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acting within the limits of his capabilities: is the position of either of them morally
reprehensible?
One cannot help but wonder whether, to borrow another phrase from Nietzsche, it is not
more accurate to say that the Europeans “find themselves virtuous just because their claws
are blunt”. Kagan’s point is well taken: Europe is now arguably more multilaterally idealistic
only because it has become less (militarily) powerful, and the US is not so much immoral as
prudent in acting to preserve its own (rational) self-interest. Perhaps we should stick to
description here, and eschew attempts on both sides to moralize the debate.
It is Kagan’s second main thesis which is somewhat more problematic, and which will be the
focus of this paper. For his contention is that the transatlantic crisis is not only attributable to
the (amoral) power gap, but also to fundamental philosophical differences. Rather neatly, he
labels the European ideal as “Kantian” – a utopian “Kingdom of Ends” consciously or
unconsciously constructed on the ideas of the great Prussian philosopher. The Americans,
on the other hand, are for Kagan unabashed neo-Hobbesians, giving powerful modern
expression to the great Pessimist’s views on the State of Nature and the Sovereign, and the
imposition of order built on the power of the Stronger.
I find this picture arresting but not entirely accurate, and therefore also decline to accept
Kagan’s fairly gloomy conclusions about a necessarily growing rift between Europe and
America. This is so first of all because a closer look at the “social contract” models of both
Kant and Hobbes reveals each to be somewhat more differentiated than Kagan assumes –
and less neatly assignable to either Europe or the United States.
Convention