ABSTRACT
The three axioms of the historical imagination proposed in earlier chapters point towards two further axioms: we should recognise that the starting position for political deliberation is inevitably non-ideal (axiom four); and discernment in accordance with a common standard should become a core value in the conduct of international relations (axiom five). In politics, we act always under constraint (Aristotle’s ‘mixed actions’). What cannot be pictured here and now, can become possible, given the right intermediate steps. We can set parameters for decision making under constraint; for example, if we appeal to the surrounding circumstances to explain our life-stance, we are under a corresponding obligation to work towards overcoming the circumstances in question and in the meantime to mitigate their effects. The parameters for ‘mixed action’ provide an alternative to a Machiavellian acceptance that it is ‘right to do wrong’, and to Weber’s portrait of the relentless, ‘objective’ leader who in choosing politics ‘loses his soul’. The fifth axiom follows from the fourth: it invites those who share a political space to understand their common situation dynamically, in terms of choosing a future path. In many situations, the alternatives will reflect, broadly, a ‘standard of self-interest’ and a ‘standard of justice’. For example, a ‘just transition for all’ in response to climate change depends on numerous individual decisions linked together by a common criterion of evaluation – which, as a matter of practicality, can only be the standard of justice. To feel pity, exercise a discerning judgement, and have faith in the standard of justice is an act of shared hope. The chapter concludes with a close examination of the dimensions of reasoned hope.
