I ran across an excellent essay on whether the Iraq War can be seen as morally right, even if you believe W lied. The author argues you can, and that most liberals are unable to make this distinction. I believe Bush both told the truth and that this war is a moral good. Try not to attack the source, which is a conservative blog. what about the argument? is liberty for the Iraqi people a moral good, even if you believe we went to war for oil? http://techcentralstation.com/123103A.html -- Dodging the Issue By Keith Burgess-Jackson _Published_12/31/2003_ I've written several TCS columns and several blog entries on the war in Iraq. The point I've tried to make, probably unsuccessfully, is that whether the war is justified, morally, is independent of all of the following: 1. What motivated President Bush in waging it. 2. What reasons President Bush adduced in support of it. 3. Whether President Bush believed it to be justified. Some readers claimed that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the motive with which it is performed, but I don't know of any moral theorist who holds that view. Motives bear on character and hence on the person. Actions are evaluated by other features, such as their consequences or whether they show respect for persons. It follows that good people can act wrongly and bad people rightly. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) put it best: tilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty or the hope of being paid for his trouble; he who betrays the friend that trusts him is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations. (Utilitarianism, chap. 2 [1861]) Even Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who is sometimes said (incorrectly) to have held the view that the rightness or wrongness of an act depends on its motive, distinguished the two questions. Here is moral philosopher Mark Timmons, an expert on Kant: Kant distinguishes actions that fulfill one's obligations (actions in accordance with duty) from actions that are not only in accordance with duty but also are done from the motive of duty. The shopkeeper who gives correct change to young and inexperienced customers because he is interested in guarding his good business reputation fulfills a moral obligation [i.e., acts rightly] and does his duty, but since his motive is one of self-interest, his dutiful action does not possess moral worth. (Moral Theory: An Introduction [Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002], 175-6) For Kant, there are two questions: (1) Is the act right? (2) Is the act morally worthy? The motive with which the act is performed bears only on the second of these questions. Thus, one's act can be right but unworthy (if motivated by something other than duty). Focus on the War Itself The point I've been trying to make all these months is that we should focus on the war itself (the act) and not (solely) on the motives, beliefs, intentions, or reasons of President Bush. These latter bear on his character and ultimately on his worth as a person, but they have nothing (literally) to do with whether the war he waged is morally justified. That President Bush's critics can't see this dumbfounds me. They seem unable or unwilling to address the morality of the war directly. Shouldn't we be having a discussion of the morality of war? Doesn't the war in Iraq provide the perfect occasion for us to do so? What exactly is it about President Bush that bothers his critics? I have heard it said ad nauseam that he lied about the war. I wrote acolumn about the concept of lying, which, regrettably, has been inflated almost beyond recognition by critics. A lie is a falsehood told with intent to deceive. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that President Bush lied. Would that make the war unjustified? No. The act of lying is separate from the act of waging war. One act can be wrong and the other right. Critics, in their zeal to condemn President Bush, conflate distinct acts, thinking that either both acts are right or both wrong. But this is absurd. If the war is justified, then a lie designed to rally support for it would not make it unjustified. If the war is unjustified, then telling the truth about it would not make it justified. The Nature of Rationalization This week it occurred to me that what critics have been trying to say all along is that President Bush rationalized his decision to wage war in Iraq. What does it mean to rationalize (in the pejorative sense)? It means "To give plausible reasons for (one's behaviour) that ignore, conceal, or gloss its real motive" (Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.). One can rationalize either a belief or an action. Suppose I believe in God because it comforts me rather than because I have reasoned it out. Now suppose I come across Anselm's ontological argument in my reading. If I cite this argument as a reason for my belief, I am rationalizing. By hypothesis, my belief does not rest on the argument; I had the belief before I came across it and would retain the belief even if I came to believe the argument unsound. The argument puts a respectable face on what would otherwise be groundless belief. Actions, too, can be rationalized. Suppose, to use Mill's example, that I rescue a drowning person in order to gain a reward, but, when asked why I did it, I say that I love humanity. I'm rationalizing. I'm giving a respectable reason to cover up my self-serving reason. You might say that I "made it up" as I went along. I'm trying to appear nobler than I am. What, if anything, is wrong with rationalization? It's wrong, I believe, because it's a form of lying. It's lying about one's real reasons or motives. But notice: My act of rescuing the drowning person can still be right, even if improperly motivated. I did the right thing for the wrong reason. In Kantian terms, my act was in accordance with dutybut not done from the motive of duty. Hence, my act lacks moral worth. These concepts--the rightness of the act, the worthiness of the act, the worthiness of the person performing the act--need to be kept distinct. If we conflate them, we