Seeing (Double) in the Darkness: The Moral Vision of The Anarchical Society

Abstract

At the end of The Anarchical Society Hedley Bull argues, with considerable force, that his argument in the book had been a contribution to the study of world politics, and not to its practice. ‘The search for conclusions that can be presented as “solutions” or “practical advice” is a corrupting element in the contemporary study of world politics’, he tells us; ‘such conclusions are advanced less because there is any solid basis for them than because there is a demand for them which it is profitable to satisfy. The fact is that while there is a great desire to know what the future of world politics will bring, and also to know how we should behave in it, we have to grope about in the dark with respect of the one as much as with respect of the other’. And he concludes, in a memorable phrase, ‘It is better to recognise that we are in darkness than to pretend that we can see the light’ (Bull, 2002: 307–8).