David M. Barnes
(845) 938-2494 DSN: 688-2494
On
Nevertheless,
many believe that this military intervention (or any other) while permissible
is not morally obligatory. What moral
ties do we have to the people of
I think
these questions however seem too dismissive.
Certainly, we view the brutal fighting associated with recent civil wars
with horror, especially when the cost to innocents is so high. Further, regional stability is paramount to
trade, policy, and defense. Ending the
fighting, reducing the arms, and establishing some peace and security in a
region previously wracked by civil war are all generally considered good
ends—ones we should be trying to attain.
Preventing a war seems an even greater good. Even if one believes that we in the western
community have no business answering every call for help in every far-flung
region of the world, she cannot deny that the loss of innocent lives is a
tragedy. So if our conscience recognizes
the dire problems facing these people, might our ethical make-up demand some
action? This is not such an easy
question to answer. International intervention,[5]
by any workable definition, involves the intrusion of forces, supplies, and/or
observers into the territory of another state.
Intervening into the affairs of another state by its very nature is a
violation of that state’s sovereignty.
Thus, any proposal that obligates, let alone permits, intervention has
to address these issues.
There
are various arguments for why humanitarian intervention is morally permissible,
even (in some cases) morally obligatory.
Furthermore, large portions of moral writings recently published on the question
of intervention are limited to deontological theories. They are interpretations and applications of
deontological normative ethics and concern themselves with whether an
intervention can be obligatory because it would be wrong not to intervene.[6]
But these views could lead to a prima facie duty to intervene or even an
intervention categorical imperative.
Consequentialist proponents of intervention on the other hand also face
other potential shortcomings. These
pitfalls include an objection of unforeseen consequences and an objection
regarding the problem of providing continuing aid. Perhaps we need to look at the decision to
intervene in a different light. We
should not be looking specifically at which acts are right or wrong because
views as proposed by deontological and consequential theories often fail to
capture the essence of moral behavior—i.e. what it means to be good—and
they often are severally challenged by their own limitations.[7] While these theories have their merits, I
propose that we address the question of intervention by focusing on a
character-based framework: What kind of state do we want to be: a just and
moral state or an unjust, immoral state?
What I propose is that good states will intervene for humanitarian
reasons. Furthermore, intervention
itself may be a good, and intervention may sometimes be necessary for a state
to be morally good.
But
first allow me to digress. Aristotle
thought that Man becomes morally good by performing good acts—thereby
habituating morally good behavior.[8] Similarly, if states can act as agents, then
they must habituate acts to develop as moral states. Another words, in order for a state to be a
morally good state, the state must perform good, moral acts. Although the concept of a morally good state
may seem like a stretch, historical and ethical precedents exist. Apart from the international legal position
of a state’s right of sovereignty, Hegel and other philosophers have suggested
that states also enjoy the right of moral autonomy in addition to
sovereignty. Political philosopher
Gerard Elfstrom also proposed that “nation-states themselves possess a moral
autonomy analogous to the moral autonomy possessed by individual human beings.”
[9]
Therefore, if states posses a moral autonomy, then they can also act as moral
agents, even as morally good ones.
The separate issue is
whether an intervention is a good.
(Certainly not all interventions are good. In fact, some may use the guise of
humanitarian help to mask other intentions.)[10] If intervention is indeed a good, then good
states will intervene because the states are de facto morally good. Furthermore, it seems that in some cases,
states ought to intervene to continue to develop as a morally good state.
First I
will present some background on the virtuous individual and how she develops a
virtuous nature; I will call this virtuous individual the Morally Good
Guy. Next, I will show that states can
be virtuous and thus should act in a virtuous manner. Since the Morally Good State seeks to maintain
its morally good nature by being good and acting good, I will show how
intervention is a good. Thus, the
morally good state intervenes as a habitation of its good nature.
Are
we a morally good state? Perhaps. We certainly like to believe we are. Most of the time, however, we consider
ourselves a superpower—a name which often connotes ideas of power: military,
political, and financial, and also abuse.
Does this mean that as a morally good state we are a “good”
superpower? Do we as the sole superpower
have international obligations? I think
the answer to both these questions is “yes.”