lose the ability to express what needs to be expressed. Rationalizer in Chief? Let's apply these findings to President Bush. Suppose his real reason for waging war in Iraq was to X. Let X be something self-serving or despicable, such as helping his oil buddies or increasing his chances of reelection. Now suppose President Bush gives other, more respectable reasons for waging war, such as that it will liberate the Iraqi people. President Bush is rationalizing a decision made on other grounds (or for other reasons). We should condemn him for this. His rationalization is a form of lying, and lying is wrong. Moreover, the lie reflects badly on him as a person. But this has nothing to do with whether his act of waging war is justified. That, as we have seen, is a separate matter. Even rationalizers can act rightly. Why has the focus been on President Bush rather than on the morality of the war? Part of the explanation is animosity. I have never seen such ill-will toward a sitting president. President Bush's critics, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean, are positively obsessed with him. This, I think, prevents them from separating the person from his actions. But there's another reason as well. As a society, we have lost the capacity for reasoned moral discourse. As I said earlier, this is the perfect time to be discussing the principles of just war. Is it ever a good reason to wage war that it will liberate an oppressed people? What moral weight should we assign to national sovereignty? What exactly is preemption, and how is it related to self-defense? Is it ever permissible? How does self-defense differ, if it does, from defense of others? There is nothing wrong with evaluating people. Indeed, it is incumbent on all of us, as citizens, to evaluate our elected representatives. We should care very much about their character, their judgment, and the worthiness of their actions, both before and after they are elected. (As Mill pointed out, "in the long run the best proof of good character is good actions.") I have never tried to shield President Bush from criticism. What I have insisted on is simply that,at some point, we shift our focus to the war. We can and should evaluate it without making any reference to President Bush. Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington. He is an inveterate and enthusiastic blogger. Seehttp://analphilosopher.blogspot.com andhttp://animalethics.blogspot.com.
the just war concept has been bastardized since the 60's in this country...it was a concept geared more around the necessity of force to remove injustice than some standard a war had to live up to in order to "qualify."
Well, I've been for this war since the beginning for this very reason, but the argument still sounds hollow to me. Why were conservatives upset about Kosovo (especially the "unpatriotic" DeLay and Armey who had the nerve to criticize the action while troops were in the battlefield)? Why didn't we do anything in Rwanda when nearly 800,000 innocent people were slaughtered? I'm happy that Saddam is out of power and in custody. I'm still concerned about many things. Included is the lack of man power in the Afghanistan region, the insurgents who are just as happy as we are that Saddam is out of power and in custody, and the fact that this administration misled us, either deliberately or not.
I haven't had a chance to read the article you post but I've heard similar arguments before. The moral question is whether someone can end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? While it seems like this can certainly happen I would caution against this as a policy. It is equivalent to playing pool with slop shots and basically means that misinformed or misguided actions are acceptable because there could be some tangential benefit to them. This could lead to a situation where anything can be justified as long as someone can say some good came from it even if that good had nothing at all to do with the original goal. For example since I just saw "Return of the King" you could argue that Gollum was doing the right thing in biting the Ring off of Frodo's hand even though his motivation was to posess the ring himself and that his lust to posess the Ring has always been a good because a good came out of it. While its certainly a valid argument that it was good to get rid of Saddam to give liberty to the Iraqis that still has to be weighed against the main motivation for the war which was to find and eliminate WMD. Since that motive has yet to be proven so far the invasion of Iraq has been a failure. The fact that a good came out of it is fine but if one where to take that argument that overthrowing dictators is a primary good that should be acted on then the US has failed to act morally because the US has not overthrown every dictator out there. My point is that motives matter and to make policy purely on side benefits isn't a good idea.
As a liberal, I am unable to make this distinction. When I tried to read the article, I became dizzy and had to move away from the computer.
agreed entirely..i'm much more concerned with the motives of the actor in undertaking an action that I am what just "happened" as a result of him taking an action.
I understand what you are saying here ... I think this is the main difference b/w Iraq and Rwanda and what should have been the basis for the whole war. After the first Gulf War, which hardly anyone will disagree was just, Sadaam and Iraq agreed to specific things such as allowing unfettered access to just about anything. He continually broke his promises in that agreement and that by itself creates a just reason to go and "finish" what was started in '91. After all the only reason the US stopped in '91 is because Sadaam agreed to certain ramifications. When he broke these promises we were back to where we ended in '91 but with no agreement. A leader cannot throw up the white flag and agree to things then change his mind later and not expect something to happen. In the Rwanda situation I don't think we have any agreement from previous engagement which makes it totally different. Just my opinion.
