En estos momentos de la historia el socialismo parece haberse apropiado de la tica y la

razn en nombre de la igualdad, y ha logrado el poder poltico en nombre de la igualdad,

ha provocado una crisis en el llamado mundo Occidental, incluyendo a Amrica Latina. Por
esa razn considero de la mayor importancia rescatar los principios fundamentales de la
tica liberal incluida en el Rule of law, que permiti la liberad y la creacin de riqueza por
primera vez en la historia.

En primer lugar, considero fundamental que el liberalismo no entraa un antagonismo tico

poltico entre la fe (creencias) y la razn. El mundo ha sufrido histricamente la tirana
desde las dos vertientes de la fe y la razn. Desde tiempo inmemorial la justificacin del
poder poltico se basaba en la representacin de la deidad. Los primeros cristianos que
como seala Paul Johnson pasaron de mrtires a inquisidores, sufrieron la persecucin
romana como consecuencia de que el emperador representaba a la deidad y
supuestamente los cristianos pretendan destituirlo en nombre de otro Dios. Ms tarde,
gracias a Justiniano y Constantino, los cristianos se apoderaron del poder y comenz el
crimen histrico de la Inquisicin. O sea todo el que no era cristiano era hereje y por tanto
mereca la muerte.

Debo sealar fundamentalmente que la Inquisicin constituy una violacin paladina de los
principios del cristianismo, tales como la conciencia de la falibilidad del hombre -el justo
peca siete veces- y la tolerancia. El que est libre de pecado que arroje la primera piedra.
Podemos concluir entonces que ya el principio del derecho divino de los reyes como
justificacin del poder absoluto, constituy una violacin de los principios del evangelio.

Esa tendencia autoritaria absolutista se dio vuelta a partir del pensamiento de John Locke
que conciente de la naturaleza humana y que los reyes tambin eran hombres, propuso la
necesidad de limitar las prerrogativas del rey. Fue en funcin de esos principios que tuvo
lugar la Glorious Revolution en 1688 en Inglaterra, y as cambi el curso de la historia. Y
por supuesto resalt la eticidad de la tolerancia religiosa y en su Carta de la Tolerancia
donde escribi: La tolerancia de aquellos que difieren de otros en materia religiosa es tan
agradable al evangelio de Jesucristo, como a la genuina razn de la humanidad. Y
asimismo concluy: El cuidado de las almas no est comprometido al magistrado civil. Y
finalmente en su Ensayo Concerniente al Entendimiento Humano estableci el que
consider el principio fundamental de a libertad que es el derecho del hombre a la
bsqueda de su propia felicidad.

As surgi el liberalismo, que no solo implica la libertad religiosa sino el respeto por los
derechos individuales: a la vida, a la libertad, a la propiedad y a la bsqueda de la
felicidad. Puedo decir que el liberalismo no es producto del absolutismo de la razn, sino
de la conciencia de la falibilidad de la misma y el aprendizaje emprico de la naturaleza
humana que es fundamentalmente emocional. Al respecto escribi David Hume: Es
imposible cambiar o corregir algo material en nuestra naturaleza, lo ms que podemos
hacer es cambiar nuestras circunstancias y situacin y rendir la observancia de las leyes
de la justicia nuestro inters ms cercano y su violacin el ms remoto.

Estos principios fueron llevados a sus ltimas consecuencias en Estados Unidos por
losFounding Fathers. Se acept que el hombre es fundamentalmente emocional en tanto
que la razn es instrumental y falible. De esos principios pues surgi el sistema tico,
poltico y jurdico que cambi la historia de la humanidad y permitiera la libertad. Y se
admiti que como bien dijera Adam Smith: En la persecucin de su propio inters el
frecuentemente promueve ms efectivamente el de la sociedad que cuando intenta
promoverlo. Yo nunca he conocido mucho bien hecho por aquellos que pretenden actuar
por el bien pblico.

Como antes dije, fue en funcin de los anteriores principios que se estableci la
constitucin americana de 1787 y el Bill of Rights de 1791. Y al respecto dice James
Madison: Si los hombres fueran ngeles, no sera necesario el gobierno. Si los ngeles
fueran a gobernar a los hombres ni controles externos ni internos seran necesarios. Al
organizar un gobierno que va a ser que va a ser administrado por hombres sobre hombres
la gran dificultad yace en esto. Ud. debe primero capacitar al gobierno para controlar a los
gobernados y en segundo lugar obligarlo a controlarse a s mismo. Una dependencia en el
pueblo es sin duda el control primario sobre el gobierno; pero la historia ha enseado a la
humanidad la necesidad de preocupaciones auxiliares.