The name “superpower” can entail obligation. But with this obligation comes the danger of
over-involvement or even abuse of our influential role. I will discuss this superpower dilemma and
its impact on our country’s decision to intervene.
Should
we as a superpower even worry about intervention outside our sphere of national
interests? Henry Kissinger raises
several issues with the intervention in
The Morally Good Guy[12]
I
like to consider myself a good person.
In fact, I would bet that most everyone reading this paper thinks of
themselves as being good. Although we
sometimes wish our children would behave well, stop tattling, or do the right
thing, we really hope they grow to be
a good person. I want my son to meet a nice person one day. But what does it mean to be a good
person? Put another way, when we say X
is a good person, what does the predicate “is a good person” mean?
If
we adopted these same virtues as Aristotle for our MGG, we could say that “is a
good person” is roughly equivalent to “is a person with virtues of courage,
temperance, liberality, …”
S´:
‘is a good person’ = ‘is a person with virtues of courage, temperance, and
liberality…’
In a crude
bastardizing of set symbology it might look like this:
S´´: X is a good person = X S {courage, temperance, and
liberality, …}
But are
courage, temperance, and liberality the only virtues? Could there be others?
Other virtue ethicists have proposed
other sets of virtues. Aristotle himself
refers to a “catalogue of virtues” in Book II, Chapter 7. Christianity thought that faith, love, hope,
prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice were the virtues that should guide
our lives; while wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice were thought of as
virtues by Plato and others, and the virtues of courage, patience, and leniency
are discussed by Mayo.[13] We could also consider benevolence, honesty,
considerateness, or even beneficence.
Although identifying which virtues make up the set of virtues for the
MGG is an important task, we do not need to identify them here in order to look
at some of the MGG’s obligations. Let us
assume that there are three and only three virtues that a morally good person
needs to have; for this project the set of virtues necessary and sufficient for
a MGG are I, J, and K.[14] Thus,
MGG:
X is a good person = X S {I, J, and
K}
How then does the MGG come to possess these virtues? It is a matter of self-development. Furthermore, it is through this very process of self-development that the MGG becomes obligated. What obligates the MGG comes from the very virtues themselves because the person develops the virtues through habit, and habit entails performing some act or act type more than once. The MGG must do good to habituate good and to be good. Aristotle wrote
but the virtues we get by
first exercising them,
For the things we have to
learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them,
; so too we become just by doing just acts,
temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts (Book II, 1103a27-1103b1).[15]
To be good
it is necessary to do good. Or as BG
Wakin might say, “the way to do is to be.”[16]
As
Aristotle suggests, this process of habituating virtue is not a quick
process. Rather it requires a lifetime
of developing a virtuous nature by performing virtuous acts. Only by consistently instantiating a virtue
can one habituate oneself to it. Thus
the MGG with a set of virtues {I, J, K, …} must habituate the virtue of J; she
must perform J-boosting acts. If Aj
is a J-boosting act available to X, and X can perform Aj, and there
are no other J-boosting acts available to X, then X may be obligated to perform
Aj.
“Aha,” one might ask, “what if X has
more than one J-boosting acts available to her?” The choice between acts is not unrealistic;
in a lifetime, we are faced with countless of choices. Yet, X must act to develop her J-virtue. Tony Pfaff writes,
[The
MGG], when confronted with a choice, acts to instantiate the appropriate
virtue. He does not calculate the effect
instantiating this virtue will have.
Being virtuous, in and of itself, is good. Being uncompromisingly committed to being
trustworthy, courageous, etc. is then the only way to be sure that, …, you are
doing the right thing.[17]
According
to Michael Smith, Aristotle (in 1252b27-1253a1) believed “… the goal of
political organization is not merely to provide what is basic for
survival. Rather, the goal of the political
community is the good life: of attaining happiness, of engaging in virtuous
actions, …, and, in general, of showing the benefits which only life in common
can provide.”[18] If Aristotle’s idea is true—that the raison d’état of the political
government is the well-being of the community—then it may be possible for
morally good states to exist, ones who pursue the good life for their
communities.
