Moral Claims in World Affairs

Preface

Establishing national needs and the policies that flow from them as not only contingent or expedient (often, indeed, despite questions of contingency or expediency) but also ‘right’ and ‘due’, is meant to lend them a special and pervasive force. Statesmen alert their audiences in this way to the fact that whatever the claims being made, they pertain to more than reflex or merely reasoned matters, but moral ones as well. They signal an emphatic commitment, a state of enhanced resolve. Whatever is claimed merits close consideration, since it will carry more than its ordinary load of the values that any deed or decision affirms or denies.

For reasons like these practitioners of world affairs are tempted to invest even their most commonplace behaviour with a sense of moral sanctity. This tends over time to debase the currency, and negate any added significance the force of a moral as opposed to an incidental or instrumental demand might convey. The effect of a sense of righteousness or of unmet obligation comes to be lost; statesmen themselves are accused of cant or nationalistic self-justification. And yet the practice persists, and the charge of hypocrisy is vigorously denied.

The rise of the modern nation-state in a system that is ‘ungoverned’ in the more familiar sense is one obvious reason for the continued existence of these rather more fervent overtones to world affairs. Political sovereignty predisposes ethical sovereignty. The representatives of countries that compete for predominance or for privileged access to scarce resources will tend to buttress their behaviour in morally exclusivist as well as nationalistic terms. Individuals and groups within or without such countries, pressing rival claims to speak on behalf of some or all of the people, will likewise appeal to standards transcending those defined by ruling elites. Leaders of weaker states on the one hand, whether self-established or possessing some more general mandate, will declaim their moral superiority and thereby seek to compensate for the frustrations and insecurities inherent in their lack of tangible power. They will assert their ‘due’ share of global assets and reserves in the face of those who monopolise them, and lay ‘rightful’ claim to idiosyncratic objectives with a sense of conviction not apparent in their expressions of ‘interest’ alone. Stronger states on the other hand will reinforce their manifest power with declarations of moral intent, and resist any contentions they find contrary on the implicit or explicit grounds that such claims remain uninformed by the greater power’s own superior vision of the good world. This vision is never depicted as a purely private one however. It is usually understood to possess public relevance to the global populace at large.

The following collection of essays is specifically addressed to this question of partisan cosmopolitanism. Though not a novel ingress it is a neglected one, and much might be done to elucidate parochial pandemics and their relevance for and impact upon the present-day world. A preliminary attempt might also be made to pass behind the plethora of competing value systems to delineate the general nature of moral claims, and their consequences for global equity and order. Here we perceive the possible emergence of a universal moral realm, based upon the notion of distributive justice perhaps. To go beyond this would be to offer some idea of what the substantive dictates of such a realm might be; suggest the sort of area from which its logical justification might be drawn; and examine the systemic level at which it is likely to be achieved. The field is obviously a large and important one, and though a comprehensive discussion would require more than a single volume, an attempt has been made to confront some of these central issues in a coherent and representative way.

Part One outlines a number of the conceptual areas in which contemporary debates proceed. Ralph Pettman attempts in an introductory fashion to outline something of the scope of the subject and of the various forays that have been made to rescue a single body of human ideals from the multitude of possible systems that now prevail. The tension between the ‘statist’ and ‘class’ paradigms of the world system are indicated as analytically central in this regard. J.D.B. Miller denies the applicability of ordinary moral considerations to world affairs, citing group rather than universal ethics as the immediate source of human behaviour, and ‘reasons of state’ rather than the brotherhood of man as the operative principle in global politics. John Vincent elaborates this basically ‘realist’ position, highlighting the whole question of realism versus idealism, the value of equality, and the force of the doctrine of human rights. He sketches clearly the nature of dissent about the relevant ‘levels’ involved (that of the individual, the state, and the ‘society’ of states as a whole), while opting for the second of these levels as the one within which moral claims will be met. Hedley Bull then addresses the issue of ‘human rights’ and attempts to establish what they are, what special questions they raise in the contemporary political arena, and what, in general, we should do about them.

He argues that in terms of world politics the doctrine is a troubled one and that because a priori universal principles of an objective kind do not exist, ethical expectations derived from the Western experience will not necessarily find acceptance in the wider world. Hugh Smith endorses his verdict. The notion of levels is canvassed again, with a detailed discussion of the single issue of ‘justice’ (which he places prior to that of morality in the political realm), and the attempts that have been made to apply this issue beyond the realm of the nation-state. It is the state in the end, he argues, that is the most effective distributor of moral as well as material goods. Arthur Burns resurrects the dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as a necessary complement to the more familiar ethical distinction between ‘justice’ and ‘injustice’, and relates what he sees as a scriptural theme to the practice of armed collectives. Injustice he says, has its place solely in the dimension of actions and institutions; but evil belongs also to the dimension of disposition, and indeed has its source there… Injustice can sometimes be redressed by action, and free men are under constant obligation to do so. Evil can only be redeemed. And to demonstrate the malignant or salutary nature of contemporary Western beliefs he concentrates upon one theme in particular: the ‘balance of terror’ and its contribution to global peace.