Perdn por la secuencia y la longitud de las citas, pero en ellas se encuentran reconocidos
los principios que garantizan el respeto por los derechos individuales y la nocin clara de
que las mayoras no tienen derecho a violar los derechos de las minoras. En
reconocimiento de ello Alexander Hamilton escribi: Una peligrosa ambicin ms a
menudo y detrs de la espaciosa mscara del celo por los derechos del pueblo. Y ya
Aristteles en su anlisis de la demagogia haba dicho: Cuando el pueblo se hace
monarca viola la ley y desde entonces los aduladores del pueblo tienen un gran partido. A
los hechos me remito e insisto en la presencia del socialismo dictatorial y democrtico en
el mundo.

Fue en funcin de estas nociones que se concibi la necesidad de la divisin de los

poderes, y en especial la funcin fundamental del poder judicial. Al respecto en 1793 se
present el caso Marbury vs. Madison en el cual el juez Marshall sentenci: Todos
aquellos que han armado una constitucin escrita la contemplan como formando la
fundamental y principal ley de la nacin, y consecuentemente la teora de todos esos
gobiernos es que cualquier ley de la legislatura repugnante a la constitucin es nula. Es
enfticamente, el mbito y la funcin del departamento judicial decir que es la ley. Ese es
un principio fundamental de la libertad, pues es el medio de que se respeten los derechos
individuales. Por ello Adam Smith escribi: Cuando el judicial est unido al poder
Ejecutivo, es escasamente posible que la justicia no sea frecuentemente sacrificada a lo
que vulgarmente se conoce por poltica. Las anteriores condiciones fueron las que
determinaron el sistema que cambi al mundo, y que hoy no slo est ignorado como
capitalismo salvaje y descalificado como el imperialismo yankee.

Pero la razn hizo su ingreso en la historia con Platn a la cabeza y comenz la

racionalizacin del despotismo. Ms tarde lleg Jean Jacques Rousseau e impuso
filosficamente el llamado liberalismo racionalista, partiendo de ideas contaras al
pensamiento de Hume. As, en el Contrato Social, cre la tica del absolutismo poltico y
escribi: As como la naturaleza da a cada hombre poder absoluto sobre su cuerpo, el
pacto social da al cuerpo poltico poder absoluto sobre sus miembros, y es este poder que
bajo la direccin de la voluntad general lleva el nombre de soberana. Y seguidamente
propuso el deber de los creadores de las naciones de transformar a cada individuo en un
hombre nuevo. Dira que fundamento del socialismo. Y por supuesto descalificaba al
comercio.

Rousseau fue seguido por Emmanuel Kant quien lo consideraba el Newton de las ciencias
sociales, y al respecto propuso: El soberano del Estado solo tiene derechos en relacin a
sus sbditos y no seres coercibles. Aun la Constitucin real no puede tener ningn artculo
que pueda hacer posible a algn poder del Estado resistir o limitar al supremo ejecutivo
aun en caso de que viole las leyes constitucionales. Ante estas proposiciones de que sirve
la Constitucin y a su vez implica la inutilidad de la divisin de los poderes y por supuesto
la inutilidad del poder Judicial en lo que se refiere al respeto de los derechos individuales.
Y siguiendo con la teora de la moral racionalista descalifico el derecho a la bsqueda de la
propia felicidad, pues la bsqueda de la felicidad se haca por inters y no por deber. Por
tanto concluy que el comercio era igualmente inmoral pues se haca por inters. Entonces
concluy que es la naturaleza es la que decide nuestras vidas y escribi en su Idea por
una Historia Universal con un Sentido Cosmopolita: El hombre busca la concordancia
pero la naturaleza conociendo lo que es mejor para las especies, desea la discordancia. O
sea la guerra es tica y el comercio inmoral.