The key assumption here is that there is a correlation between states and individuals as responsible agents.[19] Thus if states can be responsible as individuals are responsible, can we not say that “X is a good person” can equate to “X is a good state” when we increase scope? Assuming MGSs exist, we modify MGG to reflect the change in scope from individual to state to get
MGS:
X is a good state = X S {I, J, and
K}
Thus a
state must habituate and instantiate I-virtues, J-virtues, and K-virtues to be
a MGS.[20] The MGS with a set of virtues {I, J, K, …}
must habituate the virtue of J; it must perform J-boosting acts. Much like the MGG, if X is a MGS, Aj
is a J-boosting act available to X, and X can perform Aj, and there
are no other J-boosting acts available to X, then X may be obligated to perform
Aj.
Is Intervention a Good?
“The good has been well
defined as that which all things aim.”[21]
You
witness a mugging in an alley while walking downtown. An old man is lying on the ground yelling,
“Help! I need help!” What do you do? Should you intervene? You were just walking along minding your own
business. Suppose your only two
alternatives are to either assist the injured man or continue walking
past. If you stop to render assistance,
you will be late to your destination, but you will also be helping the injured
man. Yet, if you continue walking you
might feel guilty. Are you obligated to
intervene? Some argue that by ignoring
the cries for help, you will be violating a right of the injured man—the right
of assistance. Elfstrom says, “[You]
will be criticized for violating the universal right of all individuals to receive
assistance when they are in serious difficulty.…”[22] But what of the virtue of beneficence? Might being good entail being
beneficent? Certainly, we view helping
others as good and helping total strangers even more so. And wouldn’t helping the old man instantiate
your being beneficent?
Normally, obligations from
beneficence like the above scenario are discussed in terms of rights. The universal right to receive assistance is
the foundation for the so-called “Good Samaritan Laws.” It has become illegal to pass an accident
scene and not render some appropriate form of assistance. This right to receive assistance generates an
obligation to all of us as witnesses or bystanders to a disaster, an accident,
or to a crime.[23] As one commentator writes:
The
story of the Good Samaritan is an example of the right of all individuals to
receive assistance from others in time of need.
The Good Samaritan’s obligation is the duty correlative to this right …
our obligation to assist those who are suffering violations of their rights is
a sub-class of our general right to assistance in a time of need….[24]
Under any other circumstances, the
old man in the mugging example is obligated to look after himself. Thus, the intervening agent has no
obligations to intervene in the man’s life while the man can care for
himself. At any other time, the agent’s
intervention might be considered interference in another’s affairs. However, because the old man was incapable of
acting for himself, intervention on his behalf became the duty of the agent
walking by.
The
Samaritan only has a duty in this situation because the stranger obviously is
not in a position to look after himself.
[Normally,] it would be the duty and the prerogative of the stranger to
look after himself, and it would be the normal duty of the Samaritan to refrain
from interfering in his affairs. It is
only because this normal circumstance has been overturned that it is no longer
presumptuous but is instead the duty of the Samaritan to intercede in the vital
affairs of the stranger.[25]
One adopted convention in the
discussion of ethics and moral behavior is the notion of rights, but I believe
the discussion of rights is somewhat suspect. Rather, as we changed the focus
from “What should I do?” to “What
should I be?,” the above example
illustrates the obligations of the MGG.
We not only consider the Samaritan’s act good, we also consider her
beneficent. The Samaritan renders aid
because she is good. She is
instantiating the virtue of beneficence—thereby aiming to the good.
Similarly, in the international
community, states are normally obligated to refrain from interfering in one
another’s affairs. However, should a
state or a group of individuals lose their ability to protect themselves, the
international community has an obligation to assist. A MGS’s beneficence
obligates it to help. As the Samaritan
was obligated to help the mugging victim, the MGS must render aid to the
victims of the other state. Intervention
becomes obligatory.
One
problem with tying the development of virtue through habit to the act is the
mindset of the individual acting. Merely
performing the act accidentally is not enough to instantiate the virtue. The agent must be acting to
instantiate the virtue. The Samaritan
would not be beneficent if she were not in the mindset of being beneficent; the
mindset must be aligned with the act.
