Era of Good Feelings: One of R

It is the testing of this rational hypothesis against the actual facts and his consequences that gives theoretical meaning to the facts of international politics. This concludes Morgenthau's first principle (of six) of political realism.
             Morgenthau's second principle states that the main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power. This concept provides the link between reason trying to understand international politics and the facts to be understood. It sets politics as an autonomous sphere of action and understanding apart from other spheres, such as economics (understood in terms of interest defined as wealth), ethics, aesthetics, or religion. Without such a concept a theory of politics, international or domestic, would be altogether impossible, for without it one could not distinguish between political and nonpolitical facts, nor could one bring at least a measure of systematic order to the political sphere.
             One cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign policies will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful. Judging his motives, one can say that he will not intentionally pursue policies that are morally wrong, but one can say nothing about the probability of his success. If one wants to know the moral and political qualities of his actions, one must know them, not his motives. How often have statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended by making it worse? And how often have they sought one goal, and ended by achieving something they neither expected nor desired? .
             Good motives give assurance against deliberately bad policies; they do not guarantee the moral goodness and political success of the policies they inspire. What is important to know, if one wants to understand foreign policy, is not primarily the motives of a statesman, but his intellectual ability to comprehend the essentials of foreign policy, as well as his political ability to translate what he has comprehended into successful political action.