Al genio de Koenigsberg le sigue Friedrich Hegel, que considera que: El Estado es la

divina idea tal como existe en la Tierra el Estado es la marcha de Dios a travs del
mundo El Estado es lo racional donde la libertad alcanza la plenitud as como este fin
ltimo tiene el ms alto derecho frente a los individuos, cuyo deber supremo es el ser
miembro del Estado. Aqu tenemos la racionalidad con la creencia. Consiguientemente
Hegel considera que la burocracia representa la eticidad de la sociedad frente a los
intereses privados. O sea se desconocen los derechos individuales. E igualmente producto
de la tica racionalista Hegel considera asimismo que la guerra es el momento tico de la
sociedad. Al respecto dice: La salud tica de los pueblos es mantenida en su equilibrio
frente al fortalecimiento de las determinaciones finitas (Intereses particulares) como el
movimiento del viento preserva al mar de la putrefaccin en la cual lo reducira una durable
paz perpetua. No nos puede extraar que en funcin de este racionalismo los europeos
estuvieron en guerra hasta el siglo xx y surgiera el totalitarismo con Hitler a la cabeza.

Ya antes en funcin de estas ideas surgi la Revolucin Francesa de 1.789 fundada en la

Diosa Razn. Y lleg Robespierre violando todos los principios de la libertad de mano de
los jacobinos, como lo reconoci Madame Rolland cuando camino al patbulo dijo:
Libertad cuantos crmenes se cometen en tu nombre. Y as se reconoci que Marat
amaba al pueblo y odiaba a los hombres. Y le sigui Napolen Bonaparte quien en funcin
de la tica de la sociedad comenz la guerra en Europa invadiendo a los vecinos. Y as
lleg el totalitarismo como la racionalizacin del despotismo. Como bien seala Peter
Druckeren sus Escritos Fundamentales No puede negarse que el Iluminismo y la
Revolucin Francesa contribuyeron a la libertad en el siglo XIX. Pero su contribucin fue
totalmente negativaPor el contrario el Iluminismo y la Revolucin Francesa as como sus
sucesores como el liberalismo racionalista de nuestros tiempos, Y sigui diciendo: Tan
difundida y tan falaz como la creencia de que la Ilustracin engendr la libertad en el siglo
XIX, s la creencia de que la Revolucin Norteamericana se bas en los mismos principios
que la Revolucin Francesa y que fue su precursora.

Finalmente lleg Karl Marx en pleno siglo XIX para racionalizar el supuesto anti capitalismo
va la concepcin comunista. As propuso la revolucin proletaria a travs de la dictadura
del proletariado para siguiendo los pasos de Rousseau eliminar la propiedad privada que
supuestamente era la razn de la desigualdad humana. Por supuesto consider la religin
como el opio de los pueblos y pretendi a travs del comunismo lograr un cielo en la tierra,
donde desparecera el Estado. Alos hechos me remito y vemos como el totalitarismo surgi
de la razn y as aparecieron Lenn y Stalin y crearon la tirana del comunismo sovitico.

Entonces ante los hechos narrados podemos concluir que el liberalismo no es la gida de
la razn sino precisamente de la conciencia de la falibilidad del hombre. La razn es
instrumental y falible. Tampoco pretender ser la anttesis de la fe, y por ello declar la
necesidad de la libertad religiosa. Por tanto la conclusin es que es el sistema tico,
poltico y jurdico que surge de la admisin de los anteriores principios el que determina los
comportamientos. Por esa razn dio lugar a la libertad y a la creacin de riqueza por
primera vez en la historia.
 Classical Realism and Human Nature:
An Alternative Reading
MICHAL OVADEK , AUG 9 2015, 1728 VIEWS

THIS CONTENT WAS WRITT EN BY A STUDENT AND ASSESSED AS PART OF A

UNIVERSITY DEGREE. E-IR PUBLISHES STUDENT ESSAYS & DISSERTATIONS TO
ALLOW OUR READERS TO BROADEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IS
POSSIBLE WHEN ANSWERING SIMIL A R QUESTIONS IN THEIR OWN STUDIES.

