolish the friend-enemy distinction…Were this distinction to
vanish then political life would vanish altogether.’ 65
•
‘be a mistake to believe that a nation could eliminate the distinction of friend and enemy by declaring its friendship
for the entire world or by voluntarily disarming itself. The world will not thereby become depoliticalized, and it will
not be transplanted into a condition of pure morality, pure justice, or pure economics.’ 66
•
‘Were a world state to embrace the entire globe and humanity, then it would be no political entity and could only be
loosely called a state.’…[It]…would altogether lose its political character.’ 67
For Schmitt, politics or ‘the political’ has to do with conflict and the ever present possibility of war between
individual nation states. To think that these things can and should be ‘abolished,’ is to demand that politics
itself be ‘abolished’ It is to seek either ‘at home’ (Plato) or ‘abroad’ (Kant), that is to say in the sphere of
international relations which is Schmitt’s main concern, a situation in which there is no longer any conflict.
As Leo Strauss has observed, Schmitt does not explicitly deny the possibility that the entity which is usually
referred to by the expression ‘world state’ might come into existence. Indeed, he states that:
•
‘The political entity cannot by its very nature be universal in the sense of embracing all humanity and the entire
world. If the different states, religions, classes, and other human groupings on earth should be so unified that a
conflict among them is impossible and even inconceivable, and if civil war should forever be foreclosed in a realm
which embraces the globe, then the distinction of friend and enemy would also cease. What remains is neither
politics nor state, but culture, civilization, economics, morality, law, art, entertainment, etc. If and when this
condition will appear, I do not know. At the moment, this is not the case. And it is self-deluding to believe that the
termination of a modern war would lead to world peace.’ 68
All that Schmitt claims is that if a ‘world state’ did come into existence it could not properly speaking be called
either a ‘political’ entity or a ‘state,’ in the strict sense of these terms. 69 It is difficult to believe, however, that
Schmitt took seriously the suggestion that such a state would or even could in fact emerge. Nor does it seem
unreasonable to suggest that in Schmitt’s view, as in that of Leo Strauss, the idea of such a state is ‘utopian’ in
the sense of being impractical or unachievable, quite irrespective of whether it might or might not be said to be
desirable.
Schmitt uses ‘Hegelian’ ideas to criticize the notion of a ‘cosmopolis,’ or a ‘world state,’ as he understands it,
and therefore, by implication, a ‘utopian’ society or a ‘utopian’ state of affairs in the area of international
relations which might be thought to lie at the end of history. As he puts it:
11
•
‘The political entity presupposes the real existence of an enemy and therefore coexistence with another political
entity. As long as a state exists, there will thus always be in the world more than just one state. A world state which
embraces the entire globe and all of humanity cannot exist. The political world is a pluriverse and not a universe.’ 70
•
‘But besides this highly political utilization of the nonpolitical term humanity, there are no wars of humanity as such.
Humanity is not a political concept, and no political entity or society and no status corresponds to it. The eighteenth
century humanitarian concept of humanity was a polemical denial of the then existing aristocratic feudal system and
the privileges accompanying it. Humanity, according to natural law and liberal individualistic doctrines, is a universal,
i.e. all embracing, social ideal, a system of relations between individuals. This materializes only when the real
possibility of war is precluded and every friend enemy grouping becomes impossible. In this universal society there
would no longer be nations, in the form of political entities, no class struggles, and no enemy groupings.’ 71
Schmitt evidently took the view that those who think that such a state of affairs might arise, or even could
possibly arise, are ‘utopians.’
2.2 Hegel as a Utopian Theorist of International Relations
The views of Alexandre Kojève regarding the idea of a ‘universal and homogeneous state’ in the philosophy of
Hegel provide a convenient transition from a consideration of domestic or national politics to a consideration of
questions of international relations. In particular they bring to the fore the idea of a ‘world state,’ an idea which
lies at the heart, not just of some contemporary thinking in relation to the phenomenon of globalization, but
also of a number of works of utopian/dystopian literature and/or science fiction. 72
Kojève’s views on this subject are ambiguous. There are numerous occasions when the reader of his lectures on
Hegel’s Phenomenology has the impression that the universal and homogeneous state which, according to
Kojève, Hegel associates with the ‘end of history’ is in fact a certain type of ‘nation state,’ similar (if not
identical) with the Napoleonic state, or the type of constitutional ‘monarchy’ which Hegel appears to be
recommending to his readers in the Philosophy of Right. On the other hand, though, there are also occasions
(less frequent) when Kojève suggests that the universal and homogenous state is not a particular type of
nation-state at all. It is, rather, what today we would refer to as a global state, or a ‘world state,’ in something
like H. G. Wells’s understanding of that term. Consider, for example, the following passage:
•
‘Man is truly human – that is “individual” – only to the extent that he lives and acts as “recognized” citizen of a
State….But at the moment of its appearance, and during its whole historical evolution as well, the State does not
fully satisfy the human desire for Recognition….Such is the case because in the real, historical conditions of his
existence, a man is never only “this particular man here,” recognized by the State as citizen in his unique and
irreplaceable particularity. He is always also an interchangeable “representative” of a sort of human “species”…And
only as such...is he universally recognized…In fact…the desire for Recognition can be completely satisfied, only in
and by the universal and homogeneous State. For, in the homogeneous State, the “specific-differences” of class,
race, and so on, are “overcome”…And this recognition is truly universal, for, by definition, the [this] State embraces
the whole of the human race.’ 73
Kojève suggests here that what lies at the ‘end of history,’ so far as his own reading (‘appropriation’) of Hegel’s
philosophy is concerned, is the demise of the ‘nation state’ and the emergence of a ‘state’ which encompasses
the entire planet and which contains the entire human species as its member citizens. It is a ‘cosmopolis,’ in
the sense in which the ancient Stoics understood the term. Although Kojève is reluctant to employ the notion of
‘utopia’ in this context he does, as we have seen, associate the universal and homogeneous state, understood
in this specific sense, with the notion of ‘perfection.’ He also associates it with a situation within which there
would not be, and could not possibly be, any ‘war,’ understood in the specific sense of a conflict between two or
more nation states.
A similar view to that of Kojève has also been put forward by Shlomo Avineri, who does not simply advance it in
his own name but also (unlike Kojève) attributes it specifically to Hegel, that is to say he offers it as an
‘interpretation’ rather than an ‘appropriation’ of Hegel’s views. According to Avineri, Hegel was not by any means
as hostile to the ideas of Kant on perpetual peace as is commonly assumed. Avineri’s evidence for this view is
taken from Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, where Hegel states that ‘despite all the
differences between the individual states…there also obtains a unity among them.’ The ‘trend of the states is,
therefore,’ Hegel continues, ‘towards uniformity.’ 74 Avineri concludes from this that Hegel thought that, as
Avineri puts it, ‘the world is about to enter an era of cooperation and universalism.’ 75 In the end therefore,
Avineri concludes, Hegel ‘emerges with a vision of One World, united by culture and reason, progressing towards
a system wherein sovereignty, though acknowledged, will wither away, and wars, though immanent, will
gradually disappear.’ 76 Like Kojève, then, Avineri takes Hegel’s remarks about the uniformity of states in the
12
modern era in the passage just cited to imply that there is at least some evidence to support the view that Hegel
thought that a unified ‘world state’ was emerging at the global level.