Almost every war that the U.S. has waged in the twentienth century (and until now) has been motivated mainly by the prospect of opening up and/or dominating a market which resisted capitalism or had/has not been developed industrially. Of course, no politico is going to come out on CNN or something and state it directly. It's understandably difficult, if not impossible, to get public support for a war that is initiated to increase the economic powers of a select few. And, although your CNN/FoxNEWS/news outlet of choice may have stopped talking about it, that doesn't mean it's some conspiracy theory cooked up by a whacko in Michigan or something. It's a matter of historical record. All this other stuff is an afterthought, usually as an attempted justification of war. The side-effects may be beneficial (though the "freedom" of Iraq may never actually occur and it's hardly a stable democracy at this point), but if the actions of an administration are to be judged soley by their peripheral results, then maybe the whole of history needs to be reinterpreted in this light. Though it's now passe (among politicos) to insist that this war was motivated and continues to be motivated by the demands of the oil-industry/military-industrial complex, the hesitancy of people to continue insisting this was the case doesn't make it any less true. If your job is talking about politics and war, it might be difficult to stop coming up with possible explanations for war and instead just realize that the answer has been here all along. Instead of debating the causes, it might be time to admit we know the cause and then deal with that knowledge instead of imagining a million other scenarios/rationalizations/justifications and then throwing them against the White House wall to see if they stick. One can debate the epistemology of moral judgment-making all the want, or the ontology of frying eggs, or cast a particular argument as "That's a liberal argument, and I'm on the conservative debating team, therefore I dismiss it" (or vice versa), but if the issue is going to be considered practically in terms of how it's going to affect America in the future, both internally and externally, then it's necessary to stop all the neverending (and often circular) and ultimately pointless analysis and recognize that the answer is already here, and has always been here, and then act in the future with an awareness of this information. It's time to stop talking about the egg, and why the chicken laid it, and whether the embryo will grow up to be an evil dictator chicken, or if the motivation for eating the egg is to stop being hungry or to prevent future evil chicken dictators, and if it's morally valid to kill a chicken embryo to prevent that chicken from becoming an adult who will jealously hoard fossil fuels, or if the people who freed the chicken from the foreign coop were intent on freeing the chicken or whether they just wanted to let the chicken roam into their own coop. Just make an egg sammich and eat the damn thing already.
IMO the UN has been the worst reason for or against the war because this situation has proven how innefectual the UN really is. You are citing the 14 or so resolutions that Iraq was in violation as justification which technically is true the only problem with those resolutions along with the now infamous resolution 1441, is that they don't technically justify war. They justify having the UN Security Council decide if war is justified because of Iraqi violations. Unfortunately the UN Security council never had a vote on whether war was called for because of continued Iraqi violations so there according to the UN there was no legal justification for invasion. On the anti-invasion side though the problem is that there was no legal justification preventing invasion either. Under UN rules the only way the UN can prevent a country from invading another is by passing a UN Security Council resolution specifically banning that action. The fact that there never was a vote preventing the US, Britain or anyone else for that matter from invading Iraq, or even a vote specifically condemning the invasion of Iraq means that the UN ended up taking a totally neutral position. What this even proved is that when there is no unanimous consensus between permanent UN Security Council members the UN is about as useful as hiring JVG to run a fast break offense. The US was never going to agree to not invading Iraq and France was never goign to agree to invading Iraq. Both countries have veto power which means the UN was doomed to ineffectivenesss and irrelevance. IMO there were valid reasons to consider invading Iraq (the possibility of Weapons of Mass Destruction or ties to Al Qaeda) but to enforce UN resolutions was not one of them and IMO was a purely cynical move to try to shore up international opinion than a serious effort to validate the UN.
I understand what you are saying here ... I think this is the main difference b/w Iraq and Rwanda and what should have been the basis for the whole war. After the first Gulf War, which hardly anyone will disagree was just, Sadaam and Iraq agreed to specific things such as allowing unfettered access to just about anything. He continually broke his promises in that agreement and that by itself creates a just reason to go and "finish" what was started in '91. After all the only reason the US stopped in '91 is because Sadaam agreed to certain ramifications. When he broke these promises we were back to where we ended in '91 but with no agreement. A leader cannot throw up the white flag and agree to things then change his mind later and not expect something to happen. At the same time, in that peace treaty, I believe that <I>we</I> agreed that any violations of the treaty by Iraq would be handled by the UN as it saw fit. Not by the US, but by the UN. I don't think the UN resolutions can be used as true justification for a non-UN led war.
