War in an Extra-Moral Sense
or, Do Morality and War Mix?
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Although the debate of war and morality may be interesting, there is one issue which could interrupt the discussion entirely: perhaps, according to some, moral standards simply aren't applicable to war. One example of this attitude might be found in Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's comment that "War is hell."
This position suggests that war, while brutal and vicious, is not immoral. At the same time, it also suggests that wars designed to free slaves or liberate a nation cannot be considered moral. Instead, war is amoral. It may be an inefficient means to achieve an incorrect end, but it cannot be evil or just. If that is true that we cannot describe either wars in general or specific acts in war as moral or immoral, then we really can't go any further on the issue. Thus, it bears some consideration.
First, we need to ask just what is meant when someone says something like "morality doesn't apply to war or wartime situations." Is this meant to be taken descriptively, prescriptively, or analytically? If this is just a descriptive assertion, then what we are reading is a factual claim. The person is saying, in effect, that when wars occur nations disregard moral principles and moral questions. Maybe this is true and maybe it is not - that's something for historians and social scientists to debate.
Perhaps, however, this is a prescriptive statement. In that case, the person is asserting that moral principles could be applied war, but that we should not do so. This is a much more interesting possibility than the above, I think. The question we should ask of someone asserting such a claim is: why should war be positioned outside the moral arena, a status not normally accorded to human activities?
One argument may be that, at least with democracies, our leaders are elected and as such have a primary obligation to serve the interests of the citizens. Thus, when faced with the choice of either engaging in acts which further the interests of or protect citizens but would otherwise be regarded as immoral or allowing citizens to suffer, politicians should ignore conventional moral standards and go with the first option. In a sense, protecting national interests becomes a "higher duty" than adhering to moral norms.
An immediate problem with this is what constitutes "national interest." Perhaps there is a national interest the defeating an enemy with minimal casualties among your own citizens, but might there not also be a national interest to uphold important moral standards, even in war? In addition, it can be pointed out that a leader's obligation to the nation only makes sense when considered in the context of general moral values; therefore, it make little sense to argue that this obligation requires ignoring those obligations.
If there aren't very strong arguments for insisting that war should be placed outside of our moral standards, perhaps a stronger case for the idea that applying moral categories to war is invalid in the first place. According to this analytic view, saying that war (or a specific action committed during a war) is moral or immoral is like saying that a verb is green or blue. In other words, it's just sheer nonsense, and anyone who tries to say such a thing simply doesn't understand the concepts they are using.
One possible basis for this position is that war occurs between nations and morality is normally considered something which regulates the conduct between individuals. There is some justification for this view, and it becomes more understandable when we observe that morality is often encoded in our laws while same time there exists little in the way of positive law regulating the conduct between nations.
This argument falters, however, when we remember that governments' actions are dependent upon human decisions and war affects millions of individuals; thus, war is very much an interaction between people. Moreover, the lack of laws regulating international relations is not the same as a lack of morals which should regulate international relations.
One reason why people might find this position attractive is expediency: when faced with conflicting loyalties, one means of resolving the conflict is to deny the existence of one alleged obligation. Thus, when people are faced with a nationalistic or patriotic duty to support their country on the one hand and moral obligations to oppose what might be an immoral war waged by the country on the other hand, one expedient means of resolving the conflict is to deny that wars can be immoral in the first place.
Thus, the person is free to criticize the war as mistaken, perhaps, but not as immoral, something which would require a much more definitive stand, more public opposition, and which would risk more dire personal consequences from the state (incarceration) or from the community (violence). While this might be an accurate portrayal of an important psychological motivation for this position, it certainly doesn't qualify as a logical justification.
In the end, it doesn't appear that either the prescriptive or the analytic perspectives on why morality might not be applicable to wars is sound enough to warrant removing war from ethical debates. Perhaps a stronger argument could be made at some point, but in the meantime more detailed investigation about the morality of specific actions in wars, of specific wars, and of the existence of war in general should continue.
More: Just War Theory
-->