Not surprisingly, for those commentators who adopt the more traditional reading of Hegel’s views on
international relations outlined above, the suggestion advanced by Kojève and Avineri that Hegel’s philosophy
might be associated with the principles of cosmopolitanism, and hence also a form of ‘utopianism,’ is to be
rejected. From the point of view of the more traditional ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ reading, Avineri mistakenly takes
Hegel’s remarks about the uniformity of states in the modern era to imply that Hegel thought that a unified
‘world state’ was emerging. As Robert Williams has put it, if it were true that for Hegel ‘sovereignty’ is something
which ‘withers away,’ as Avineri appears to suggest in his discussion of Hegel’s views on war, then ‘Hegel would
have to revise his fundamental point that international law remains an ought to be, and its implication, that
nations are destined to remain in a state of nature towards each other.’ 77 In William’s opinion, this is a reason
for not accepting Avineri’s ‘cosmopolitan’ reading of Hegel’s views, as it is a reading which is inconsistent with
what Williams argues is the ‘tragic vision’ which provides the basis for Hegel’s fundamental outlook so far as
questions of human existence in society are concerned. 78
Section 3
A Compromise: Hegel as a ‘Weak’ Cosmopolitan Thinker
As we have seen, so far as Hegel and international relations is concerned, there is at least some evidence which
supports the view that there is a ‘utopian’ dimension to Hegel’s thinking, but there is also some evidence which
counts against this reading and in favour of the view that he is an ‘anti-utopian’ realist. Discussion of Hegel’s
attitude towards ‘realism’ and ‘utopianism’ in international relations can be connected to another debate, that
between ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘communitarians’ generally, and between advocates of ‘cosmopolitan’ and
‘communitarian’ readings of Hegel in particular. The ‘realist’ or ‘anti-utopian’ reading of Hegel’s views on
international relations is closely connected to the ‘communitarian’ reading of Hegel’s political thought more
generally, whereas the ‘utopian’ reading of Hegel’s views on international relations can be connected to the
claim that he is some kind of ‘cosmopolitan’ thinker.
When discussing this issue it is convenient to make a distinction between what I shall refer to as ‘strong’ and
‘weak’ versions of the doctrines of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism. In its strong sense cosmopolitanism
is associated, in the first instance, with the endorsement of the idea of a substantive natural law, understood
to be a set of timeless, rationally apprehensible and universally valid juridical principles, which is ‘higher’ than
positive law, and by appeal to which individuals can critically evaluate positive law from the point of view of its
justice or injustice and, in certain circumstances, find it wanting. It is also associated with an approval of at
least the idea or ideal of a ‘cosmopolis,’ or a ‘world-state,’ of which every human being or moral person is a
member citizen who is respected as such, or reciprocally recognized as being so, by all fellow citizens, that is to
say all other human beings. In this community what Hegel refers to as ‘true recognition’ exists in its fullest
possible sense, not just between those who happen to be citizens of a particular nation-state, but between all
human beings in a situation where there are no longer any nation-states.
If he were a ‘strong’ cosmopolitan then in the present the idea of such a state would represent, for Hegel, a
moral and political ideal, an ‘ought to be.’ It is the idea of an ‘ideal’ society of the future, a society which does
not yet exist, but which ought to exist and which could possibly exist. In this society of the future the nationstate, the basic unit of contemporary international relations, will have ‘withered away,’ and together with it the
primary source of international conflict and war. This is the ‘utopian’ society which, according to some
commentators (though not many), either Hegel himself, or if not Hegel then at least later ‘Hegelians,’ associate
with the ‘end of history.’ Should it ever actually come into existence, the ‘positive law’ of this society and its
‘state’ would be identical in substance with the principles of natural law as these have been interpreted and
applied by the same positive law, and in exactly the same way, for all of the human beings on the planet.
By contrast, not surprisingly, ‘weak’ cosmopolitanism does not go so far as this. If he were a cosmopolitan
thinker of this second and weaker kind then Hegel would be committed to the view that the basic principle of
morality and of natural law is the principle of ‘true recognition,’ namely be a person and respect other persons,
which is also the most fundamental principle of ‘abstract right.’ He would also be committed to the view that, in
some much looser sense, it is appropriate to talk about the existence of a global political community which
incorporates every member of the human race as its member citizens.
The most significant difference between this view and what I have referred to as ‘strong’ cosmopolitanism is the
fact that on a ‘weak’ cosmopolitan reading of his views, Hegel rejects the idea of a ‘world state,’ both in theory
and in practice; both as a normative ideal and as a likely, or even possible, historical outcome. Thus he retains
13
his commitment to the idea of the ‘nation-state’ as the basic unit actor within the sphere of international
relations. Consequently, on this view, there is for Hegel no agency for creating and enforcing that positive law
which would be required for the ‘concretization’ of the principles of abstract right at the supra-national or global
level if they are to be an effective guide to action, not just for the citizens of a particular nation-state, but for all
human beings in their reciprocal relations with one another. In my view, so far as questions of international
relations are concerned, Hegel is neither a communitarian thinker, nor a strong cosmopolitan thinker, but a
weak cosmopolitan thinker in just this sense.
The view that Hegel is a ‘strong’ cosmopolitan thinker, in Kant’s sense, the sense which is usually associated
with Cicero, Stoicism and the Stoic natural law tradition, which would in effect be a ‘utopian’ reading of his
views on international relations, is I think untenable, although there are some commentators who appear to
interpret Hegel in this way. Richard Mullender, for example, appears to interpret Hegel as someone who
subscribes to something like the Stoic conception of natural law, that is to say a substantive standard of justice
which might be used by individuals to critically evaluate positive law. Thus, Mullender claims that ‘Hegel’s
political philosophy evaluates norms and practices within particular cultures by reference to the higher order
and universal criterion of abstract right.’ Such a reading of Hegel’s views on natural law/abstract right and its
relationship to positive law is consistent with the interpretation of Hegel as a strong cosmopolitan thinker who
embraces the Stoic idea of a cosmopolis, a ‘world state,’ or a universal community embracing the entire human
race, the conduct of all of the members of which is regulated by the same substantive principles of justice or
law. In my view, however, this reading of Hegel completely misunderstands Hegel’s notion of ‘abstract right,’
and Hegel’s view of the relationship which exists between the principles of abstract right and the positive or civil
laws of particular (national) political communities. 79
On the other hand, however, the suggestion that Hegel is some kind of ‘weak’ cosmopolitan thinker, and hence
not an extreme communitarian, has something to be said for it. Such a reading could hardly attribute to Hegel
the idea of the possibility/desirability of the emergence of a ‘world state,’ but it could countenance the
attribution to him, or to ‘Hegelianism’ in international relations, the suggestion of the possibility and desirability
of the emergence of some kind of ‘global community, in a much weaker sense than would be associated with a
‘world state.’
This is what is suggested by some of the advocates of a ‘neo-Hegelian’ approach to international relations, such
as Chris Brown, Mervyn Frost, Charles Jones and Richard Vincent. 80 Charles Jones, who is a self-confessed
‘Neo-Hegelian’ thinker, has argued that it is possible to offer a ‘reconciliation between cosmopolitanism and
communitarianism in international political ethics.’ 81 Moreover he suggests, in my view rightly, that such a
reading might be associated with the philosophy of Hegel properly understood. On Jones’s reading, which in this
respect seems to me to be correct, those who interpret Hegel as an out-and-out communitarian thinker ignore
completely what Hegel has to say about the notions of ‘abstract right’ and moral or legal ‘personality’ in Part
One of his Philosophy of Right. Thus, they advance a partial and ‘one-sided’ reading of Hegel’s philosophy as a
whole. Jones’s understanding of Hegel’s philosophy is much more nuanced, and more accurate, than this. Jones
suggests, again rightly, that Hegel is best thought of as someone who is attempting to steer a middle way
between the two extremes of cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and communitarianism on the other.
