CIAO DATE: 05/02

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Volume 1, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2000

 

Ethics and Foreign Policy
by David A. Welch

 

It is a common mistake to oppose “morality” and “prudence” in the analysis of foreign policy–as we do, for instance, if we chastise our government for paying too much or not enough attention to issues such as human rights, or for pursuing an insufficiently (or overly) hard–headed realism intended to promote “the national interest.” Foreign policy is an inherently moral activity, and “the national interest” is an inherently moral category. The statement “leaders ought to be guided by the national interest rather than by moral considerations” is absurd because the ought in question is a moral ought. (Moral oughts, such as “One ought not to steal,” are different from instrumental oughts, as in “If you want to win this chess game, you ought to sacrifice that pawn.”) What would be the non–moral reason that leaders ought to be guided by the national interest? The realist critique of Wilsonianism and interwar appeasement understood this. They argued that leaders who pursued these policies were morally wrong because in their attempts to promote laudable but secondary moral objectives, they failed to discharge a higher moral obligation: namely, to ensure the security and survival of their state.1

Thus, all debates over foreign policy are moral debates, whether or not we recognize them as such. For example, every position in the debate over NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia last spring was imbued with moral content. Opponents argued either that ethnic conflict in Kosovo was an internal matter in which the international community had no moral or legal right to interfere, or that the moral consequences of such an intense bombardment were on balance negative. Proponents denied both claims. In essence, the debate was over what is right or wrong in international affairs.

It should not surprise us that foreign policy debates are moral debates when we recognize that human beings are inherently moral creatures with natural moral faculties. The propensity to evaluate the world in moral terms, and to act upon our moral judgments about it, is both hard–wired and socially reinforced.2 But while debates about foreign policy are inescapably moral, the motives that lie behind foreign policies are not necessarily moral.3 Non–moral and immoral impulses are natural, too. Often what we consider the right thing to do is inconvenient or unpleasant, and does not serve our immediate selfish interests. The common wisdom both within the field of international relations and among the general public holds that leaders of states almost always act on the basis of narrow political or material self–interests, not genuine moral commitments, and that their moral arguments, when they bother to make them, are insincere. Is this true?

It is difficult to decide merely by observing state behavior. Suppose a leader must choose between two foreign policies, A and B. The table to the left describes the five possible cases. Note that on the basis of observed behavior, it is possible for the cynic almost always to conclude that the choice reflects non–moral motives: In four of the five cases, the chosen policy would also be the policy chosen by a leader acting solely on the basis of such motives. It is therefore hardly surprising that when leaders’ impulses are not obvious, cynics have such an easy time dismissing moral explanations for their choices.

The Argentine decision to invade the Falkland/Malvinas Islands in 1982 provides a classic illustration. For twenty years, in the absence of a strong body of evidence and testimony about motives, analysts blithely assumed that the Argentine Junta mounted the operation to distract the Argentine people from their domestic economic woes.4 Now, however, we know that the members of the Junta were motivated overwhelmingly by the desire to rectify what they perceived to be an intolerable injustice: Britain’s forcible occupation of the islands in 1832.5 It was impossible to choose between these two explanations simply by observing the invasion, for the act itself was fully consistent with both moral and non–moral motives.

Sometimes there are subtle behavioral clues as to the relative strength of moral motives in a particular case. Leaders who act on the basis of moral motives, for instance, tend to be more strident in their demands, less sensitive to costs, and more difficult to deter.6 This was all true of Argentine leaders in the early 1980s. But there may be self–interested or purely tactical reasons why leaders would exhibit this behavior. At the end of the day, the only way to know for sure whether moral or non–moral impulses lie behind any given act is to look closely at the decision–making process itself. The data requirements for identifying the motives that lie behind specific foreign policy decisions are typically very high and are frequently impossible to satisfy, making cynicism difficult to overcome.

Obviously, some leaders are more sensitive to moral considerations than are others. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that the cynicism about leaders’ motives that pervades our field–and the public alike–is unwarranted. After all, leaders of states are human beings with moral faculties, too. They take guidance from moral considerations far more often than people tend to think, and they do so even in circumstances where cynics ought to expect it least.7 Since there is no evidence to suggest that moral considerations bear less frequently or less heavily on foreign–policy decisions than on other types of decisions, cynicism is a prejudice without justification.

