El hombre moral y la sociedad inmoral. Un estudio sobre ética y política. "La inmoralidad de las naciones", in El hombre moral y la sociedad inmoral. Un estudio sobre ética y política, Ediciones Siglo Veinte, Buenos Aires, 1966

Abstract

Maquiavelo based the double standard of morality – the distinction between the morality of individuals and the morality of nations - on the doctrine of the raison d’ètat. Niebuhr, while accepting this ethical dualism, based it on a social ethical model – of Christian influence. In Moral Man and Immoral society (1932), Nieburh, a theologian and a realist political thinker, underlines that what is and what should be in the realm of the behaviour of nations is influenced by the limits of the human nature. Therefore, in contrast with the individualist ethics that underlies liberalism - which believes that progress, benefits and social justice are the result of individual freedom - he focuses on the systemic dimension of injustice. In doing so, Niebuhr claims for a collective responsibility and a social creativity so as to reach an 'order of justice' which is not idealistic or utopian but which can be made by human beings. Within a society the only possible justice is one that results in a relative, unstable and contingent moral order.