One might talk about a cosmopolitanism of principles and a cosmopolitanism of persons. In both cases we can
distinguish between strong and weak cosmopolitanism. And in both cases Hegel is best thought of, in my view,
as a ‘weak’ cosmopolitan thinker. So far as cosmopolitanism of principles is concerned, weak cosmopolitanism
is associated with the view that although there are indeed certain principles of morality or right which are
timeless, universally valid, apprehensible by reason, and so on, nevertheless if these principles are to be
followed in practice then they need to be interpreted and applied by positive law in a manner which takes into
account the character of particular historical circumstances. Most importantly, these principles are interpreted
and applied differently in different societies because of their different ethical and cultural values, and their
different historical traditions.
This is in fact Hegel’s view, but it is also a view which has been associated with a certain kind of cosmopolitan
thinking by a number of recent commentators, for example Simon Caney, Charles Jones, Gerard Delanty,
Martha Nussbaum, Hilary Putnam and (last but not least) Jurgen Habermas, whether or not they mention Hegel
in this connection. 82 I shall cite just one example, that of Hilary Putnam, who does in fact refer to Hegel
explicitly:
•
‘[I]n the absence of such concrete ways of life, forms of what Hegel called Sittlichkeit, the universal maxims of
justice are virtually empty, just as in the absence of critical reason, inherited forms of Sittlichkeit degenerate into
blind allegiance to authority. Tradition without reason is blind; reason without tradition is empty.’ 83
This remark seems to me to capture very well the ‘weak’ or ‘situated’ cosmopolitanism associated with the
philosophy of Hegel, as this is developed especially in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, which does, as Putnam here
14
suggests, attach importance to both universal ‘reason’ and to particular customs and traditions and suggests
that there is no necessary incompatibility involved in doing so. On this reading the standpoint of reason and
that of tradition might be thought of as supplementing or complementing each other.
As a number of commentators have noted, it might be suggested that although Hegel was not an advocate of the
idea of a ‘world state’ in the strong cosmopolitan sense of the term, nevertheless the suggestion that some
alternative form of ‘global political community,’ based on the continued existence of the nation-state, but
premised on the assumption that the relations between the individual members of this community will be
associated with a condition of peace rather than war, is at least compatible, not only with Hegel’s general
philosophical principles, but also with what he says about international relations in his Philosophy of Right.
For Hegel there is an air of artificiality about the distinction between ‘national’ and ‘international’ politics. For
example, the very fact that Hegel talks about ‘world-history’ in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History and his
Philosophy of Right suggests that he thinks about ‘international’ relations in a ‘totalizing’ way. He considers the
individual ‘nation state’ both in abstraction from its relationship to other nation states and in its relations with
other states, in a situation where all of the states concerned are thought of as being component elements of
just one over-arching totality or whole. In other words, even if Hegel did not have in mind a ‘world state,’ in the
sense indicated earlier, which is unified and (as Kojève notes) ‘homogeneous,’ it is arguable that he did have in
mind some kind of global political community. This would be a much looser kind of political ‘community’ than
that associated with the notion of a ‘world state.’ Such a community would be a ‘totality’ which is internally
differentiated or ‘articulated,’ the component #parts’ of which would continue to be the existing individual
nation-states.
On this reading, if we are speculating about the ‘end of history’ so far as international relations is concerned,
then what we are really talking about is the significance of ‘world-history’ for the relationship which exists
between the individual member states within a global political community, understood in just this sense.
It is interesting that, although the line of reasoning developed in the preceding paragraph appears to be a
logical possibility, given Hegel’s basic metaphysical assumptions, and is perhaps arguably even a logical
requirement for anyone speculating about international relations who starts with those assumptions,
nevertheless it is not the line of reasoning which Hegel himself pursued in the final sections of his Philosophy of
Right.
In §259 of the Philosophy of Right Hegel talks about ‘the Idea of the state’ in ‘triadic’ terms, in what is often
thought (rightly or wrongly) to be a typically ‘Hegelian’ development, one of ‘thesis,’ ‘antithesis’ and ‘synthesis.’
He says that this Idea:
•
‘has immediate actuality and is the individual state as a self-dependent organism – the Constitution or Constitutional
Law;
•
passes over into the relation of one state to other states – International Law;
•
is the universal Idea as a genus and as an absolute power over individual states – the mind which gives itself its
actuality in the process of World-History.’
Here in the first place the state is thought of as an isolated, separate entity, and therefore not in its relations to
other states. The idea of the state, thought of in this way, is therefore an ‘abstraction.’ The insights gained by
this way of thinking about the state are important, even necessary, if we wish to understand the Idea of the
state. But they are partial and one-sided. Something equally important, just as necessary, is being left out. This
missing element is captured by a second way of thinking about the Idea of the state, which in its turn is also
and equally ‘one-sided.’ This second view focuses entirely and exclusively on the state insofar as it enters into
relations with other individual states within the international arena, within which the conduct of states is
regulated by international law (such as it is). Hegel evidently thinks that there is a third way of thinking about
the Idea of the state which is superior to either of these first two considered on their own, independently of the
other. This third way of thinking involves an attempt to consider the Idea of the state both in so far as it might
be thought of, abstractly, as an isolated, autonomous entity and, at the same time, as it might be thought of in
its relations to other states, all of which are considered to be the component elements or ‘parts’ of some higher
‘totality’ or ‘whole’ within the international arena at what today we would refer to as the ‘global’ level.
The really interesting question here, though, is how does Hegel conceive of this last entity? What language does
he employ when attempting to characterize its nature? In particular, does he think of this entity as being what
today we would refer to as a ‘world state’? A moment’s thought about the argument reproduced above indicates
that he does not. Rather, at least when he wrote the Philosophy of Right, Hegel took the view that this higher
totality or whole should be thought of by reference, not to the notion of a ‘world state’ which is in the process of
15
being brought into existence by the onward march of ‘world history,’ but simply by reference to the notion of
‘world history’ itself, whatever that means.
Further light on what this does mean, for Hegel, is provided by the ‘remark’ to this particular paragraph, where
Hegel goes on to associate an adequate understanding of the Idea of the state, not just with an understanding
of ‘world history,’ but also with an understanding of the notion of the ‘absolute mind’ which, in his view, should
be thought of as operating there:
•
The state in its actuality is essentially an individual state, and beyond that a particular state. Individuality is to be
distinguished from particularity. The former is a moment in the very Idea of the state, while the latter belongs to
history. States as such are independent of one another, and therefore their relation to one another can only be an
external one, so that there must be a third thing standing above them to bind them together. Now this third thing is
the mind which gives itself actuality in world-history and is the absolute judge of states. Several states may form an
alliance to be a sort of court with jurisdiction over others, there may be confederations of states, like the Holy
Alliance for example, but these are always relative only and restricted, like ‘perpetual peace’. The one and only
absolute judge, which makes itself authoritative against the particular and at all times, is the absolute mind which
manifests itself in the history of the world as the universal and as the genus there operative.” 84
Here again Hegel suggests that in the first place we need to consider the state in isolation from other states. This
is to consider the state from the standpoint of the notion of ‘identity.’ In the second place we need to consider
the state in its interaction/relationship to other states. This is to consider the state from the standpoint of the
notion of ‘difference.’ But, finally, Hegel also suggests that there is a third way of looking at this situation which
incorporates the insights of these first two. To adopt this third point of view is to look at the state form the
standpoint of the notion of ‘identity-in-difference.’ Those who do this must concentrate first on what Hegel refers
to as the ‘Notion’ of the state, and second on what he refers to as the Idea of the State, as it actualizes itself in
and through world history.