Are Foreign Policies Ethical? While foreign policy is an inherently moral activity with moral considerations playing a far greater role than we tend to suspect, the foreign policies of states are virtually never truly ethical. By “ethics” I mean the practice of making systematic moral decisions. My use of the term is narrower and more technical than the everyday use, where we tend to ascribe an ethical motive to someone who acts simply on the basis of moral considerations.8 I feel compelled to use it thus because if just any moral reason counted as an ethical justification for policy, then virtually any action and its opposite could be justified ethically, and it would be impossible to take guidance from ethical deliberation. There are moral reasons for pressing China harder on human rights, and there are other moral reasons for not pressing China harder on human rights. Even though leaders make decisions on the basis of moral motivations far more often than we think, no state’s foreign policy as a whole meets my rather demanding standard for ethical action. There are few individual policies for which it is both possible to provide a systematic ethical justification and for which there is strong evidence that the policy was itself the result of ethical deliberation. Moreover, there are good reasons for thinking that this is a very difficult standard to meet in the world as we know it. What are the obstacles, and how serious are they?

There are two categories of problems that frustrate ethical foreign–policy making. The first set of problems is internal to some ethical systems themselves. In this category fall ambiguity and indeterminacy. Ambiguity arises because all moral judgment requires applying general principles to specific cases. Commonly, the idiosyncrasies of specific cases leave room for doubt and for honest disagreement over the proper application of general principles. An important element of Christian ethics, for example, is a general prohibition against killing. Nevertheless, faithful interpreters of Christian ethics disagree over whether the prohibition is absolute, the conditions under which killing might be justified if the prohibition is not absolute, and the principles that should govern judgment in circumstances where killing is unavoidable. Even where the application of general principles to specific cases is unproblematic, some ethical systems are indeterminate and do not generate clear prescriptions or proscriptions. This is often because two or more general principles conflict in a given case. In addition to a strong prohibition against telling lies, for instance, Kantian ethics includes a strong prohibition against breaking promises. Sometimes the only way to avoid telling a lie, however, is to break a promise. The only way to deal with these problems when they arise is to have robust second–order norms for resolving them, such as an authoritative interpreter or procedure. In contrast to legal systems and constitutions, which typically have a process for settling such disputes, Kantian and other historical ethical traditions are relatively weak in this regard.9

The second set of obstacles to ethical foreign–policy making is external to ethical systems and involves the nature of the foreign–policy process. It would be difficult enough to formulate and pursue an ethical foreign policy if everyone were singing from the same song sheet; but the actors involved in the foreign–policy making process commonly sing from very different song sheets. The two crucial problems here are heterodoxy and variability.

Different participants in the policymaking process typically have incompatible moral commitments and a mixture of moral and non–moral motives. This makes it difficult for policymakers to persuade each other of the superiority of their moral reasoning. Variability refers to the fact that the participants in foreign policy debates change over time as personnel changes and as different foreign policy issues engage different domestic interests. From an ethical perspective, foreign policy debates therefore tend to be chaotic. The best way around this is to choose or to design an ethical system that includes strong procedural norms for resolving conflicting interpretations of moral principles in specific cases, and for making authoritative judgments in cases of ambiguity, indeterminacy, and disagreement. By and large, historical systems are unsuitable because of their parochialism. Theories of deliberative democracy, legal systems, and constitutional orders provide better models.

Broadening Consent. The question naturally arises whether it is a bad thing that states have such difficulty justifying their foreign policies ethically. This is a moral question that can be broken down into two parts.

First, does the fact that states have difficulty justifying their foreign policies ethically have consequences that most people are likely to consider objectionable? There is evidence that normative disagreement increases the likelihood of death, illness, poverty, lower material quality of life, environmental degradation, and so forth. There is also evidence that normative agreement reduces the likelihood of conflict and of the ills associated with it.10 All other things being equal, any systematic ethic of which I am aware would applaud a reduction in international conflict and enhanced material quality of life. In addition, foreign policies that are difficult to justify in ethical terms are apt to appear hypocritical, disingenuous, and opportunistic, and are therefore likely to provoke the kind of distrust that undermines international cooperation. Thus one can make a fairly good prima facie case that it is better to have ethical foreign policies than not, and it is likely that this judgment will be compelling to a heterodox audience.