For example, a soldier inadvertently throwing a grenade and destroying
an enemy bunker because he tripped is not being brave; his act does not
instantiate his being brave. His fellow
soldiers may think he is brave, but he was not being brave. Likewise, the
corresponding intention is necessary for the MGG or MGS to instantiate being
morally good. If conducting an
intervention or declaring a war instantiates a good to aim for, then a MGS must
have just cause.
A
state can declare war only if the cause is just. Similarly, the international community must
show just cause when it resorts to intervention in a sovereign state. Furthermore, I believe the suffering of the
innocents is just cause for the international community to intervene. Additionally, if an operation was intended to
keep warring factions apart (peacemaking) or enforce a peace settlement
(peacekeeping), the cause would also be just.[27] Thus, for an intervention to have a just
cause, the cause must meet one or more of the following: prevent genocide,
prevent ethnic cleansing, prevent other serious human rights violations, or it
must be undertaken for the purpose of peacemaking, peacekeeping, or providing a
rapid method for distributing humanitarian aid.
Applying the tenet of just cause will help ensure interventions are
undertaken for the right reasons.
Ensuring an intervention has just cause aligns the act and intention to
the virtue the MGS is trying to instantiate.
The Superpower Dilemma.
Is the
Yet I think that this state-egoist view is too narrow
for two reasons. First, completely
ignoring the plight of others seems to fly in the face of the very founding
ideals of our country. Certainly looking
after the interest of the American citizens is the top priority, but it
shouldn’t be the only one. The U.S.
Catholic Bishops wrote:
Geography
and political divisions do not alter the fact that we are all one human family,
and indifference to the suffering of numbers of that family is not a moral
option.… [Furthermore,] military intervention may sometimes be justified to
ensure that starving children can be fed or that whole populations will not be
slaughtered.[28]
Second, the
Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War left the
But our superpower stature does not
guarantee our intervening, even when the costs to refuse are so high. For example we delayed and delayed our
intervention in the Former Yugoslavia,[30]
and we completely ignored the plight of hundreds of thousands in
Michael Peceny identifies the
problem of deciding when to intervene in Democracy at the points of Bayonets. He writes,
This
is precisely the pattern of interventionist behavior that one should expect of
any liberal state. Cultural values cause
liberal states such as the
However, it is this same debate over where to intervene and when to intervene that highlights that we still consider intervention a good and that we still consider ourselves a good state.
Nevertheless,
we as a superpower need to exercise care.
Certainly, the superpower has the ability to intervene, but what is to
keep a superpower from intervening to further its own agenda?[32] The answer quite simply is nothing but an
equal or greater force. No, the
superpower must aim for the good: countries committed to being MGS must
instantiate those virtues that aim for the good—the mindset must be aligned
with the act. As I mentioned, his fellow
soldiers may think the clumsy soldier is brave, but he was not being brave.
The
We cannot ignore the human toll. Serbian ethnic cleansing has been pursued
through mass murders, systematic beating and …rapes…prolonged shelling of
innocents in Sarajevo and elsewhere, forced displacement of entire villages,
inhumane treatment of prisoners in detention camps, the blockading of relief to
sick and starving citizens…. Our
conscience revolts at the idea of accepting such brutality.[33]
In this paper I sought to
show that if intervention is indeed a good, then good states will intervene
because the states are de facto morally good.
Furthermore, it seems that in some cases, states ought to intervene to
continue to develop as a morally good state.
Are
we a morally good state? I believe we
are. I also believe that we as the sole
superpower have international obligations.
But we need to watch for the danger of over-involvement and abuses of
our influential role.
I
agree with Kissinger that we need to clearly define our national
interests. But I believe those interests
will include periodic interventions.
Even in a Realpolitik world
our perceptions of the role of a superpower is changing, and we must undertake
those interventions obligated by our morally good character.
