Re: Just war (NJC)

[sl . m]

Hi Vince,

First, please accept that omission is as important in morality as action. You are advocating no war. This, too, will claim lives. The lives lost will be those of Iraqi dissidents, or anyone remotely suspected of being one. And if Saddam develops a nuclear weapon, there will be many more lives lost in the future, inside and outside Iraq.

I wasn't "moralizing", as you put it, when I wrote in my previous post about Hitler, just following the argument. If you argue that other nations have the right to choose their own form of government, and that we should never interfere, it follows that we shouldn't have interfered with the government of the Third Reich. If, on the other hand, the argument is that we should SOMETIMES interfere, then you have to spell out the conditions under which interference is justified.

I can't see how you equate this argument with bin Laden's. Two points in response:

1. Bin Laden has spelled out the conditions under which an attack from him is acceptable i.e. if a nation is not strictly Islamic and supports Israel. But there is no moral argument in this position. He might just as well have said he'll launch an attack if any of us wear pink trousers on Saturdays. For interference in another country's affairs to be just, you have to spell out the MORAL conditions that would justify interference, and they would have to include either a direct attack on your vital interests (which would make it self-defence), or an abuse of human rights inside that country, which you can rectify. This last condition is important. You have to be able to do a better job than the government you're attacking. And you can't be a crazed relativist about this, because otherwise you'll have to argue that, just because bin Laden BELIEVES he would improve America by forcing American women to wear the veil, that gives him the right to try to facilitate that improvement. But not all beliefs are correct. At some point, you have to ditch relativism and be prepared to say "this is better than that" -- and in this case that would mean saying: "America's idea of human rights is better than bin Laden's", and if you don't agree with that, then we have no shared morality.

When I argue in favour of interference, I'm not saying we can enter willy-nilly into another government's affairs. But when that government is killing millions of its own people, as Hitler did, or is torturing thousands of dissidents, as Saddam is doing, then there is a clear moral basis in favour of action by third parties. In the same way that you, as an individual, have a moral and legal right to detain (using violence if necessary) a man in the street if you see him attack a child, similarly as a nation, we have the moral right to interfere in a way that puts an end to abuse. Stress: in a way that puts an end to it - not in an arbitrary way.

2. Bin Laden attacks; he does not interfere with government, in the sense of trying to change or improve it. He launched a mindless attack on a civilian target using other civilians as bombs, an attack that had no chance of success (where 'success' is defined, in his own terms, as persuading or forcing America to become Islamic, or persuading or forcing America to stop supporting Israel). I can't think of anything further away from the concept of just war than that. America is planning an invasion, not an attack. They plan to help the people of Iraq, to rebuild the economy, and they plan to involve Iraq's Arab neighbours in that process, and then leave. Whether you agree or disagree with it, you have to concede that it isn't mindless vandalism.

You asked who makes the decisions in my framework i.e. who decides when interference is just. It's not a question of who, but what - what conditions make the difference between something being right and wrong? The answer is that there is a 2,500 year old body of knowledge, stretching back to Socrates, defining the concepts of "goodness" and "justice". Our sense of right and wrong comes down to us via that body of knowledge. There is a similar body of knowledge about just war.

If we were dealing with something on the margins, I could see where you were going with this. But Saddam Hussein's Iraq is as clear a case of a people living in hell as any I can think of.

There ARE no moral arguments against overthrowing him, so long as it's done in a proportionate manner i.e. with as little loss of life as possible, and so long as the Americans stick around to make sure that a better government is put in place and that the country doesn't just sink into anarchy.

Vince wrote:
Remembering your previous attacks upon Islam and advocating of
rejecting people "out of hand" I hardly wish to entrust you with the
ability to fairly and objectively be the arbitrator of morality on the
international scene.

Sarah replied:
When I talk about morality, I'm not moralizing or trying to be an arbiter of morality. I did my degree in philosophy and I specialized in moral philosophy as a postgraduate. I'm constructing arguments and following them, and trying to do it with facts, and not ideology.

Vince wrote:
Saddem Hussein is a neighborhood bully. Unfortunately, my country is
prepared to act in the same way. There has been nothing advanced that
distinguishes one side from the other. . .

Sarah replied:
You can't mean that. Nothing has been advanced that distinguishes America or the UK from Iraq?? To quote Tony Blair again -- a good test of a country is whether people are trying to get into it or out of it. If you were to open Iraq's borders tomorrow, the only people left would be Saddam and his missus, and probably not even her.

Vince wrote:
I have a long standing, life time long, problem with people who advocate policies that they are not
affected by.

Sarah wrote:
Fair point, but do you apply it to yourself? You are advocating policies that will keep the Iraqi people in shackles. What do you say to them?

Vince wrote:
You want to go to war, but you will not go to war yourself personally, you will go to war with other people's children.

Sarah wrote:
I agree. It's easy to be an armchair warrior, and that's a good point. But our armies are volunteers -- they're professionals, they chose to be soldiers. I don't know what the mood is like in America, but in the UK, our soldiers tend to want to fight, because it's what they were trained for, and this attitude is in part what makes them a good army. When you're dealing with a professional army that is willing to fight, and you have decent generals who won't deliberately put their soldiers in bad positions, and you have great equipment, and your government is one that respects human life, then you've got as good a position as possible from which to start a war (and to advocate one, even from the armchair).

But yes, I still think you have a valid point.