... which is why we gave the UN every opportunity to get with the program. When they defaulted, the US was willing to do what needed to be done per RocketManJosh's description.
Determinations of relative morality are ultimately personal and singular. The decision of what is practically moral can only be defined as the will of the majority in a democratic society. Maybe that justifies all wars of liberation since all tyranny, the rule by the dictates of a minority, is by definition, immoral. We, the free peoples of the United States, should and probably will support sacrifices to free our fellow human beings. Atleast to the point the gains don't seem to be worth the losses i.e. Viet Nam. So debate on, vote according to your judgement. That's how we determine what is moral.
... which is why we gave the UN every opportunity to get with the program. When they defaulted, the US was willing to do what needed to be done per RocketManJosh's description. Get with "whose" program? The UN had the right to deal with any treaty violations in any way it saw fit. If it decided that war was not an appropriate remedy, then that was the UN's choice - one that we gave it when we signed onto the Post-GulfWar1 agreement. If you want to argue the war's justification, then using UN resolution violations isn't the way to go because those violations gave us no authority to attack them.
Incredible post, and right on point. I don't know if you guys remember me, I dont post much, but I have written on the morality of this war before. If someone could pull that up it would be helpful. Thadeus here seems to believe in the same things I do. I believe that politics and morality cannot be mixed. Politics is a matter of power and the mighty turns out to be "right". I put right in quotes because there is no right or wrong in politics. So the question whether the war in Iraq is just is irrelevant. Now for the actual important question: Was it immoral for George W. Bush to wage war on Iraq. I believe morality can only be used in assessing the individual as a moral agent... Here's where I assess the actual philosophical content of the article. As a philosophy major, (and before everyone sarcastically oohs and ahs at that major) everyone ought to know that utilitarianism is one of the stupidest, yet most accepted moral theory out there. Let me show you why it's stupid and against common sense. I'll give a basic refutation of Utilitarianism: According to the theory, an action is based not on its intent but on its consequences. (this would favor G.W) Suppose someone visits the hospital to see his wife who is in a coma. There are 5 patients in the hospital, one needing a liver, another a heart, lungs etc... 5 different vital organs are needed so based on the consequences, it is ok to murder this innocent man in order to save 5 people right? Now we can argue the morality of this till we're blue in the face because ethics is not based on any objective fact. But common sense people: this is wrong! And moral theories based on consequences are wrong for this very reason. So now that I have dismissed Utilitarianism (granted I did not spend much time on it, but take it from me, no self-respecting moral theorist stands by Utilitarianism anymore), let me go to the article's part on Kant. I find it funny that this article explains Kant without even mentioning the categorical imperative. This is where you see that its a conservative paper because it is very deceiving. The article has manipulated Kant and the words of an expert on Kant in order to support the article's political agenda. Let ME explain Kant to you rather than this author. IF G.W. did lie to us and had a notion of self-interest for the war, it IS IMMORAL according to Kantian theory. Kantian theory is based on the categorical imperative. This is how you determine whether an action is immoral or not. FIRST: Always act in a way so that you can universalize that action. SECOND: Always treat people as an end and not as a means towards an end. Lets be honest folks, G.W. did not go to war to liberate the Iraqi people. A fair assesment of his intent of the war was that he went to war because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a terror threat. This turned out to be wrong, and NOW he is saying it is to liberate the people. This is SPIN, because before we waged war, G.W. was asked that if Iraq proved it did not have WMD would he still go to war and he said NO. So, if we were to universalize this action of waging war on terror threats, we'd be waging war on MANY countries. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and many more Muslim countries. Now, I dont know if this would be right or wrong, I just know that Bush would not wage war against all these countries and by picking Iraq and only Iraq to do a war on terror means that G.W. cannot universalize this action and therefore it is immoral to Kant's first version of the categorical imperative. That probably was confusing so let me show you an easier way to see G.W.'s immorality. Always treat people as an end and not as a means. Like I said, this was a War against WMD's, G.W. has spinned it into a Liberate Iraq campaign; an obvious lie. He has used the people of Iraq as a means and not an end. He is using them for his political benefit in order to get out of this mess. Once again, I wrote a post after the "Shock and Awe" campaign that fully addresses G.W.'s exploitations of the Iraqi people. If someone could find it in the archives, you will see that he is guilty of exploiting this people and someone who is exploiting them surely does not care for their liberation. Now, if you have bared with me all this time, (which you probably haven't) Since G.W.'s decision to go to war was immoral because there obviously was not enought evidence to say that Iraq had WMD... Does it imply that we, as tax payers are immoral for funding this war? I believe we, as tax payers are not immoral for funding it, and even if you believed in it, you are still not immoral.... but we do carry the responsibility, and therefore some of the guilty of this action. This war is a burden upon my consciousness and I hate and despise Bush and his cronies for bloodying my hands. I unlike Bush, will accept responsiblity for this blood, but I will make sure to go against him in the upcoming election despite living in Texas where I could not possibly win. The action of voting against him and his agenda, whether only symbolic, ought to be done or else this all is just talk.