Part Two adopts a more concrete perspective. Here moral claims are considered in situ, as they emerge from specific situations that involve important moral conflicts, and as they are represented in the policies of two of the Powers. Jan Pettman reviews the complex values that contend in the African, and particularly the Southern African arena. The compromising presence of comprador elites, and the manifest failure of African countries to extricate themselves from external domination and exploitation, has been reflected in the shift, especially among radical liberation movements, from demands for ‘black government’ only to demands for social revolution throughout. The widespread ideological reperception required is unlikely to come about, however, and even more so for those who live under the influence of the monolithic racist regimes of the south. Claims by African leaders and their opponents for moral as well as political-economic autonomy can only be understood in this light. Michael Yahuda selects, in his discussion of China’s foreign policy, from a broad range of ethical precepts lodged therein. The idea he elaborates is that of independence or self-renewal – a concept, he maintains, which conveys a profound moral belief, which derives from extended historical experience, and represents a singular and germane aspect of the Chinese view of a revised political-economic global order. Though not without its ambiguities and ultimately subordinate, in the Maoist canon at least, to the theory of permanent revolution, China’s leaders have sought to edify others, and in particular the inhabitants of the Third World, with this widely disseminated creed. Vendulka Kubálková examines the Soviet concept of morality. She looks, too, at its ideological character, its Marxist heritage, and its fertile ‘New Marxist’ derivations. An appreciation of the vagaries of ethical philosophy since the Russian Revolution, an acquaintance with the working categories and concepts that have provided the framework and many of the puzzles for Soviet thinkers, the features of the ‘moral code’ of the party Programme of 1961, are all basic to our comprehension of Soviet belief and behaviour. Contemporary notions like that of ‘peaceful coexistence’ take on added significance as a result.

It hardly pre-empts what is to follow to say that moral claims are made by diverse actors in global affairs, to multifarious purpose and effect. The self-conscious sense of a supranational system that is said to have characterised the European order of the nineteenth century, or at least, that sense of a shared culture and values displayed by European elites in their dealings with each other, is commonly held to exist no more. Hence the premium often placed upon effective diplomacy. The most strident claims today, however, are those made by representatives of the Third and Fourth Worlds, and these both reinforce and compromise the picture of mankind as one of segmented ‘states’. They not only represent the voices of disadvantaged leaders who seek a redistribution of global power, but they help identify an emergent world system of ‘horizontal’ connections that arches over the considerable expanse of the globe where ‘state’ is a euphemism for whatever regime is recognised as such by other ‘states’, irrespective of the social and economic structures the geographic ‘boundaries’ contain. Reification of the ‘state’ leads to a definition of the minimal content of a universal morality in terms of common acceptance alone, and fails to accommodate the degree of supra-statal co-operation already necessary to exploit more or less discrete populations, and to protect the living standards of affluent countries and Third World elites. And though claims upon the populations of rich states assume an answer in nation-state form, one should ask by whom such answers are actually received? Who makes ‘Third World’ claims? And ultimately on whose behalf? The twentieth-century notion of a pluralistic world is one that, beyond a certain as yet ill-defined point, loses its explanatory power. And a complementary structuralist perception of world politics would be the practical basis for a neo-universalist morality built out of a measure of rational utility and of human requirements, rather than the more familiar contemporary dictates of established access, dishonesty and greed.

Part One: Theory

Moral Claims in World Politics

Ralph Pettman

Moral discourse is an integral aspect of any political conversation. The intrinsic character of the moral dimension makes it all the more surprising, then, when we find how little academic attention has been paid to moral claims in world affairs, and this particularly so given the post-behavioural plea for a return to matters of ‘value’ as well as ‘fact’,[1] the emergence of the issue of justice in the confrontation rhetoric between the global North and South, and the moves made by American President Carter into the realm of human rights. What are the claims, we may ask, made by key actors who dominate the scene, or made on behalf of those who lurk still half-regarded in the wings? Which claims seem justified, and how are they justified, and what general criteria for justification might there be? How do such claims conflict and how are they reconciled? What sanctions do they stand on? What lessons from the study of human societies in their diversity, and from the contemplation of the human condition in general, can be brought to bear? Is it really appropriate for statements about world politics to be couched in terms of ‘morality’ at all?