When
international atrocities are severe and the cost of ending the conflict
outweighs the potential losses, there appears to be little strength in arguing
for non-intervention. Nevertheless,
there remains one formidable barrier to humanitarian intervention. Michael Howard writes, “The most difficult
problems that now confront us are those not so much ethical or even military as
political. Even if we accept that there
is a duty to intervene, how do we in democracies generate the will to do so?”[34]
Yes,
the norm is not to intervene in other peoples’ countries; the norm is
self-determination. But not for these
people, the victims of tyranny, ideological zeal, ethnic hatred, who are not
determining anything for themselves, who urgently need help from the
outside. And it isn’t enough to wait
until the tyrants, the zealots, and the bigots have done their filthy work and
then rush food and medicines to the ragged survivors. Whenever the filthy work can be stopped, it
should be stopped. And if not by us, the
supposedly decent people of this world, then by whom?[35]
The obligations for intervention by
us and other MGSs will not end the human suffering and depredations. Yet, we as members of the international
community must act. First, we must
acknowledge that human suffering is our business. Then, only when we recognize that massive
suffering constitutes a threat to international peace, will we universally
condone interventions to stop the atrocities.
Justified interventions will lead to the international community’s
recognition that widespread indiscriminate killing is unacceptable and must be
stopped. The MGSs committing forces now
to stop these depredations will allow us to continue to grow as morally good
states, and intervening now will prevent us from having to commit troops later
to repair a shattered peace.
NOTES
[1] ©Copyright by David M. Barnes
2002. This is the shortened version of
“The Morally Good State and Its Intervention Obligations” I presented at JSCOPE
2002. I want to thank the audience for
the great questions, comments, and feedback I received after the
presentation. I have tried to capture
some of them here, and any problems remaining are my own. This paper reflects my own views only and not
the Army’s or any official policy.
2 Donald G. McNeil Jr., “NATO
Conditionally Approves Troops for
[3] Ian Fisher, “ Macedonians Say they
Meet Rules for NATO Troops”
[4] Roderick von Lipsey, “Intervening
Mechanisms,” in Breaking the Circle: A Framework for Conflict Intervention,
ed. Roderick von Lipsey (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 56.
[5] By “intervention,” I am referring to
the definition: Intervention =df an agency interference, by force or coercion, into
the affairs of a target (i) to protect the agency’s nationals, (ii) to protect
interests considered vital to the agency, (iii) to support succession, (iv) for
counter-intervention, or (v) to prevent or to put a halt to serious violations
of human rights. In addition, I will
define a “humanitarian intervention.” as Humanitarian Intervention =df an
intervention authorized by relevant organs of the internationally recognized
authority where states are voting members for the sole purpose of preventing or
putting a halt to a serious violation of fundamental human rights; such that
this interference has (a) a humanitarian cause, (b) a declared humanitarian
end, (c) a humanitarian outcome, and (d) is conducted through humanitarian
means. These include any humanitarian-type
military supported intervention such as military interventions with
humanitarian intent (threatened air strikes in Kosovo), military supported
distribution of humanitarian aid (Rwanda, Northern Iraq, Somalia), and
peacekeeping missions (Bosnia, and Cyprus).
For a full discussion see Chapter Two, “ What is Intervention?” in David
M. Barnes, The Problem of Intervention, (University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, 1999).
[6] Some of these recent publications
include Julia Driver, “The Ethics of Intervention,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research LVII, no. 4 (December 1997): 851-870; Gerard
Elfstrom, “On Dilemmas of Intervention,” Ethics 93 (July 1983): 709-725;
Pierre Laberge, “Humanitarian Intervention: Three Ethical Positions,” Ethics
and International Affairs 9 (1995): 15-36; Michael J. Smith, “Ethics and
Intervention,” Ethics and International Affairs 3 (1989): 1-26 and
“Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues,” Ethics and
International Affairs 12 (1998): 63-79; and Kok-Chor Tan, “Military
Intervention as a Moral Duty,” Public Affairs Quarterly vol. 9 no. 1
(Jan 1995): 29-46.
[7] Alasdair MacIntyre does a good job
of outlining these limitations in After Virtue, (Notre Dame: Univ. of
Notre Dame Press, 1984). For an in-depth
discussion of interventions through the lens of these other theories, see
Chapters Three and Four, “ A Deontological Approach to Intervention” and “A
Consequentialist Argument for Intervention” in David M. Barnes, The Problem
of Intervention, (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1999).
[8] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
Book II, Chapter 1.
[9] Gerard Elfstrom, “On Dilemmas of
Intervention,” Ethics 93 (July 1983): 713. See also Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust
Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 53-54.