An oft-cited collection of writings on international relations (IR)

opens its chapter on realism with an apt, if somewhat tongue-in-
cheek, description:

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the academic study of

international relations is a debate about realism. (Wohlforth 2008, 131)

Realism, in the widest understanding of the term, has been,

historically, one of the defining schools of thought in political
theory for centuries. Seen mainly through the works of various
classical authors, the intellectual tradition, in fact, is claimed to
extend far beyond the institutional establishment of IR at the start
of the 20th century (Wohlforth 2008, 132). According to Wohlforth
(133), four common fundamental presumptions underpin the
spectrum of ideas that realism comprises: (1) groupism, or the
idea that human existence is tied to groups of various size and
quality; (2) egoism of individuals and groups, grounded in the so-
called human nature, as the primary motivation of all actors; (3)
anarchy, or the absence of government on the international (and
traditionally also domestic) level; and (4) power politics as the
dominant ordering principle, arising from inequalities of social
influence and material resources.

Due to the ubiquity and significance of realism, all of its

assumptions have been subjected to thorough criticism. Yet, the
concept which has, arguably, attracted the most controversy is
that of human nature. For what are called classical realists, human
nature holds a central function as an explanatory black-box which
guides the behaviour of individuals and states; even if its precise
properties and operation may be difficult to explain, realists
scholars would argue, human nature is pessimistic and its negative
consequences, principally, unavoidable (Schuett 2010; Brown
2009). However, it would be wrong to assume that the concept of
human nature is only important for classical realists. Among the
numerous IR theories, human nature features at least implicitly in
their discussions, albeit with varying degrees of significance: an
obvious example is classical liberalism which opposes the
negative view of human nature, but others, such as neorealism
(Brown 2009) or even some constructivists (Wendt 1992), are more
inclined to accept the tragic predicament of human beings.

While the realist perception of human nature has been contested

from different standpoints (Freyberg-Inan 2004), many of them have
in common the implicit acceptation that there is a
distinctive, essentialcharacteristic of humans which is worth
finding about (Epstein 2013). This paper offers an alternative and
contextualized, similarly to Browns (2009) study reading of the
concept of human nature and the manner in which it has been
presented in classical realist literature. It builds on Michel
Foucaults rejection of essentialism in connection with human
nature by applying the critique to the particular circumstances of
classical realism and by comparing two prominent figures of
classical realist thought. Therefore, the first section of the paper
discusses Foucaults account of human nature, highlighting the
main points of his anti-essentialist critique, and the second section
reanalyses the views of human nature of Hans Morgenthau and
Thomas Hobbes.

What Is Human Nature?

Michel Foucault, in a well-known debate with Noam Chomsky,

responds to the issue of human nature as following:

If you say that a certain human nature exists, that this human nature has
not been given the rights and possibilities that allow it to realize itself in
our contemporary society () if one admits this, does not one risk
defining this human nature which is at the same time ideal and real, and
has been hidden and repressed until now in terms borrowed from our
society, from our civilization, from our culture? (Davidson 1997, 131)

Foucault, therefore, questions the essentialist understanding of the

idea of human nature defended in this case by Chomsky. His attack
on essentialism should be understood against the background in
which he operates, a loose tradition sometimes referred to, not
without dissenting voices, as post-structuralism. Within this
tradition, Foucaults particular contribution to the disruption of
structuralisms entrenched meanings rested primarily in his
innovative study of discourses, knowledge, and power.

Below the surface, the anti-essentialist critique of Foucault

encompasses a number of exacting reproaches which underlie a
more fundamental concern about the possibility and mode of
understanding human nature. The first criticism relates to the
notion of reductionism which condenses complex phenomena into
one or few vital constituents. Apart from being generally rejected
by numerous prominent thinkers in various fields (Brown 2013,
439), with regards to human nature it specifically faces
condemnation for collapsing political and social complexity to
unchanging, universal, and ahistorical truths. Similarly to the
attack on reductionism, the second strand of Foucaults critique
questions the biologism of the human nature concept, or the idea
that by understanding the biological properties of human beings,
we will uncover the (reductionist) essence of what is inherent to
human behaviour (Wilkin 1999, 180). Thirdly, the idea of human
nature has a homogenizating function, as it attempts to locate a
common ground for all humans (Wilkin 1999, 181); discursively, this
homogenization can be employed to dismiss differences between
people. Finally, references to human nature also carry a
deterministic element should there be anything essential that
causes humans to behave in a certain way then the causality and
regularity of the actions of people denies, or at least constrains,
the possibility of free will (Wilkin 1999, 182).