A heterodox audience is not likely to applaud just any ethic, however. Given the choice between morally haphazard foreign–policy making (of the kind we are used to in the modern world) and foreign policies informed by any particular ethical tradition, many people would prefer morally haphazard policy. They would prefer it because it would represent less of a threat to their own moral commitments than would an organized, rigorous set of norms founded upon antagonistic principles. As James Madison observed in Federalist 10, individual interests and commitments are safer from infringement under a system of checks and balances than under a hegemonic orthodoxy. Thus, while it is possible to make a fairly robust moral case that foreign policies ought to have ethical justifications, once we give those justifications ethical content the case ceases to be compelling. It becomes less persuasive–both as a matter of psychological fact, and from the philosophical perspective of any ethical tradition that (a) cannot establish its own hegemony, or (b) cares about the disagreements and conflicts that would arise if it were to become hegemonic. How, then, can one make a compelling case that foreign–policy making ought to be ethical?

The answer turns on the possibility of providing ethical justifications of foreign policies that will command ever–broader consent. It is difficult to make a compelling case that we should insist only that President Clinton have an ethical justification for his foreign policy, even though it may command the assent of no one else. The larger the community of people that can be brought on board, the more compelling the case, the more his policy will satisfy the natural human need for moral justification, and the more likely it is that his policy will produce the material benefits an ethical order can deliver. Thus we ought to prefer that foreign policy be formulated in terms of, and inspired by, an ethical system that can command as wide an assent as possible–ideally, global consent. It is good to be able to convince an American audience that American foreign policy is consistent with American liberal democratic moral commitments. It would be even better to be able to convince a global audience that American foreign policy is consistent with a global ethic of state action.

Progress. While moral disagreement over foreign policy is inevitable, its scope and intensity may be narrowed over time, and it is conceivable to imagine gradual, piecemeal progress toward the ideal of a global consensus on the appropriate ethical considerations to inform–and evaluate–the behavior of states.

A broad and deep consensus on moral principles is only possible at the expense of moral particularity, which typically has strong roots in culture and religion. As culture and religion are central elements of individual and group identity, it is tempting to conclude that this is asking far too much. It is important to recognize, however, that while moral judgments commonly differ between cultures and religions, people of all cultures and religions employ the same basic set of moral concepts–good, bad, right, wrong, just, unjust, fair, unfair, deserving, undeserving, and so forth.11 Moreover, they understand them in approximately the same way. Crucial differences arise not at the level of moral concepts, but at the level of conceptions–the specific interpretations of concepts in specific circumstances. It would be difficult to hold out any hope in the face of radical moral disagreement–if people of different cultures and religions not only interpreted moral concepts differently in specific cases, but if they also used entirely different, incompatible and mutually unintelligible moral concepts in the first place.12

Broadly speaking, there are two mechanisms by which it is possible to narrow the range of moral disagreement. The first is social interaction. Through contact, dialogue, collective problem solving, and institution building, it is possible for individuals and groups to develop empathy and a nascent shared identity. When they do, they sometimes transmit and transmute values, and they sometimes reformulate their interests. Whereas prior to social interaction they might have understood those interests as competing and incompatible, it is sometimes possible after social interaction to understand them as at least in part complementary and mutually reinforcing.13 The second mechanism for building global consensus on moral issues is generational change. As new cohorts socialize morally and politically, and as they consciously react to what they perceive as the errors and failings of their forebears, they internalize social and normative changes.14

It is important to note that these are not inevitable processes. Centuries of social interaction can aggravate differences and undermine empathy. With generational change, normative differences can become more rather than less acute, and less rather than more tractable. The Holocaust, after all, took place in the twentieth century, not the fifteenth. There do appear to be some important developments, however, that suggest a dominant historical trend and a clear direction of progress. Examples include the demise of slavery, de–legitimization of major war, development of pluralistic security communities, proliferation of international organizations, regional economic integration, and the ascendancy of international law.15 While some of these developments reflect natural social change made possible by technological progress, others were at least hastened by deliberate policy choices. Thus foreign policy can itself help engineer the international social context that would facilitate ethical foreign–policy making.

