ON THE MORAL CASE FOR .....
12th MARCH 2003
The principles of morality and the practice of ethics are both very confusing.
On the one hand we have the fact that most people experience feelings of right and wrong in their actions and in the actions of others. Moreover most human transactions are carried out in a more or less reasonable way by most people most of the time - not dishonestly, not unkindly and not unduly disrespectful of the autonomy of the people they come into contact with. Were this empirical fact not the case then society would have collapsed long since and we would not be here to ponder it, to theorise about it and (in the case of moral uplift enthusiasts) agonise over it.
The other side of the coin is that for thousands of years moral philosophers have tried to formulate dependable theories of morality, and of ethics flowing therefrom, and have produced little more than refutations of one another's theories There are four main moral/ethical positions, among many, that deserve some consideration. They are respectively, deontological theories, consequentialist theories, role-model theories and the dictates of The Individual Conscience.
These will be considered briefly and the an attempt will be made to asses the morality of the likely US-led attack on Iraq.
Deontological theories
These might be called Rule Book Theories In the area of right and wrong. All possible actions are seen to be of three kinds - The Mandatory, The Acceptable and The Wrong. There is no room for adjustment or ambiguity between these categories.
Such "Rule Book' attitudes have a lot to be said for them insofar as many of the rules are reasonable enough. The Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins are typically deontological and, in fairness, it must be said that very often the rules make sense. How much mess there would be if we all bore false witness all the time. committed endless serial adultery and habitual theft? Who actually approves of Wrath, Avarice, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony? The people whom we recognise intuitively as 'good people' conform, most of the time, to many of the Commandments and avoid, most of the time, the Seven Deadly Sins.
The trouble with the Rule Book approach is twofold:
1) where do the rules come from , what is their authenticity? "The Will of God" does not help much - some people thought it ordained by God that they should destroy the Twin Towers while others deem that it is God's Will that the instigators of that destructive act should be tracked down and brought to justice. The Will of God seems to be better described as the Wish of the Godly.
2) the rules are often in conflict with one another. The rule 'be kind' and the rule 'be truthful' leave no room for that well accepted (by good people) notion of the white lie. The rule to 'respect the autonomy of other people' is sometime in conflict with the rule to 'save people from themselves'.
The characteristic vice of the Rule Book party is two faced hypocrisy.
Consequentialist Theories
Defects in the deontological approach have led to its opposite - do not prejudge by means of rules but judge by considering the moral desirability of the consequences of an action or of a proposed action. Utilitarianism is the paradigm of consequentialist theories. In the classic words of Bentham "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right or wrong."
The defects are obvious - two of them. One is that the word happiness eludes precise definition and so the other is that it doubly defies calculation. It is possible that in a 'white supremacist' society it might afford "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" if non-whites were denied basic civil rights. This is not a fiction; it was fact, at one time, in Dixie and in Australia and elsewhere.
Role Model Theory
People have attempted to ask "what would X have done in this situation" where X is the role model (RM) and the question is a moral one. What X would have done serves, on RM theory, to settle the right/wrong issue.
It is wise to choose a dead person as RM because a living one might provide an answer unacceptable to the moral inquirer. Dead role models cannot be so inconvenient and indeed they can be very convenient indeed when their reported teachings are inclined to be inconsistent.
Jesus is a favourite RM whose reported teachings are useful both to those who would bless the peacemakers as well as to those who would bring not peace but the sword. Those who wish to give alms in secret need only refer to the appropriate verse in Matthew 6; those who think that public giving is good because it sets a good example can refer to Luke's account of the widow's mite story. And s on!
But even if you can identify a consistent and well authenticated RM you still have know how that model person acquired special moral credibility. To have a good press is insufficient as a reason for being a RM.
The Individual Conscience
This can be very powerful but whether it is any more than an mix of considerations arising from deontological, consequentialist theories or role models is doubtful . Conscience is very often simply guilt and wishful thinking writ large. The collision between two or more conflicting consciences can be highly destructive both of morality and of common prudence.
