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Philosophical idealism and international politics: a reply to Dr Savigear*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Peter P. Nicholson
Peter P. Nicholson
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Politics, University College of Swansea
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Extract

Dr Savigear's ‘Philosophical Idealism and International Politics: Bosanquet, Treitschke and War’ is especially welcome because this important topic has not been much discussed. However, on a subject so complex and controversial, some disagreement is to be expected. I shall suggest that Dr Savigear's argument requires qualification because it underemphasizes the cosmopolitanism which provides continuity to this aspect of Idealist moral and political philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , April 1976 , pp. 76 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1976

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References

page 76 note 1 G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1821), sects. 321–40; Philosophy of Mind (1830), sects. 545–7.

page 76 note 2 Philosophy of Right (Oxford, 1942, trans. Knox) pp. 15, 48, 53, 68 and 241. Again, certain conduct is morally impermissible between warring states: ibid. sect. 338.

page 77 note 1 Bradley, F. H., Ethical Studies (London, 1876; 2nd ednGoogle Scholar. Oxford, 1927), p. 343; see too pp. 189—92, 204–5, 231–2 and 330–3. Also ‘The Limits of Individual and National Self-Sacrifice’, International Journal of Ethics v (1894–5), repr. in Collected Essays (Oxford, 1935) (the date of this article is unknown, but in my view it was probably written in the late 1870s).

page 76 note 2 Green, T. H., Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (London, 1886Google Scholar; delivered 1879–80) end of sect. 175. See generally Lectures I and K, also Prolegomena to Ethics (Oxford, 1883), Book III, chs. iii and iv. Were Green overoptimistic about the effects of free trade and about the foreign policies of democratic governments, it would not invalidate the moral argument concerning the duty to humanity and its gradual determination in detail.

page 78 note 1 The Philosophical Theory of the State (London, 1899)Google Scholar ch. xi, sects. 7 and 8; ‘The Teaching of Patriotism’ (delivered 1911, printed 1914) repr. in Social and International Ideals. Being Studies in Patriotism (London, 1917); ‘Patriotism in the Perfect State’ in The International Crisis in its Ethical and Psychological Aspects (London, 1915); ‘The Function of the State in Promoting the Unity of Mankind’, Aristotelian Society Proceedings xvii (1916–17), repr. in Social and International Ideals', ‘The Wisdom of Naaman's Servants’ in Social end International Ideals', and ‘How the Theory Stands in 1919’ in the third edition of The Philosophical Theory of the State (1920), pp. xlv-lxii, also new notes on pp. 299–309.

page 79 note 2 Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), op. cit. p. 328 (p. 305 in 3rd edn).

page 79 note 1 ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. p. 287.

page 79 note 2 For this crucial point, on which he realizes he is misunderstood, see Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), op. cit. ch. xi, sect. 7, and the reiteration in the 1920 edition, pp. xlix—liv.

page 79 note 3 E.g. ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. p. 293, also p. 301. Green thought the same: Principles of Political Obligation, op. cit. sect. 169.

page 79 note 4 ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. p. 297.

page 79 note 5 Philosophical Theory of the State (1920), op. cit. pp. lviii and lix, paraphrasing Mary Parker Follett, but only because she shares ideas Bosanquet had already propounded in the 1899 edition, in ch. xi.

page 80 note 1 Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), op. cit. p. 330 (p. 307 in 3rd edn.); also ‘Function of the State’, p. 298.

page 80 note 2 Philosophical Theory of the State (1920), op. cit. p. lix.

page 80 note 3 On the problem of evil generally, besides the letters which Dr Savigear cites (p. 55), see Bosanquet's The Value and Destiny of the Individual (London, 1913) Lecture vii.

page 80 note 4 See in particular ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. pp. 300–1, Social and International Ideals, op. cit. p. vi, and Philosophical Theory of the State (1920), op. cit. pp. xlix-liv. That going to war can be right is acknowledged by Green, e.g. Principles of Political Obligation, op. cit. sects. 160 and 169, and by Bradley, ‘The Limits of Individual and National Self-Sacrifice’, op, cit.

page 80 note 5 ‘Wisdom of Naaman's Servants’, op. cit. p. 309; ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. p. 280.

page 81 note 1 See esp. Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), op. cit. p. vii.

page 81 note 2 ‘Function of the State’, op. cit. pp. 297–9.

page 81 note 3 ‘Patriotism in the Perfect State’, op. cit. p. 150.

page 81 note 4 See e.g. Scruffier, W., The Legal Community of Mankind (New York, 1954)Google Scholar, ch. 10; also the very interesting review of Social and International Ideals by Bosanquet's friend Hoernle, R. F. A., Neiv Republic, 19 January. 1918, pp. 353–5.Google Scholar

page 81 note 5 Muirhead, J. H., Bernard Bosanquet and his Friends (London, 1935), p. 163.Google Scholar

page 81 note 6 Op. cit. pp. 1 and lix-xi.

page 82 note 1 Social and International Ideals, op. cit. p. vii.

page 82 note 2 Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), op. cit. p. xi, quoting Goethe.

page 82 note 3 See Introduction to British edition of Follett, M. P.The New State: Group Organisation the Solution of Popular Government (London, 1920), p. vi.Google Scholar

page 82 note 4 Social and International Ideals, op. cit. p. 314 n. 2; see to o p. 270, also ‘Patriotism in the Perfect State’, op. cit.passim and esp. p. 135.

page 82 note 5 MacCunn, J., ‘Cosmopolitan Duties’, International Journal of Ethics, ix (1898–99), pp. 152–8Google Scholar; Ritchie, D. G., ‘War and Peace’, loc. cit. xi (1900–01), pp. 137–8Google Scholar; Haldane, R. B., Higher Nationality (London, 1913)Google Scholar; Jones, H., ‘Why We Are Fighting’, Hibbert Journal xiii, (1914–15), pp. 50–67Google Scholar; Hetherington, H. J. W. and Muirhead, J. H., Social Purpose. A Contribution to a Philosophy of Civic Culture (London, 1918)Google Scholar, ch. xii (by Hetherington); Watson, J., The State in Peace and War (Glasgow, 1919)Google Scholar, ch. xi; MacKenzie, J. S., Fundamental Problems of Life. A. Essay on Citizenship as Pursuit of Values (London, 1928)Google Scholar, pt. II, ch. ix; Muirhead, ‘The Missing Link in Peace Plans’, Philosophy, xi (1936) pp. 475–7, and Reflections by a Journeyman in on the Movements of Thought and Practice in his Time (London, 1942), ch. 13; and Hetherington, ‘Internationalism and Democracy’ (University College of Nottingham, 1944).

page 83 note 1 Loc. cit. p. 48.

page 83 note 2 See e.g. Bosanquet, ‘Patriotism in the Perfect State’, op. cit. esp. pp. 140–3, and Muirhead, German Philosophy and the War (London, 1915) esp. pp. 36 and 81–91.