When discussing this third approach to the understanding of the state, Hegel could have related his discussion of
the state either to the notion of a ‘world state,’ or to the notion of some different kind of global political
community. In fact, however, what he actually does is talk about the state and its relationship to other states
within the context of a particular understanding of ‘world history,’ and of the ‘absolute mind’ which operates
there, an understanding which appears to attach much more importance to the idea of conflict and war than it
does to the emergence and development of any kind of supra-national, global political community, either of a
stronger kind associated with the notion of a ‘world state,’ or of a weaker kind associated with some looser form
of peaceable political community at the global level. In this respect the views on international relations
expressed in the Philosophy of Right might indeed be said to be resolutely ‘anti-utopian.’
It is arguable that what Hegel could have done in the Philosophy of Right, and what perhaps he should have
done, because it would have accorded better with his own metaphysical principles, is to think about ‘world
history’ in a somewhat different way, focusing less on the principle of ‘difference’ and more on that of ‘identity.’
Had he done so then his conclusions would have harmonized better with his general endorsement of the principle
of ‘identity-in-difference.’ Had he presented an argument of this kind then Hegel would have suggested that
above the idea of the individual nation-state, which represents the principle of ‘identity,’ and also above the idea
of a framework of such states which are connected to one another in relations of conflict within the international
arena, which represents the principle of ‘difference,’ there is again a third idea, which represents the principle of
‘identity-in-difference,’ or unity-in-difference. This third idea is the idea of an entity which constitutes a ‘totality’
in the technical sense in which Hegel employs this term in his metaphysics. This entity is a unified entity, though
one which is also, at the same time, internally differentiated or ‘articulated.’ This unified entity is some kind of
global political community which emerges and develops over time as it actualizes its potential. This process is
associated by Hegel with ‘world history.’ Hence the emergence and historical evolution of this entity can be
associated with the notion of a ‘world history,’ or just one world history, and even, if one is so minded, with the
workings of ‘absolute mind’ within world history.
In §343 of his Philosophy of Right Hegel explicitly associates what he refers to as ‘world history’ with the notion
of ‘absolute mind,’ or with a ‘world mind,’ that is to say, just one world mind. He states that world history is the
‘necessary development’ of the ‘self-consciousness and freedom of mind, or the ‘actualization of the universal
mind.’ 85 In world history mind gains ‘consciousness of itself as mind’ and comes to ‘apprehend itself in its
interpretation of itself to itself.’
Interestingly, however, Hegel also states that it is precisely here that ‘the question of the perfectibility and
Education of the Human Race arises.’ 86 (The italicized book title is to the work of Lessing, which was published in
1780. It is clear from the context that Hegel approves of Lessing’s idea that we might talk about the perfectibility
of the human race). For Hegel, then, the ‘absolute mind,’ or the ‘world mind,’ which develops consciousness of
itself in and through the process of world history is none other than the mind of ‘the human race,’ the mind of
16
humanity. It is this which Hegel evidently thinks of as being in some sense at least a coherent, unified, entity,
which is ‘perfecting’ itself becoming first conscious and then eventually self-conscious, that is coming to gain a
knowledge of itself, in and through the course of world history, and especially of course in and through the
history of philosophy. On this reading, it is the mind of the human race, the self-consciousness of humanity as
‘humanity,’ when humanity which up to that had been an ‘in-itself’ finally becomes also humanity ‘for itself,’
which for Hegel constitutes the ‘end’ of world history.
It seems obvious that this idea could be connected to a commitment, on Hegel’s part, to at least some kind of
cosmopolitan thinking, and indeed a corresponding commitment to some kind of utopian speculation. The idea of
utopia, understood in this sense, is somewhat different from the ‘classical’ way of thinking about utopias we find
it in the writings of, for example, Sir Thomas More and his Utopia. It has more to do with the way in which the
concept is employed at the end of the 18th century by Enlightenment philosophes such as Condillac and Turgot,
who had an interest in the notion of historical ‘progress’ and who, before Hegel, developed their own versions of
what after Hegel is usually referred to as the speculative ‘philosophy of history.’ 87 The type of thinking which
Hegel associates with the ‘end’ of history, understood in this way, might be thought of as having a correlation
with a particular historical stage of development of the history of the human race, understood not intellectually
or philosophically, but specifically in terms of its social and political organization, in terns of its relationship to the
idea of the state. On this view, however, the idea of the state would be thought about somewhat differently form
the way in which Hegel himself thinks about it in the final sections of his Philosophy of Right.
So far as the issue of cosmopolitanism of persons is concerned, from Hegel’s point of view it is obvious that
there is more to all of those individuals who are quite rightly thought of by cosmopolitan thinkers as ‘moral
persons’ than the fact that they are simply ‘human beings.’ For in addition each individual also possess the
specific characteristics of being, for example, males, aristocrats, Aryans, whites, Muslims, and so on. For Hegel
this is not an ‘either-or’ situation. For each and every individual who falls into one or other of these categories
is also a human being. On this view, ‘strong’ cosmopolitanism precludes the possibility of our being sensitive to
the importance of the differences which separate individual moral agents form one another as well as the
similarities which bind them together into the one universal, moral community which is the human race. In this
connection, Simon Caney has again captured (unwittingly!) Hegel’s view of the matter:
•
‘A third error is to assume that to posit a common human nature is to deny the historicity of persons. Again, though,
this is misconceived for, as was noted above, to affirm a conception of human nature is to affirm some properties
that persons have in common. As such it does not deny the many ways in which person’s membership of cultures
render them different.’ 88
There is nothing in this remark with which Hegel would wish to disagree. Caney’s view here is basically the
same as that of Hegel. It is interesting that Caney associates this view with a particular type of cosmopolitan
political thought. If these ideas can legitimately be said to be ‘cosmopolitan’ ideas then it is legitimate to think
of Hegel as being some kind of cosmopolitan thinker.
This suggests that there are indeed two views which are in some respects quite different from one another,
both of which Caney would characterize as ‘cosmopolitan.’ There is a ‘strong’ or ‘extreme’ view which sees
moral agents as being solely abstract ‘persons’ and which ignores completely questions relating to historicity
and or determinate social identity. It is cosmopolitanism of this kind which Caney associates with the views of
Charles Jones, Henry Shue and. Occasionally, Thomas Pogge. 89,90 Thus, for example, he refers to the views of
Jones and Shue in the following way. According to Caney:
•
‘[T]he arguments considered all invoke a universalist moral personality. Shue and Jones’s arguments rest on the
moral personality of all persons as rights bearers and attribute no moral relevance to persons’ nationality or ethnicity
or civic identity.’ 91
In addition to this ‘strong’ or ‘extreme’ cosmopolitanism, however, there is also the weaker or more moderate
form of cosmopolitanism outlined above, which I have associated with the philosophy of Hegel, and which is
defended by Caney himself at times. This way of thinking, if applied to Hegel, has definite advantages. In
particular, it allows us to get away from the ‘one sided’ view which sees Hegel as an extreme ‘traditionalist,’ an
extreme ‘communitarian,’ or an extreme ethical ‘relativist.’