I wrote to a few friends on Mr Blair's moral case for war against Iraq ...... as follows:
THE "MORAL CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ"
Tony Blair has been trying to put "the moral case for war against Iraq" But he has not stated his basic moral philosophy.
Mr Blair is a religious man and makes no secret of the fact so we might suppose that he takes Biblical injunctions seriously.
"Thou shalt not kill" clearly does not appeal to him so perhaps the Ecclesiastes approach might move him (it certainly underpins much of humanist thought re abortion and euthanasia). The verse I refer to is Ecc 3:3 "(To everything there is ) a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up".
Perhaps killing a lot of people in the likely war on Iraq might be taken as a process that helps to heal the ills of the region and of the terrorist-threatened world. As against this there is empirical evidence in recent Israel/Palestine history that casts doubt on the healing power of violence be it by the state or by people termed terrorists.
Mr Blair - in rejecting the Commandment that "thou shalt not kill' - is clearly rejecting scripturally authorised deontological ethics. (So do I - but that is by the way). His evident possible attraction to Ecclesiastes puts him in the consequentialist camp of moral philosophers. Everybody knows that the full consequences of a proposed action are not fully predictable and, even if they were, we would still have to evaluate their net goodness. One definition of goodness is 'that which the UN does' but this does not define the good although it may exemplify the good. A quite analogous distinction can be made about 'that which GWB authorises'. Whatever the good may be as definition there is always the possibility that what agents contemplate doing, or actually do, is not of itself in compliance with any tenable definition.
The only clear definition of the good is 'that which accords with the Will of God' (if any?) and, notoriously, self-awarded expertise in this is a lot less than unanimous.. The perceived Will of God is hard to distinguish from the current Wishes of the Godly. I know of no way of making this important distinction.
Perhaps Mr Blair is a believer in the role-model approach to ethics and there are certainly plenty of models that underwrite attacking another country on evidently limited evidence.
My own view based upon guideline-utilitarianism is as follows. I think that generally, but not necessarily exceptionless, that
1) it is wrong for one country to attack another;
2) self-defence - including counter attack - is morally defensible.
3) it is morally defensible to form alliances which can be invoked when one's country is attacked.
4) credible deterrence is morally justifiable and, empirically, it kept the nuclear peace between the USA and the USSR for many years.
5) "my country right or wrong" is morally incoherent.
Some correspondents simply agreed with tme but one highly respected American friend put to me the following:
"Something that may be worth considering, if minimizing loss-of-life is a goal in Iraq. There appear to be 3 options.
Appeasement: A nasty word nowadays and the US has tried it. Befriending Saddam in his war with Iran enabled him to carry on an enormously costly war from the loss-of-life perspective. Millions died.
Next on the list is containment. According to a recent, conservative estimate published in the Economist, the deaths of 360,000 children may be directly attributable to the containment regime of the last 11 years.
Rather than going to his people, the money from the food-for-oil program operated under UN sanctions pretty much went elsewhere under Saddam's control.
War, on the other hand, cost the allies about 240 dead and 770 wounded. On the other side, about 10,000 soldiers and civilians died. With better technology, those numbers might be reduced. Urban warfare might
put it higher. In the end, it might be a wash.
War, in fact, may save a tremendous number of lives."
My correspondent then goes on to say, in a later e-mail,
"In the end, should invading forces be attacked with
poison gas or biological agents, or should those forces discover stockpiles of those weapons, previously undeclared or declared as destroyed by the Iraqi regime, I will be interested to see if there is any change in world opinion".
Right and Wrong are indeed difficult matters.
Perhaps common sense and a little eclecticism might be better than all the theorising . Proclamation of this and that might be less productive than utilitarian guidelines to which exceptions are recognised as inevitable and are the best we can do and the best we really need to do.