One can think of many reasons for the lack of attention noted above. There is the tendency, for example, to dismiss moral claims as moralism or as nothing but the rationalisation of interests and desires (a cynical and reductionist stance in this form). There is the problem of establishing standards by which to judge the applicability of a moral system in any particular case.[2] There are, furthermore, the serious meta-ethical problems one encounters in judging the content of a moral system itself, and in establishing what the status of ‘right’ or ‘good’ as opposed to ‘wrong’ or ‘evil’ propositions might entail.[3] Perhaps, too, there is an insidious sense of irrelevance at work, of man as trivial, arrogant, and a little mad.[4] The great world, Bertrand Russell argued, as far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance and are best corrected by a little astronomy.[5]

There is another more obvious explanation for such neglect. Moral expectations are continually disappointed in the confused realm of practical politics, partly because global dilemmas seem different and often incompatible with those we encounter on an individual plane. ‘Power’ and ‘morality’ tend to be dichotomised as a result, and the former is placed prior to the latter in understanding global affairs, And yet moral expectations persist, and continuous attempts are made to close the gap between the political levels of analysis and to discover in mankind one moral community – one ethic-bearing whole.

It would accommodate a transatlantic propensity still prevalent today for clarifying meanings and the complex loan of language, to begin by asking what the character of moral propositions in general might be, at least as represented by the debates that have been waged in the West since the Greeks developed the subject two and a half millennia ago.

The Greek legacy is obviously profound.[6] Socrates and the Sophists attempted in their own way to press important distinctions between a subjective and an objective realm, to discriminate between fact and value, between personal affirmation, social consensus and natural decree. Prised apart in this way, meta-ethical discussion has been dominated ever since by attempts either to bridge the gaps these dichotomies represent or to resist such engineering and to drive the splintered bank-works further apart.

Greek philosophers sought reasons for moral claims other than those of tradition and use. Some seemed to say much more. Through thought alone, they argued, men might recover moral precepts satisfying the concerns of both the individual and the community at the same time. The definitive statement of a set of principles acceptable to all eluded them, though the idea of such a set has been held before theorists ever since, and before the ‘practical’ men that theorists held in thrall.

It was Plato who helped most to consolidate a lasting vision of a moral universe not only accessible to human reason but orderly, harmonious and pure.[7] Against Socratic critiques he erected an abstract intuition of Forms, of ideals inspired by the logic of mathematics that laid up eternal standards whereby human conduct might be assessed. In response, Aristotle arrived at a ‘naturalistic’ doctrine that was not only more pragmatic and more tolerant of human diversity, but also sought rather the satisfaction, albeit in a regular and rational way, of human desires – the happy fulfilment of such personal capacities as naturally obtain. Though contemporary assessments of what has become a perennial debate have seen among other things that attempt to disown it altogether, in one notable case as the unfortunate consequence of linguistic ambiguity,[8] it would seem that there is ample scope still for diverse perspectives, neither bound to personal predilections that prove irrelevant in the social sphere, nor predicated upon a public philosophy oblivious to private capacity or need.[9]

‘Morals’ are social products, held out of habit and self-interest to be sure, but motivated also by emphatic urges like love, and a sense of what is right and due. Human beings learn to prefer particular ways of relating to each other, and standards by which to assess their relationships and to endorse or censure what appear to be sociable or antisocial acts, as part of the general educative process whereby they assimilate expectations of how the world is meant to be. On the whole they seem to value the company and support of their more immediate fellows. Human survival depends upon reciprocal assistance, and a communitarian impulse is a (phylogenetically valuable, even perhaps by now a predetermined)[10] means to this end. Whatever the general motive, however, and whatever we may make of their fundamentals, the resultant behavioural preferences differ greatly in detail from group to group, and they change over time in response to changes in the ‘culture’ or its environment. In an important sense ordinary morality is largely inapplicable at the level of world affairs. Human identification is mostly quite immediate, and on the whole we donate our moral allegiances to the group to which we feel we primarily belong. The moral codes that such groups practice and defend serve group interests, and moral conflicts are inevitably group conflicts as well.

One important problem in the study of world politics, then, is to determine how far the communitarian impulse does or should extend. What unit of analysis may be considered the most appropriate vehicle for moral claims – the individual, the group, the state (and those transnational institutions that possess at least some state-like characteristics), humankind as a whole, or classes of humankind defined in other than geo-political ways (by ‘culture’, for example, or by their relationship to the economic and productive forces that might underpin social forms)? ‘Appropriate’ with respect to what criteria? Given the constant threat of nuclear war or the emergent one of global ecological collapse, the contemporary moral constituency may now be one far removed from the cause of our immediate political concerns, including, it may be argued, the multitudes of those unborn. If a minority holds the power to preserve or destroy the human race as a whole, it may well be enjoined, in principle at least, with obligations to individuals quite remote from it in time and space. Sentiments like these commonly inspire the sort of rhetorical statements that affirm human solidarity.[11] They are rhetorical because global practice reflects competitive values and the radical historical process whereby European patterns have been firmly impressed upon the socio-political configuration of the world.

