THE AUGEAN STABLE:

Power and morals: Realists argue that foreign policy is necessarily amoral. Liberals contend that there is no distinction between the moral standards that apply in domestic policy and those in international politics. Both views are flawed. Morality does count in foreign policy, but it is usually the morality of the lesser evil (Owen Harries, April 2005, Prospect)

The connection between foreign policy and morality is surprisingly poorly examined. It is not wanting in words or assertions. On the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion we will read and hear millions of them on the moral authority of the UN, intervention in the affairs of sovereign states, democratic governments deceiving their citizens--and many other questions with a moral content.

But there has been little attempt to spell out general and coherent positions on these questions, to relate particular circumstances to general principles, or to acknowledge and confront the difficulty of discussing moral issues in the peculiar conditions and circumstances of international politics. What follows is a tentative attempt to do some of those things.

There are two widely held and sharply contrasting views on the subject. The first, in its extreme version, is that morality in foreign policy is like snakes in Iceland: there ain't any. A more moderate version allows for some minor role for morality. But essentially, foreign policy and international politics are seen as necessarily amoral activities. In academic circles, this view is associated with the "realist" school.

The second widely held belief is that there is only one morality, and that it applies in all circumstances. There is no distinction between the standards that states should be held to and those that apply to individuals, or between those that apply in domestic politics and those that apply in international politics. This view is often held by small "l" liberals, which is why they tend to lead frustrated lives and spend much of their political energy expressing anger and disappointment at the failure of governments, especially their own, to live up to accepted moral standards in their international behaviour--to be, among other things, compassionate, generous, forgiving, humane, honest, tolerant and consistent in their treatment of others. As we have seen recently, this is a view of things that can also be found among conservative and religious groups who believe that the values they hold should prevail universally, and that their government's foreign policy should be dedicated to ensuring that they do.

These two views are not straw men. Each has a long intellectual pedigree, representing in simplified form a central tradition of thought about the behaviour of states in their relationships with each other. [...]

Where does this leave us? In my view it leads to the conclusion that the morality that is appropriate and can be sustained in the soiled, selfish and dangerous world of power politics is a modest one, whose goal is not perfection but decency. It is, more often than not, a morality of the lesser evil, of prudence. Edmund Burke referred to prudence as "the god of this lower world"--the world, that is, of public affairs--and he was right.

Prudence does not mean timidity. In some circumstances it demands firmness, even boldness in dealing with problems early, while they are still manageable (in 1936, for example, rather than in 1939). But in a system composed of a large number of independent and conflicting wills, uncertain intelligence, deadly weapons, different cultures and no universally recognised authority, it does require modesty--modesty of ends, of means and of rhetoric. Not only does strident and extravagant rhetoric--and we have heard a fair amount of it recently--raise the international temperature, but the fact that it cannot be lived up to is one of the main causes of public cynicism about foreign policy. A more careful, qualified and intellectually responsible rhetoric might be less inspirational, but it would have a longer shelf life and avoid a great deal of disillusion and embarrassment.

A prudential ethic places importance on those most mundane of virtues--order and stability. These do not, of course, guarantee a satisfactory state of affairs. They do not constitute a sufficient condition for anything. But they are a necessary condition for everything whose achievement requires a degree of predictability and continuity: a system of justice, for example, or sustainable commercial relations.

Making stability into an overarching value doesn't seem to differ much from denying that morality matters.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2005 2:44 PM