[10] The Argentinean invasion of the
Falkland Islands during 1982, the civil war in El Salvador from 1979 to 1990,
the Gulf War during 1991, the August 2, 1914, German invasion of Luxembourg,
the Vietnam War (1965-75), and the UN deployment to Angola (1989-1995) all have
something in common – they are all examples of international military
intervention of one type or another. However, as I mentioned earlier, I take a
more restrictive definition of intervention and humanitarian intervention in
particular. My restriction, however, has
little bearing on a state’s decision to use the rhetoric for its own benefit.
[11] Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy,
(New York: Touchtone Book, 1994).
Kissinger’s book is a look at the history of diplomacy and the history
of
[12] Morally Good Guy. The Morally Good Guy or MGG is a convention I
adopted in 1999 to help teach virtue ethics in my undergraduate Introduction to
Philosophy and Ethics class at the
[13]
William Fankena, “A Critique of Virtue-Based Ethics,” in Ethics,
2d ed., (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973) and Mayo, Ethics and the
Moral Life.
[14] I, J, and K are arbitrary
virtues. Whatever virtues are necessary
and sufficient for a MGG to be good is not vital for this project as long as we
can assume that one (J in this case) exists.
[15] Aristotle, (Book II,
1103a27-1103b1).
[16] BG (Ret.) Malham M. Wakin, former
chair of the United States Air Force Academy Philosophy Department.
[17] Charles A. Pfaff, “Virtue Ethics and
Leadership” Presented at JSCOPE 1998, 12.
[18] Michael Smith Human Dignity and the Common Good in the
Aristotelian—Thomastic Tradition.
[19] The whole idea that states or other
collective agency is highly contentious and has far reaching consequences. One way to look at the notion of states as collective
agents is the theory of emerging states. (Thanks to a commentator at this
year’s JSCOPE ). There are others as
well. Larry May lays out the
difficulties inherent when discussing collective agency and an augment for
collective responsibility in The Morality of Groups: Collective
Responsibility, Group-based Harm, and Corporate Rights, (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).
Thus, I leave the debate for a different forum.
[20] I, J, and K are arbitrary
virtues. Whatever virtues are necessary
and sufficient for a MGS to be good is not vital for this project as long as we
can assume that one (J in this case) involves intervention as a good.
[21]
[22] Elfstrom, 718.
[23] Additionally, recent legislation has
focused on protecting Good Samaritans from unforeseen consequences when the
intervention unintentionally causes additional injury.
[24] Elfstrom, 719.
[25] Elfstrom, 719-20.
[26] For a full discussion of applying Just War tenets to interventions see David M. Barnes, “Interventions and the Just War Tradition,” in The Problem of Intervention, (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1999), presented at JSCOPE 2000.
[27] For a further discussion see David Fisher’s “Some Corner of a Foreign Field,” in Some
Corner of a Foreign Field: Intervention and World Order, ed. Roger
Williamson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 29.
[28] US Roman Catholic Bishop’s
Conference, The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace discussed in Roger
Williamson, “An Ethical Framework – Or Just Intervention,” in Some Corner of
a Foreign Field, ed. Roger Williamson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.,
1998), 255.
[29] Michael Walzer, “The Politics of
Rescue,” Dissent (Winter 1995),
38.
[30] Richard Holbrooke, To End a War,
(New York: Random House, 1998).
Holbrooke offers a unique, in-depth study into the policy decisions
involving the eventual commitment of US troops in
[31] Michael Peceny, Democracy at the
Point of Bayonets (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1999),
180.
[32] Thanks to Dr. Thomas J. Nagy for
bring this issue to my attention at last year’s JSCOPE. Although he seemed to agree that states could
be obligated to intervene, and superpowers had a special obligation based on
their ability to project power, he was still concerned that a state that
powerful could intervene for all the wrong reasons.
[33] Warren Christopher, “New Steps
towards conflict resolution in the Former Yugoslavia.”
[34] Michael Howard, “Introduction,” in Some
Corner of a Foreign Field: Intervention and World Order, ed. Roger
Williamson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 12.
[35] Walzer, “The Politics,” 41.