It might be suggested that there are three ‘levels’ which need to be considered in Hegel’s thinking about
cosmopolitanism generally. First, Hegel accepts that, in a manner of speaking, there is indeed a kind of society
which contains all human beings as its member ‘citizens.’ There is also some kind of law associated with this
society. However, the law in question is ‘abstract’ in nature. Its basic principles are the principles of ‘abstract
right,’ as outlined in Part One of the Philosophy of Right, the most fundamental principle of which is to be a
person and to respect others as persons. This is the basic principle of ‘true recognition.’ Within the territorial
boundaries of a particular nation-state this principle demands that one citizen respect his fellow citizens, and
17
that all should obey the laws of the community of which they happen to be citizens. In order to respect another
as a human being, a moral person who is one’s own equal, one must treat that person as one’s equal before
the law of the particular society of which both are member citizens. These are the ‘laws of freedom’ – the laws
of their freedom. In respecting an ‘other’ as a fellow citizen one also respects him as a human being and vice
versa. For this amounts to the same thing. This there is a connection between moral personality and
citizenship in Hegel’s thought.
At a second and higher level than this we have the international arena. Here Hegel is predominantly interested
in the relationship which exists between nation states, or moral ‘persons’ in that sense, whether they could be
said to be members of a higher or wider political community, for example, and if so in what sense. For example,
if such a community does exist, could it be said to be a ‘world state’ the laws of which possess the same
characteristic features as those which Hobbes associates with ‘civil law’ at the domestic or national level?
Hegel’s answer to this question is emphatically ‘no.’ Here one of Hegel’s main targets is Kant and the type of
‘cosmopolitan’ political thought associated with Kant’s notion of ‘perpetual peace.’ Hegel does not address the
issue of cosmopolitanism in any other sense, and it seems not to have occurred to him that ‘world history’
might possibly be leading in the direction of a ‘world state,’ a development which, if it occurred, would go
beyond even what Kant had envisaged (and Hegel evidently thought that Kant’s views were ‘utopian’ in the
derogatory sense).
But what the account offered so far leaves out is a third level, or a third issue, which Hegel rarely (if ever)
discusses, namely how the individual member citizens of one nation state, who are of course human beings or
moral persons, ought to relate to the individual member citizens of another state, who are also human beings
and therefore moral persons, in a situation where it is presumed, as Hegel does presume, that precisely in the
absence of a ‘world state,’ there is no substantive natural law, or enforceable international law, in existence
which could possibly regulate their behaviour in relation to one another. Hegel’s emphasis on the absence of
such a ‘world state,’ and his doubts about either the possibility or the desirability of its emergence, imply that
no matter how ‘utopian’ his views on domestic or national politics might be his views on international politics,
even if they are those of a weak’ cosmopolitan thinker rather than a ‘realist,’ remain resolutely ‘anti-utopian.’
I will conclude by citing a remark of Carl Schmitt’s. As we have seen, in The Concept of the Political Schmitt
employs what might legitimately be described as ‘Hegelian’ arguments to criticize rather than defend the idea of
a ‘world state.’ One of Schmitt’s reasons for thinking that the idea that such a state, encompassing the entire
human race, might actually come into being in the course of world history is ‘utopian’ is because, like Hegel
himself at times, Schmitt conceives of international politics at least by reference to the conceptual distinction
between ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’ In the case of the entire human race, however, there can, Schmitt suggests, be
no ‘enemy.’ There can be no ‘other’ which could possibly serve as the mirror within which is reflected a ‘self,’ or
a community of ‘selves,’ which is specifically ‘human.’ If there is to be a ‘we’ which encompasses all human
beings, then according to Schmitt this would requires the existence of an ‘enemy’ of the human race, an entity
which is truly ‘alien’ or ‘other’ and, in consequence threatening, to endangered humanity. As Schmitt puts it:
•
‘Humanity as such cannot wage war because it has no enemy, at least not on this planet. The concept of humanity
excludes the concept of the enemy, because the enemy does not cease to be a human being – and hence there is no
specific differentiation in that concept.’ 92
For Schmitt, to think that a ‘political community’ or a ‘state’ incorporating all human beings as its member
citizens might exist is to leave the realm of practical politics and to enter, not perhaps the realm of ‘utopia,’ but
rather, as Schmitt’s reference to ‘this planet’ in the passage cited above suggests, that of science fiction. Nor is
it so far-fetched to relate a discussion of Schmitt’s ideas to the genre of science fiction. Indeed, the similarities
and differences between Schmitt’s of ‘friend/enemy’ distinction and the parallel notion of ‘self/other’ are well
worth exploring, both in connection with Hegel’s philosophy is concerned and in connection with the literature
on science fiction and international relations. But, of course, what Schmitt had in mind is a certain type of
science fiction, one which others at least (if not Schmitt himself) would consider to be specifically dystopian
science fiction, the type of science fiction that might be discerned in a work such as Robert Heinlein’s Starship
Troopers by those who do not share the militaristic social and political vision of its author. 93
In the light of the developments associated with the phenomenon of globalization, more than one commentator
has suggested that at some point in the remote and distant future we might yet have a global political
community, or even a ‘world state,’ perhaps premised on the emergence of some (external or internal) threat to
the survival of humanity at the global level, the nature and extent of which is such that it brings all of humanity
together and ‘unites’ them in some common effort to counter it. As Oscar Wilde once observed, what is
considered to be ‘utopian’ by members of a society living at an earlier time often turns out, at a later time, to be
a practical possibility. As Wilde puts it, historical ‘progress’ just is ‘the realization of utopias.’ 94 Reasoning along
similar lines, it is arguable that what is considered to be ‘science fiction’ by the members of a society living at an
18
earlier time might also turn out, at a later time, also to be a practical possibility. It remains to be seen if
speculations about the historical emergence of a ‘world state’ at a global level are, or are not, science fiction. 95
Whether the nature of such a ‘state,’ should it emerge, ought to be associated either with the idea of utopia, on
the one hand, or that of dystopia on the other, is a different matter altogether and something about which it is
possible to come to a judgment now.
NOTES
1
W. Warren Wagar, H. G. Wells and the World State (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1961), p. 107. Wagar goes
on: ‘See the satirical portraits of Hegelians in New Machiavelli, pp. 102-04, and Bealby (New York, 1915), pp. 36-38.’
2
See H. G. Wells, Anticipations: Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought (New
York: Dover Publications, 1999 [1902]), esp. Chapter VIII, ‘The Larger Synthesis,’ pp. 138-56 and Chapter IX ‘The Faith,
Morals and Public Policy of the New Republic,’ esp. pp. 161-63 and pp. 167-72. For Wells on the idea of a ‘world state’ in
general see again Wagar, H. G. Wells and the World-State; also George Orwell, ‘Wells, Hitler and the World State,’ in The
Collected Essays and Journalism of George Orwell, Volume 2, My Country Right or Left: 1940-43, eds., Sonia Orwell and Ian
Angus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp. 166-72; and the chapter on Wells in Derek Heater, World Citizenship and
Government: Cosmopolitan Ideas in the History of Western Political Thought (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).
3
I make some tentative allusions to Wells’s ‘dialectical’ outlook, without going into the issue of his relationship to Hegel in ay
detail, in Burns, Political Theory, Science Fiction and Utopian Literature: Ursula K. Le Guin and The Dispossessed (Lanham,
Md: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 24-28.
4
For the conceptual distinction between ‘readings,’ ‘interpretations’ and ‘appropriations’ see Tony Burns, Political Theory,
Science Fiction and Utopian Literature: Ursula K. Le Guin and The Dispossessed, pp. 70-71, 92. See also Tony Burns, ‘Hegel
and Anarchism,’ a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Political Studies Association of Great Britain, University of
Bath, 11th-13th April 2007; and Tony Burns, ‘Reading Texts in the History of Political Thought,’ unpublished Ms.