The most important problem with the traditional explanation of

human nature for Foucault concerns, however, the empiricist or
rationalist epistemology it relies upon. Foucault, on the other
contrary, is a constructivist, and, consequently, he cannot ignore
that all understanding, including that of human nature, is
embedded in a complex web of social and power relations:

() these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realization of the

essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have been
formed within our civilization, within our type of knowledge and our form
of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class system; and that
one cannot, however regrettable it may be, put forward these notions to
describe or justify a fight which should overthrow the very fundaments of
our society. (Davidson 1997, 140)

As a result, the only correct answer to the question what is human

nature? is that human nature is whatever the dominant discourse
determines it is; it is nothing more than an effect, or product, of
power, which is present everywhere (Foucault 1990, 93), at any
given point in time, and a simple inquiry into the history of the idea
can demonstrate its malleability across different eras. Since each
era is characterized by an episteme, which defines the possibility
of all knowledge (Foucault 1970, 161), any prevailing conception of
human nature will necessarily reflect a certain regime of truth
(Foucault 1980, 133), and for it to be accepted it will need to
be dans le vrai (Foucault 1971, 16). In the end, therefore, any
attempt, contemporary or past, at understanding what constitutes
the human nature should be treated instead of as a statement of
some objective truth as a probe into the dominant mode of
understanding and the underlying power relations of that time.

Human Nature of Morgenthau and Hobbes

In order to exemplify the type of analytical ethos outlined in the

previous chapter, it is worth scrutinizing the standpoint of one of
realists most revered. In a universally popular passage
from Politics Among Nations, Hans Morgenthau (1985, 4) writes
that:

Human nature, in which the [objective] laws of politics have their roots,
has not changed since the classical philosophies of China, India, and
Greece endeavoured to discover these laws.

Morgenthaus view of human nature is, thus, exemplarily

essentialist. In his attempt to invoke historical authority,
Morgenthau is entirely unacknowledging of the bias produced by
the dominant discourses of his time, or of the times of the
predecessors Thucydides, St Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes to
whose tradition he subscribes. Instead, human nature, as
understood by him, is completely ahistorical and unchanging, and
it gives rise to objective laws of politics that can subsequently be
discovered. Furthermore, Morgenthau (1985, 38) elaborates on the
content of human nature by contrasting institutions created by
man, which can change, to those originating from:

() elemental bio-psychological drives by which in turn a society is

created. The drives to live, to propagate, and to dominate are common to
all men.

This part of Morgenthaus vision is culpable of the aforementioned

biologism explanation through the reference to a biological
essence. Yet what is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects
of Morgenthaus approach to human nature is, despite this
reference to bio-psychological drives, the lack of scientism in his
but also other modern classical realists accounts. A more
scientific conceptualization of human nature has been proposed
only relatively recently (Crawford 2009; Brown 2013), while the
realist discourse has for the better part of its modern existence
simply recognized the pseudo-scientific axioms of Morgenthau,
Carr, Niebuhr and others. This is peculiar, as Morgenthau is willing
to accept, on the one hand, and in line with the prevailing
discourses of his time, the possibility of a historically independent
yet based on age-old truths and fixed human nature, and on the
other hand, he stands in opposition to the scientification of all
knowledge, a powerful Enlightenment discourse (Morgenthau
1965). Thus, Morgenthau embodies both a conformist position in
his trusting adoption of the essentialist pessimism of human
nature and at the same time a critical, anti-rationalist approach
to politics.

The dichotomy in Morgenthaus thought can be better understood

by situating his ideas in historical context. Morgenthau has spent
his formative years in Germany, where he was born in a Jewish
family, during the inter-war period, which has seen him witness
also the rise of National Socialism. His doctoral dissertation had
been reviewed by Carl Schmitt, a jurist whose ideas supplied the
forthcoming ruling regime with intellectual rationalizations, who
has left a negative impression on Morgenthau (Morgenthau 1984).
Before leaving Europe, Morgenthau became friends with one of the
most influential modern legal theorists, Hans Kelsen;
unsurprisingly, Kelsen was himself a strong opponent of National
Socialism and was at the time developing his pure theory of law
that attempted to exclude moral content (meaning also the
immoral content) from legal systems. Of course, many others were
cited as influences on Morgenthaus thought, and his realism bears
marks of at least a number of them. Aristotle, a foremost post-
Socratic essentialist, was identified as Morgenthaus hero (Mollov
2000, 3), while the connections to Nietzsche (scepticism) and
Weber (objectivism) are discussed in depth in the academic
literature (Petersen 1999; Turner 2009). However, the mention of
Nietzsche, in particular, also points to another inconsistency like
Foucault, Nietzsche emphasized the relativity of knowledge (Frei
2001, 166), which shows the selectivity of Morgenthaus arguments
in conveniently avoiding Nietzsches scepticism regarding
objective truth, while accepting the scepticism of the human
predicament.

