The crisis of rationality: political realism on the limitations of reason

In the past two decades, the political realism of E. H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, and Reinhold Niebuhr has been reinterpreted as a response to the crises of the 20th century by the revisionist historiography of Michael C. Williams, Vassilios Paipais, Nicholas Guilhot, and others. According to revisionist historiography, political realism views the 20th-century crisis - the two world wars, the interwar years, and the Cold War – as a failure of liberal moral values represented by natural harmony, scientism, progressivism and pacifism. Furthering this revisionist effort, this article aims to explore realism’s exposition of the 20th-century crisis as a manifestation of reason's limitations in international politics. Interpreting the works of Carr, Morgenthau and Niebuhr, it shows political realism views the 20th-century crisis as not only a moral crisis but also a crisis of rationality.

This article argues that political realism views the 20th-century crisis as caused by the limitations of reason and liberalism’s ignorance towards it. For Carr, political outcomes are driven by irrational forces uncontrollable by rationality. For Morgenthau, these irrational forces dictate that all moral choices are wrong, yet political agents must make them. For Niebuhr, reason cannot supply politics with the meaningfulness provided by the Christian faith. In their perspectives, liberalism mistakenly believes that humans can find absolute moral principles and realise them by reason alone. This rationalist ignorance of reason’s limitations led modern Western countries to impose their problematic moral values upon irrational international politics, which led to endless conflicts, chaos, and atrocities in the 20th century. In our contemporary crisis of globalisation, neoliberal internationalism repeats its predecessor’s ignorance with blind faith in democracy, free markets, and neoliberal institutions. In this way, this article hopes to help our time understand ongoing crises and prepare for future ones with timeless insights from Carr, Morgenthau and Niebuhr.