5
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans., Preface, p. 11.
6
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface, p. 10.
7
George William Frederic Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International,
1996 [1969]), §1633, p. 756.
8
Hegel, Science of Logic, §1634, p.756.
9
Hegel, Science of Logic, § 1635, p. 756.
10
Hegel, Science of Logic, § 1636, p. 757.
11
One of Hegel’s targets here is Kant, whose moral philosophy, in Hegel’s view, attaches far too much importance to the
conscience of the individual. In Part Two of The Philosophy of Right, Hegel refers to this as the standpoint of ‘morality’
(Moralitat), or of ‘subjective freedom.’ This is to be contrasted with the standpoint of objective duties or ‘objective freedom,’
which in Part One of The Philosophy of Right Hegel associates with the notion of ‘abstract right.’ Hegel suggests that the
standpoint of ‘ethics’ or ‘ethical life’ should be thought of as a theoretical synthesis of these two other opposed approaches.
He does not, therefore, reject the principle of subjective freedom outright. Far from it. For this issue see Tony Burns, Natural
Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 50-52, 56-57, 61-62.
12
Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 119-22, 133-34, 137-40, 147-49.
13
See Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 140-42.
14
See Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 150-52.
15
See Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 142-46.
16
See Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, pp. 152-56.
17
It is, for example, arguable that Hegel’s reading of Sophocles’ Antigone is consistent with his negative attitude towards
abstract rationalism. In Hegel’s view, Antigone (and by implication Sophocles) is the defender of an approach to the problem
of legal or political obligation which depends on the principle of a concrete Sittlichkeit rather than on the principle of an
abstract Moralitat. For this see Tony Burns, ‘Sophocles’ Antigone and the History of the Concept of Natural Law,’ Political
Studies, 50, 3 (2002), pp. 545-57.
18
For this see Burns, Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel, Chapter 2, pp. 42-74; Burns, ‘Hegel and
Natural Law Theory.’ See also Tony Burns, “Metaphysics and Politics in Aristotle and Hegel,” in Contemporary Political Studies:
1998, eds. A. Dobson and G. Stanyer (The Political Studies Association of Great Britain, 1998), Vol. 1, 387-99; Tony Burns,
“Aristotle and Natural Law,” History of Political Thought, XIX, 3 (1998): 142-66; and in Tony Burns, Aristotle and Natural Law
(Continuum Books, 2010). Forthcoming.
19
For example see D. D. Raphael’s somewhat contemptuous remarks about Hegel in his significantly entitled The Paradox of
Tragedy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), 19-20, 23-24, 37, 109-10. Despite being so dismissive of Hegel at times, Raphael’s
debt to him is evident throughout this book.
20
For some interesting reflections on the connection between Hegel’s views on war and his views on tragedy see Robert R.
Williams, ‘Sovereignty, International Relations and War,’ Chapter 14 of Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997), pp. 335, 347-48, 357, 361, 363. The connection is readily apparent to those readers of one of Hegel’s
early works, The German Constitution, who are also familiar with his views on tragedy. It is somewhat surprising, therefore,
that this is overlooked by Shlomo Avineri in his otherwise excellent treatment of Hegel’s views on war. See Shlomo Avineri,
‘War,’ Chapter 10 of Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: CUP., 1979 [1972]), pp. 202-03; also Shlomo Avineri,
‘The Problem of War in Hegel’s Thought,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 22 (1961), pp. 463-74.
21
See Hegel, Hegel on Tragedy, 280-81. D. D. Raphael has stated, The Paradox of Tragedy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960),
25, that “tragedy always presents a conflict. The proposition needs no defence. It is familiar enough.” Despite Raphael’s
dismissal of Hegel’s views on tragedy, this view is so familiar in modern times largely because of the influence of Hegel’s
Lectures on Aesthetics. Raphael’s own account of what the “conflict” dealt with by tragedy is about is different from that of
Hegel. Surprisingly, it makes no reference to what Hegel considered to be essential, the notion of a moral dilemma.
19
22
Lukács, The Historical Novel, 105-13, 108-09. For the relationship between political theory and Greek tragedy generally see
Tony Burns, “Sophocles’ Antigone and the History of the Concept of Natural Law,” Political Studies, 50, 3 (2002): 545-57;
Peter J. Euben ed., Greek Tragedy and Political Theory. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988; and
Peter J. Euben, The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road not Taken. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990; Christopher
Rocco, Tragedy and Enlightenment: Athenian Political Thought and the Dilemmas of Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1997.
23
F. L. Lucas, Tragedy: Serious Drama in Relation to Aristotle’s Poetics, 2nd ed. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1972 [1927]), 64.
24
Una Ellis-Fermor, The Frontiers of Drama (London: Methuen, 1945), 17-18, cited Raphael, The Paradox of Tragedy, 39.
25
Raphael, The Paradox of Tragedy, 57.
26
Raphael, The Paradox of Tragedy, 101-02.
27
Raphael, The Paradox of Tragedy, 89-90. See also Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek
Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 12: “[E]pic and tragic poets were widely assumed
to be the central ethical thinkers and teachers of Greece.”
28
Frederic Jameson, “The Case for Georg Lukács,” in Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974 [1971]), 173-74.
29
For Hegel’s views on tragedy see the texts collected together in Georg William Frederic Hegel, Hegel on Tragedy, eds. Anne
Paolucci and Henry Paolucci (New York: Doubleday, 1962). See also A. C. Bradley, ‘Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy,’ in Paolucci
and Paolucci eds., Hegel on Tragedy, pp. 367-88; and Walter Kaufmann, ‘Hegel’s Ideas About Tragedy,’ in Warren E.
Steinkraus ed., New Studies in Hegel’s Philosophy pp. 201-29
30
Jean Wahl, Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel (Paris: Rieder, 1929).
31
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans, H. Barnes (London: Methuen,
1974). For Sartre’s relation to Hegel see also Christopher Fry, Sartre and Hegel: The Variations of an Enigma in “L’ Étre et le
néant” (Bonn: Bouvier, 1988); George Kline, ‘The Existentialist Rediscovery of Hegel and Marx,’ in Sartre: A Collection of
Critical Essays, ed. Mary Warnock (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 284-314.
32
As is suggested by Bruce Baugh, French Hegel: From Surrealism to Poststructuralism (London: Routledge, 2003), p. For
Hegel in France generally see, additionally, Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth Century
France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999 [1987]); Michael Kelly, Hegel in France (Birmingham: Birmingham
Modern Languages Publications, 1992); Michael S. Roth, Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth Century
France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); David Sherman, ‘The Denial of the Self: The Repudiation of Hegelian SelfConsciousness in Recent European Thought,’ in Leo Rauch and David Sherman, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Self-Consciousness
(New York: SUNY Press, 1999), 163-222; Robert R. Williams, ‘Recent Views of Recognition and the Question of Ethics,’
Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 364-412.
33
G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), ‘Introduction,’ p. 19.
34
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §273, p. 176.
35
Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, assembled by Raymond
Queneau, wd. Alan Bloom, trans. James H. Nichols jnr. (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1996, [1969, 1947]).
36
For Kojève’s suggestion that the universal and homogeneous state which for Hegel constitutes the ‘end of history’ is a
‘classless society,’ in something like Marx’s sense, see Alexandre Kojève, ‘Tyranny and Wisdom,’ in Leo Strauss, On Tyranny:
Including the Strauss-Kojève Correspondence, revised and expanded edition, eds. Victor Gourevitch and Michael Roth
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 [1961], pp. 146, 172. Marx’s Paris Manuscripts were first published in German in
1932.