The crucial social circumstances forming the ideas of the

celebrated scholar are perhaps best summarized by himself in an
essay from when he was 18 years old:

My relationship to the social environment is determined by three facts: I

am a German, I am a Jew, and I have matured in the period following the
war. (Morgenthau 1984, 1)

Therefore, major strands of inspiration, conscious or not, which are

reflected in his work are also reactions to powerful discourses of
his formative years and beyond: devastating effects of military
power, the failure of idealism to maintain peace, anti-Semitism,
scientism of racial theories, the Holocaust, and others. In other
words, Morgenthau captured the negativity of this era in the
negativity of his view of human nature.
The traditional understanding of classical realism considers
Morgenthau to be a modern successor of the famous phrase by
Thomas Hobbes regarding the so-called state of nature:

In such a condition () the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short. (Hobbes 2008, 94)

This is no place to extend the discussion also to the term state of

nature, but it is notable that Hobbes believes that the outlook of
life without the necessary social institutions is deeply pessimistic.
This is probably the most widespread notion associated with
Hobbes, and it is also where the similarities with Morgenthau
mostly end, for Hobbes ideas are fundamentally different from
Morgenthaus the fact that they are both seemingly part of the
same tradition uncovers the unsettling actuality beneath
disregarding the social reality of constituting power relations and
discourses.

First of all, Hobbes, an outspoken critic of Aristotle, is an anti-

essentialist. He advocated what is termed nominalism, a view
rejecting that there is anything universal except for names (Trigg
1988, 55). According to this view, there would be no such thing as
human nature. Therefore, Hobbes discussion of the selfishness of
human beings is based around the individual. If numerous
individuals display similar properties it is not because they share a
certain essence; they merely resemble each other. Secondly,
Hobbes is a hard-line empiricist/materialist and an early champion
of modern science; as such, he had no time for metaphysical
musings, especially those of Aristotle (Trigg 1988, 56). In contrast,
besides the aforementioned rejection of scientism by Morgenthau,
the German was also fond of metaphysics: bad metaphysics leads
of necessity to bad political philosophy (Morgenthau 1950, 515).

If the differences appear to be very obvious, taking into account

the dissimilar epochs of the two authors, then these differences
are not quite as obvious when one adopts the perspective of the
realist discourse of human nature, which is at times so
disregarding of difference in its pursuit of an all-explaining,
unchanging variable in the form of the pessimistic human nature.
The preceding short excursion into the historical and intellectual
context of human nature in the writings of two major personae
putatively believed to be ideationally connected is a very modest
preview of the complexity and uniqueness of the epistemes and
principal discourses governing each era. Far from being exhaustive,
the critical attitude explored in this article merely purported to
raise awareness of a taken-for-granted standpoint that continues
to exert considerable influence to this day.
Conclusion

The argument presented in this work attempted to question,

through the lens of Michel Foucault, the essentialist understanding
of human nature in classical realism, as represented in the
writings of Hans Morgenthau. The central explanation comes from
the inescapability of the workings of dominant discourses which
highlight the deficiencies of the essentialist viewpoint; a repeated
observation of some sort of negativity can, thus, only be attributed
to recurrent power relations and their productions, not any kind
of essence. Furthermore, by juxtaposing Morgenthau with Hobbes,
the aim was to point to the neglect in the realist discourse of
historical contextualization that carries the defining features in
the form of differing epistemes and discourses. In fact, however, it
would be just as well possible to contrast other influential scholars
who are categorized according to the prima facie criterion of
pessimism/scepticism of the human condition. A historically more
complete genealogy of human nature would help elucidate the
intellectual diversity behind the realist trivialization of differences
between the various conceptions. There is still much to be gained
from post-structuralist and anti-essentialist lines of thought
(Epstein 2013), but it will require IR scholars to query many of the
fundamental beliefs underlying the discipline.

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