3.2 Political Realism

Political Realism

Philosophy that tries to explain and provide political activities and relations.

What do political realists believe?

Only power can rule, that politics is a struggle for power. They believe that ethical and moral questions need to vanish to focus on obtaining and maintaining power.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Argued that maintaining state stability and power justifies using unethical means, such as deceit and cruelty.

Thomas Hobbes

Assumed that humans, by nature, are selfish and their behavior is nasty, competitive, and led by greed.

State of nature

Hobbes claimed that in the absence of a ruler, a hypothetical condition of human life before government or society, was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Example of “State of Nature”

In Syria and Afghanistan