If they are not oppressive, pluralistic societies manage heterodoxy by means of principles and rules that define and protect private spheres of activity, in which individuals are free to indulge their particular commitments and pursue their particular conceptions of the good, and that define and regulate public activity. The dominant norms of state behavior in recent centuries reflect this general pattern: The central moral norm of state sovereignty was intended to provide a check against outsiders’ attempts to interfere in the domestic affairs of states.16 Arguably, we are witnessing a transformation in this central norm. International society is less and less willing to turn a blind eye to what goes on within states, and more intent upon holding regimes to specific standards of conduct.17 Sovereignty is something states can no longer merely claim: It is something they now must earn. There was a certain poetry in the fact that NATO unleashed an unprecedented attack on a sovereign state to enforce good behavior at home on the very day that the House of Lords finally cleared the way for General Augusto Pinochet’s extradition to Spain to stand trial for human rights abuses while in power. Thirty years ago, neither action would have been conceivable. Both are important markers on the road to a truly global human rights regime.

There is reason to believe that emerging human rights norms reflect a nascent global consensus on the minimum moral treatment due to individuals. The crucial question is what the emerging global standards of conduct will look like and where they will come from. If they are grounded in a particular ethical tradition and are imposed hegemonically, they are less likely to have desirable long–term effects on international conflict and welfare because they will find only grudging acceptance. Many argue that this is precisely what is happening in the world today.18 If indeed emerging global standards of human rights have a firm basis only in a Western liberal moral tradition that other cultures find foreign and unpersuasive, and if their spread is simply the result of Western punishments and incentives, then they will persist only as long as Western hegemony does.19 Non–Western cultures are embracing these norms in ever–increasing numbers because they seem to have an ineluctable appeal.20 If this is the case, then they provide an increasingly solid foundation for a shared ethic of world politics and a corresponding legal order.21

A crucial condition for ethical foreign–policy making, therefore, is that states embrace shared external norms as the legitimate basis for ethical deliberation about state behavior, and relinquish parochial norms for that purpose. Ethical foreign–policy making becomes possible–or, at least, it becomes possible to approximate ethical foreign–policy making more closely–when the operative “ethic” is provided by an internally coherent, broadly accepted set of principles, rules, and procedures for interpretation and judgment. This points in the direction of conventionalism.22 From a global perspective–and, indeed, from the domestic perspective of any pluralistic or heterodox state–foundational ethical doctrines are unlikely to provide a basis for ethical foreign–policy making because of their inherent parochialism.

What specific principles, rules, and procedures should we hope for or encourage? Only those that can be broadly acceptable to a pluralistic world society. We cannot prejudge the outcome of the struggles and debates that will ultimately shape the conventions that will define the global ethic. They are, inevitably, the result both of politics and of argument, and as a result they will always be contested, at least on the margins. The piecemeal proliferation of conventions is also likely to generate substantive inconsistencies, so it is important for an emerging global ethic of state action to give priority to principles and rules for resolving disputes, contradictions, and differences of interpretation. Normative evolution is slow, somewhat haphazard, proceeds in fits and starts, and advances more quickly in some domains than in others.23 Moral progress that depends upon socialization processes can only be hurried along to a limited degree. But in order to encourage ethical foreign–policy practice, we ought to encourage conventionalism and institution–building, and keep the long view in mind.

Paradox. All of this leads to a final paradox–though it need not cause us great concern. The direction of progress I have suggested is one that strengthens transnational civil society and weakens the state.24 Its agents include individuals, corporations, non–governmental organizations, the media, and other transnational groups, and their collective activities generate a body of rules, norms, and institutions that both constrain state autonomy and erode state sovereignty. A world in which ethical foreign–policy practice is truly possible, therefore, is a world in which foreign policy does not matter very much, because the state has lost much of the prerogative that makes an independent foreign policy both possible and consequential.

It is difficult to know what the endpoint will be. There are many different possibilities: global civil society, David Mitrany’s functionalism, Clark and Sohn’s world government, benign anarchy, a new medievalism, or something as yet unimagined.25 But if a true transnational ethic develops of the kind that makes systematic ethical judgment possible, the net result will certainly be the weakening of states as actors. At some point, therefore, our concern for ethical conduct on the world stage will cease being primarily–or even largely–a concern with the foreign–policy practice of states.

If we truly seek to make ethical foreign policy possible, therefore, we must work to make it irrelevant.