250 A Positive Century (1815–1914)
law seems to imply at least some kind of community of broadly like- minded
states. On the whole, though, it is safe to say that positivist writers of all
stripes tended to see the in de pen dence of states as being more fundamental
than membership in a society of states— and, correspondingly, the rights of
individual states as more fundamental than the demands of good citizenship
that might be imposed by a community. Mainstream positivism, in other
words, strongly tended to be atomistic rather than communitarian in nature.
Even from the voluntarist perspective, however, there was not— or not
necessarily— a need to despair. For there was nothing to prevent the states of
the world from being broadly like- minded and thereby forming themselves
into a de facto community. In other words, it is not logically necessary that a
world of resolutely in de pen dent states must be a Hobbesian one, with the
states constantly at one another’s throats. In fact, the neo- Kantian outlook
clearly inclined in the opposite direction— holding that it was positively in
the self- interest of states to be cooperative and to respect the rights of other
states. Even so staunch a neo- Hegelian as Lasson could readily accept that
there was, in practice, much scope for interstate cooperation. Positivists could
therefore be said to be ready enough to accept the fact of interdependence
and cooperation in the real world, even while insisting, as a matter of doc-
trine, on in de pen dence and isolation.
Mainstream positivism was not therefore ineluctably committed to a con-
fl ictual, Hobbesian picture of the world. It depended— as it always had— on
whether some form of the Aristotelian thesis of the natural sociability of
humans was accepted. Positivism was compatible with either position on
that. Th ose of an optimistic temperament (i.e., accepting natural sociability)
would expect an international world in which confl icts of interest between
states would continually occur, but in which a deep fund of general good
will would be present and fundamental disagreements largely absent. Th is
was the neo- Kantian frame of mind. A pessimist would expect to see a
Hobbesian world of perpetual bloodshed, aggression, and war. And of course,
there could also be any blend of these rival images.
In this area, too, though, there was much that united the various positiv-
ist approaches, despite their diff ering perspectives. Th ey were united in pos-
sessing what might be called a minimalist view of international law, as es-
sentially a confl ict- resolution mechanism. Th e function of international law,
from this standpoint, is not the “affi rmative” one of building a better world,