Sorry, this sounded arrogant and there is no edit option, I meant that since I had written for so long and written so poorly I thought people would skip my post. It turned out that the post was not as long as I thought it would be so I must apologize.
I would be very careful about this point as even leaving aside the mess of the 2000 elections in the last few Presidential elections only a minority of Americans have voted for winning President. Also what many people don't realize is that our system is one where roadblocks are placed in the way of straightforward democracy guarenteeing that a well positioned minority, ie the minority party in the Senate, can stymie the majority. Under your definition then both the current and previous Presidencies are immoral and even the US system is immoral for allowing minority rule to exist. But I totally agree with you that dertiminations of relative morality are personal. I would go beyond that and say that determinations of morality are inherently personal.
I bared with you the whole time and think its a very good post. I particularly liked your explanation of how GW Bush isn't really following the Categorical Imperative or else we would overthrow every dictator. I would quibble with your separation of politics and morality. While politics at its core isn't necessarily moral in a democracy though the perception of morality is vitally important for the attainment of power. As a democracy is meant to be representative of the populace very few populaces are willing to consider themselves collectively immoral and will seek to elect leaders who they believe to be moral. Whether those leaders end up acting moral or not according to the Categorical Imperative or some religious guide is besides the point as long as they have the support of the governed. So while your analysis is fine from philosophical or even theological view a political view of whether the war is moral has to encompass what does the majority of Americans think. What any of them think can politically trump a philosophical argument because what the poster Gene Peterson said on this same subject: in a political context is absolutely true.
If the war was so moral, Incurious George should have just used the rationale we have seen in this article and elsewhere to go to war. But no, he and his administration had to lie, to pull a fast one, to get out an eraser and replace Osama's face with Saddam's. Sadly, there are many Americans who believe Saddam pulled off 9/11. Even those who don't will justify the whole endeavor. They'll even say they make no distinction between "evil men" or some such thing. Evil. Well, we can't argue that Saddam is a bad guy. Osama? Not a nice dude. But as far as that Biblical word of "evil" that this administration keeps applying to others, I say, it's a good thing we have Saddam in custody. It's a good thing we didn't go through the U.N. (and why would we? if any nation other than one belonging to the "coalition of ass-kissers" had found Saddam they might have extracted the truth from him about just where Saddam was getting his weapons; same thing with Osama, which is why we will never "find" him). When we pull Saddam from his hole in the ground we see on the news little news snippets about how many are believed to be buried in Iraq's mass graves. Get Associated Propaganda to put out the story. Say 300,000; but how could they possibly know that number? Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. Doesn't matter. How many of those murdered were the Shi'ites that rose up against Saddam at George the Elder's request and then were screwed over when we pulled out of Iraq after 100 days? Doesn't matter. All of it becomes moot because the truth can be withheld until....whenever. No one's going to miss Saddam, certainly, but now we have hawks and military contractors and corporations sending their blue suits to this administration, screaming, "Syria next! Iran next! Cuba!" We even have people wanting to go after North Korea. Obviously we don't care about all the civilians we'll kill in the process, and the people advocating war will have no children fight or die in the conflict, oh no, my children won't die for freedom, but freedom is important, may freedom ring. Besides, we won't really see the bad side of the war, we have the corporate media to sanitize it. Go after North Korea, please! Militarize our economy again for the next 100 years. My stocks will go sky high. Paranoia begets paranoia, war begets war. Ah, yes. Iraq was a just war. Long live freedom U.S.A. style.