37
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. p. 9.
38
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 43.
39
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 58 and fn.
40
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 44.
41
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 72. See also Kojève, ‘Tyranny
and Wisdom,’ p. 168: ‘Truth emerges from this…historical dialectic, only once it is completed, that is to say, once history
reaches its final stage, in and through the universal and homogeneous State.’
42
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 97.
43
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 67.
44
Kojève makes two points about utopianism in his debate with Strauss, which pull in different directions. The first is that
what at one time might be considered to be ‘utopian,’ in the sense of being impractical, unrealizable, or unheard of/unthought
of, at another (later) time might actually be achieved. The second is that not all political ideals are ‘utopian.’ Only those
transcendent ideals which are at the present time not achievable, practical, etc., should be classified as utopian. Immanent
ideals which have been generated by world history, which have not yet been achieved, but which could be because their
‘germs’ or ‘seeds’ have already been sowed, should not be classified in this way. See Strauss, On Tyranny: Including the
Strauss-Kojève Correspondence, pp. 137-39, 145-47, 165, 173, 175. For discussion of the relationship between Strauss and
Kojève see also Robert Howse and Brian-Paul Frost, ‘The Plausibility of the Universal and Homogeneous State,’ in Alexandre
Kojève, Outline of a Phenomenology of Right, eds. Robert Howse and Brian-Paul Frost (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield,
2000); and Robert Howse, ‘Europe and the New World Order: Lessons from Alexandre Kojève’s Engagement With Schmitt’s
Nomos der Erde,’ Leiden Journal of International Law, 19 (2006), pp. 1-11.
45
Kojève, ‘Tyranny and Wisdom,’ p. 173.
46
Kojève, ‘Tyranny and Wisdom,’ p. 143.
47
Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political was published in 1927, five years before Kojève started his lecture series on Hegel at
the Sorbonne. So far as the relationship between the two thinkers is concerned, Heinrich Meier’s book on Strauss and Schmitt
indicates that Schmitt was aware of the existence of the Strauss-Kojève correspondence. See Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt
and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, trans J. Harvey Lomax, Foreword Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995 [1988]), fn 8, p. 8. See also ‘Alexandre Kojève-Carl Schmitt Correspondence,’ trans. Erik de Vries, Interpretation
29, 1 (2001), pp. 91-115
20
48
See Chantal Mouffe, ‘Pluralism and Modern Democracy: Around Carl Schmitt,’ in The Return of the Political (London: Verso,
1993), pp. 117-34; Chantal Mouffe ed., The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 1999); Chantal Mouffe, ‘Carl Schmitt
and the Paradox of Liberal Democracy,’ in The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), pp. 36-59. There is a systematic
tendency in Mouffe’s writings to employ Schmitt’s ideas to condemn those ideas, so far as domestic politics are concerned,
which, although she rarely employs the term, Mouffe evidently considers to be ‘utopian’ because they are associated with a
vision of a society within which ‘politics,’ that is to say conflict, has been eliminated. To cite just one example, see Mouffe, ‘On
the Articulation Between Liberalism and Democracy,’ The Return of the Political, p. 104: ‘The idea of a perfect consensus, a
harmonious collective will, must therefore be abandoned, and the permanence of conflicts and antagonisms accepted.’ See
also Mouffe, ‘On the Articulation Between Liberalism and Democracy,’ pp. 113-15; ‘Democracy, Power and the Political,’ The
Democratic Paradox, pp. 29, 34; and ‘For an Agonistic Model of Democracy,’ The Democratic Paradox, pp. 93, 101-03.
Amongst contemporary thinkers, Mouffe’s main targets are Rawls and Habermas, both of whom she thinks of as representing
the continuation of undesirable trends which can be found in the philosophy of Kant.
49
See Leo Strauss, ‘Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero,’ in On Tyranny: Including the Strauss-Kojève Correspondence, pp.
187-88. Although he has no objections to the idea of utopia in general, Strauss thinks that the universal and homogeneous
state which Kojève has in mind should not be thought of as being a ‘utopia.’ He has two reasons for this. The first is that
there is nothing at all impractical about it. ‘It is,’ he says, ‘perhaps possible to say that the universal and homogeneous state
is fated to come.’ The second is that, in his view, such a state is undesirable. Far from representing the actualization of our
essential ‘humanity,’ it would amount to a condition in which ‘man loses his humanity,’ because within it ‘the basis of man’s
humanity withers away.’ According to Strauss, if the universal and homogeneous state which Kojève has in mind is indeed
‘the goal of history’ then history should be thought of as being ‘absolutely “tragic”.’ Cf. Strauss, ‘Restatement,’ pp. 208-09.
50
For the relationship between the views of Strauss and Schmitt see Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden
Dialogue: Including Strauss’s Notes on Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political and Three Letters from Strauss to Schmitt, trans
J. Harvey Lomax, Foreword Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995 [1988]); Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt,
Leo Strauss and the Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Robert Howse, ‘The Use and Abuse
of Leo Strauss in the Schmitt Revival on the German Right: The Case of Heinrich Meier’ (unpublished Ms, accessible from
Howse’s web-site); Robert Howse, ‘From Legitimacy to Dictatorship – and Back Again: Leo Strauss’s Critique of the AntiLiberalism of Carl Schmitt,’ in Dyzenhaus ed., Law as Politics: Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism, pp. 56-91; John P.
McCormick, ‘Fear, Technology and the State: Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and the Revival of Hobbes in Weimar and National
Socialist Germany,’ Political Theory, 22, 4 (1994), pp. 619-52.
51
For some comments by Schmitt on Hegel see Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political: With Leo Strauss’s Notes on
Schmitt’s Essay, Intro. George Schwab, Trans. George Schwab and J. Harvey Lomax, Foreword Tracy B. Strong (Chicago and
London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 62-63. For discussion of the relationship between Schmitt and Hegel see
Jean-Francois Kervegan, Hegel, Carl Schmitt: Le Politique Entre Speculation et Positivite (Paris: PUF, 1992); Andrew Norris,
‘Carl Schmitt on Friends, Enemies and the Political,’ Telos, 112 (1998), pp. 68-89; Mika Ojakangas, ‘Philosophies of
“Concrete” Life: From Carl Schmitt to Jean-Luc Nancy,’ Telos, 132 (2005), pp. 35-36; R. D. Winfield, ‘Rethinking Politics: Carl
Schmitt vs Hegel,’ Owl of Minerva, 22 (1991), pp. 209-17.
52
The interchanges between Kojève and Strauss and between Strauss and Schmitt bring Kojève and Schmitt together, if only
indirectly. But there is also a direct connection between Kojève and Schmitt. Heinrich Meier’s book on Strauss and Schmitt
indicates that Schmitt was aware of the Strauss-Kojève correspondence. See Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss:
The Hidden Dialogue, trans J. Harvey Lomax, Foreword Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995 [1988]),
fn 8, p. 8. Additionally, see ‘Alexandre Kojève-Carl Schmitt Correspondence,’ trans. Erik de Vries, Interpretation 29, 1 (2001),
pp. 91-115.
53
Mark R. Hillegas, The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967)
54
See, for example, Sharon Anderson-Gold, Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001),
‘Introduction,’ p. 1; Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1992), pp. 14-15; Derek Heater, World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and its Opponents (London: Continuum,
2002), p. 15; Charles Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, p. 203.