Are they relevant, however?

I would like to look more closely at what this configuration might be, and its possible consequence for moral claims. There is first, however, the more general question about the impact of present-day knowledge upon social structures, and the properties implicit in the concept of a ‘modernised’ man. Some brief discussion of these properties is warranted before turning to world affairs as such.

Most people are hard-pressed, it seems, to empathise with those not immediately associated with them. There are good reasons for this, partly to do with questions of scale. In the large societies that contemporary systems of industrial production can now support, we tend to think of ourselves as autonomous and isolate, with duties to carry out and entitlements to affirm.[12] In smaller ones, however, it becomes easier to appreciate the workings of effective mutuality[13] and the reciprocal consequences in what people claim and do. If the criterion for assessing our acts is the ‘sociality’ of them, then the purely personal and selfish ones are more likely to be repressed in more intimate surroundings and less likely then to operate at cost to our confreres. The hunter and gatherer [for example] is lucky: he does not have the choice... what for us are virtues are, for him, necessities. We have the choice, and although we insist on intellectually maintaining those same virtues, the discrepancy between them and daily practice becomes increasingly great.[14]

One key phenomenon here is that termed by Max Weber rationalisation; implicit in present-day modes of managing economies and states is a profound preference for regularised means toward the attainment of preordained ends. Indeed, technique transforms ends into means,[15] seemingly independent of what we might otherwise intend. Thus, for example: Technical economic analysis is substituted for the older political economy included in which was a major concern with the moral structure of economic activity... Politics in turn becomes an arena for contention among rival techniques... Purposes drop out of sight and efficiency becomes the central concern.[16]

Describing the process whereby human beings have become the victims of a technicised economy and a bureaucratic state, rendered, that is, progressively more alienated and anonymous, has become a sociological industry in its own right. These ideas, however, stem in the Westernised world from a deeper critique again. Built into modern science is a pitiless and impassive vision of fate that springs originally from the Greek tragedians and the Ionian world-view. Beside this heritage ran a naïve revolt against the medieval scholastic divines that issued in a non-rational faith in the order of things, a faith science has never cared to justify or to explain and one that has remained blandly indifferent to its refutation by Hume.[17] This revolt presupposes as ultimate fact an irreducible... material, spread throughout space... senseless, valueless, purposeless... following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being.[18] All of which may have proved enormously productive in understanding physical, chemical and biological events but has had ambiguous consequences for society at large. Whatever instrumental advances now obtain, such a powerful presupposition has generated universalistic truths quite remote from ordinary human experience – a source of liberation and enrichment, but paradoxically one of impoverishment as well. It has sought explicit parallels between social and material affairs, and applied like methodological precepts to both.

Many analysts have now drawn attention to the repressive effects of technological civilisation, and severely qualified the equation intrinsic to the spirit of the age that science = reason = all good things.[19] To what lengths will public faith in the wisdom and prowess of the technocracy extend? Roszak enquires. He answers his own question in very pessimistic terms. That faith has already demonstrated itself to be without limit or qualification. How else is one to interpret public compliance... with the policy of thermonuclear deterrence? Here is a technological system... on which we allow our very survival as a species to depend. It is a reckless commitment, predicated upon a willingness to do genocide which is the moral scandal of the age. Yet we take both the hazard and the ethical obscenity of the matter in our stride...[20]

One may question this diagnosis in whole or in part. It is too pitiless, we reply, in its conception of science as a life-denying force. While closing down some options, technocratic and bureaucratised states may open up others; they are not only the constrained and homogenising agents they might on first glance appear. The pernicious effects of a preference for regularity and expediency is counter-balanced by the fact that many new demands are made upon our sense of responsibility and of judgement, and one should not overlook the sheer number of people such systems can sustain. The balance-of-terror, the cataclysm so graphically poised before contemporary consciousness, presents extreme danger indeed, and a range of solemn opportunities as well. The ethical debate about nuclear weapons testifies to this. Scientifically induced eco-crises may well condemn a global host to poverty and despair, but many more are also given the chance to ask what their lives signify, and in their answers and foreign policies to define what it means to be humane.

This can be only the most summary of conclusions, but allowing for the fact that general questions about science and society are very diffuse indeed, they do provide a much needed perspective upon particular problems about contemporary political forms and the moral claims these predispose. While such questions can be pursued no further here, they permeate all else.

***

The most common conceptual paradigm in the discipline places primary stress upon ‘states’ and ‘nation-states’. This has led theorists to discriminate between political and personal ethics, between the moral burdens of statesman and those of their less strategically situated fellows who do not have to secure the welfare of the political whole. It is not far from a focus on the ‘state’ to doctrines