55
Immanuel Kant, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,’ in Kant: Political Writings, ed. H. S. Reiss, trans. H B. Nisbet
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 1991 [1070]), pp. 93-130. For Hegel’s views on Kant’s idea of ‘perpetual
peace’ see Philosophy of Right, §324, pp. 209-10, 295-96; and §333, pp. 213-14. See also Thomas Mertens, ‘Hegel’s
Homage to Kant’s Perpetual Peace: An Analysis of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, §§321-40,’ The Review of Politics, 57, 4
(1995), pp. 665-91.
56
Heater, World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and its Opponents, p. 15.
57
Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches, p. 14. See also pp. 52-81.
58
Heater, World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and its Opponents, pp. 53-56.
59
Boucher, ‘Hegel’s Theory of International Relations,’ in Political Theories of International Relations, p. 340. See also Janna
Thompson, Justice and World Order: A Philosophical Inquiry (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 112.
60
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter 13: ‘for war consisteth not in fighting, but in the ever present disposition
thereunto’…etc.
61
Robert R. Williams, ‘Sovereignty, International Relations and War,’ Chapter 14 of Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997), pp. 335, 347-48, 357, 361, 363.
62
Hegel, Philosophy of Right for this, §324, p. 210.
63
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §324Zuz, p. 295.
64
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 28.
65
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 51.
66
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, pp. 51-52.
67
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 57.
68
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, pp. 53-54.
69
Leo Strauss, ‘Notes on The Concept of the Political,’ in Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 98: ‘Schmitt – while
recognizing the possibility in principle of the “world state” as a wholly apolitical “partnership in consumption and production”
21
of humanity united – finally asks “upon which men will the terrible power devolve that a global, economic and technical
centralization entails”; in other words, which men will rule in “the world state”?’ Thus, like Schmitt, Strauss questioned the
desirability of such a ‘world state.’ Although Strauss was not necessarily opposed to ‘utopian’ theorizing as a matter of
principle, and indeed associated all programmes of social and political reform with an implicit acceptance of some ‘utopian
vision’ or other, he was opposed specifically to Kojève’s idea of a ‘universal and homogeneous state,’ a ‘world state,’ the
present vision of which he evidently thought should be considered to be dystopian rather than utopian. Strauss was willing to
accept that this vision might be called ‘utopian’ by some people, on the grounds that it is an imaginative projection of an
allegedly better society which does not (yet) exist which might be used to criticize present society, and he criticizes Kojève
for his refusal to accept this, but he does not himself think that this vision is ‘utopian,’ in the specific sense of being
something which ought to be recommended because it represents a desirable state of affairs.
70
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 53.
71
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 55.
72
For some remarks about the relationship between globalization and utopian/dystopian thought and literature see Jutta
Weldes, ‘Globalization is Science Fiction,’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30 (2001), pp. 647-667.
73
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 237.
74
Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State, p. 207.
75
Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State, p. 207.
76
Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State, p. 207.
77
Williams, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition, pp. 361-62.
78
Williams, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition, p. 362.
79
Richard Mullender, ‘Hegel, Human Rights and Particularism,’ Journal of Law and Society, 30, 4 (2003), pp. 554-74.
80
See Chris Brown, International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf,
1992); Chris Brown, ed., Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1994); Chris Brown,
‘International Political Theory and the Idea of a World Community,’ in Ken Booth and Steve Smith eds., International Political
Theory Today (Oxford: Polity Press, 1995), pp. 90-109; Mervyn Frost, Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations
(Cambridge: CUP, 1986); Mervyn Frost, Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory (Cambridge: CUP, 1996);
Charles Jones, ‘Neo-Hegelianism, Sovereignty and Rights,’ Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001 [1999]), Chapter 8, pp. 203-26; Thomas Mertens, ‘Hegel’s Homage to Kant’s Perpetual Peace: An
Analysis of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, §§321-40,’ The Review of Politics, 57, 4 (1995), pp. 665-91; Andrew Vincent, ‘The
Hegelian State and International Politics,’ Review of International Studies, 9 (1983), pp. 197, 200.
81
Charles Jones, ‘Neo-Hegelianism, Sovereignty and Rights,’ in Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, p. 203.
82
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, pp. 40-41, 44, 91; Jones, Global Justice: Defending
Cosmopolitanism, pp. 175, 215; Gerard Delanty, Citizenship in a Global Age (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), p.
77; Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice, p. 314; Hilary Putnam, ‘Must We Choose Between Patriotism and Universal Reason,’
Nussbaum et. al, For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, p. 94. For a discussion of this issue in connection
with Habermas see my ‘Morality, Ethics and Law in Habermas and Hegel’ (unpublished MS).
83
Hilary Putnam, ‘Must we Choose Between Patriotism and Universal Reason,’ Nussbaum et. al, For Love of Country: Debating
the Limits of Patriotism, pp. 91-97, cited p. 94.
84
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Knox, pp. 160, 279-80.
85
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Knox, p. 226.
86
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §343, Remark, p. 216.
87
For this see Frank Manuel and Fritzie Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975); Frank
Manuel, The Prophets of Paris (Cambridge, Mass; Harvard University Press, 1962); Keith Taylor, The Political Ideas of the
Utopian Socialists (London: Routledge, 1982).
88
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, pp. 39-40. See also p. 31: ‘A person’s identity might be defined in
terms of their religion, gender, class, ethnicity, profession, nationality, religion, or citizenship.’
89
For the relevant texts see Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, pp. 61-62; Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls
(London and Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 247; Pogge, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty,’ in Brown ed.,
Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives, p. 198; Thomas Pogge, ‘Loopholes in Moralities,’ Journal of Philosophy,
89, 2 (1992), pp. 89-90, 92-95; Thomas Pogge, ‘An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23, 3 (1994),
pp. 195-224, esp. p. 198; Henry Shue, Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2nd ed (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 61-62.
90
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, fn 54 to p. 121 given on p. 144. This is not Caney’s own view, at
least his more considered view. This is interesting because in his preliminary account of the beliefs associated with his own
version of cosmopolitanism, Caney simply cites the views of Pogge without demur. At that point he does not indicate that he
has any reservations at all about Pogge’s understanding of cosmopolitanism. As we see here, however, elsewhere in his book
Caney is more circumspect.
91
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, p. 121. This criticism seems implausible in the case of Jones.
92
Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 54.
93
Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers (New York: Ace, 1987 [1958]).
94
Oscar Wilde, ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism,’ in The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Collected Critical Prose
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2007), p. 127: ‘Is this utopian? A map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth even
glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks
out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of utopias.’
95
For this see again Jutta Weldes, ‘Globalization is Science Fiction,’ Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 30 (2001), pp.
647-667; and Jutta Weldes ed., To Seek Out New Worlds: Exploring the Links Between Science Fiction and World Politics.
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), especially Geoffrey Whitehall, ‘The Problem of the ‘World and Beyond’: Encountering ‘The Other’
in Science Fiction.’ See also Ursula K. Le Guin, ‘American SF and the Other, in The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy
and Science Fiction, ed. Susan Wood (New York: Perigee Books, 1979); Carl D. Malmgren, ‘Self and Other in SF: Alien
Encounters,’ Science Fiction Studies, 20 (1993): 15-33; Ziauddin Sardar and Sean Cubitt eds., Alien R Us: The Other in
22
Science Fiction Cinema, eds. (London: Pluto Press, 2002); Jenny Wolmark, Aliens and Others: Science Fiction, Feminism and
Postmodernism (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994).
23