From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun May 23 2004 - 22:34:47 BST
Dear Platt,
You wrote 18 May 2004 16:08:37 -0400:
'I take it then that you, as a Christian, do NOT take the reports of Jesus'
resurrection as the literal truth?'
That's right.
You asked:
'Why do you think it irrational to save Kuwait from invaders?
Why do you think it irrational to enforce U.N. resolutions?
Why do you think it irrational (especially as a Quaker) to free millions of
fellow human beings from totalitarian horrors?
Why do you think it irrational to attempt to establish a democracy in the
heart of Middle Eastern countries to combat terrorism? (Libya has already
given up its WMDs as a result.)
Why do you think it irrational for 35 countries to send troops to Iraq to
support the U.S. effort there?
Or do you think none of these things are irrational, but only the notion
that hard line religious nuts play a central role in U.S. foreign policy
decisions?'
That proved a hard nut to crack. Mainly because of the implicit assumptions
and suggestions.
In all these instances you seem to assume and suggest that military action
is THE means to realize the stated end.
In order to analyze your questions I'd like to make the following points:
- Military action can be motivated more or less rationally.
Irrationality/rationality is not a matter of yes/no.
- Rationality is not a criterion to judge an action in itself, but to judge
a relation between an action and one or more ends. It is (like 'truth') a
criterion for 4th level morality.
- Ends used to motivate actions can be selfish or unselfish. Unselfishness
requires recognition by the intended beneficiaries that it serves their
interests.
- The expectation to realize the ends with this action can be more or less
realistic.
- There will usually be alternative ways to realize these ends. Their
chances of success can be better or worse than that of military action.
- Actions also have side effects, partly unintended and unknown in advance,
partly intended and concealed. So do the alternatives.
- Lack of information, certainty and ... politically motivated disagreement
about intended and
unintended effects complicate matters even more.
Generally speaking it is irrational to motivate action with unrealistic ends
and not to take side effects and alternative ways to realize them into
account. Irrationality clouds evaluation and adjustment of the morality of
actions. It is immoral to enforce ends that are not shared by those
influenced (with one small exception).
Self-defense is moral to the extent that this individual or collective
'self' is worth defending. 'Self-defense doesn't justify all means to
realize this end. The relation between means and end should be realistic and
one should take into account side effects and alternatives and ... a proper
balance between that 'self' on the one hand and competing and more/less
encompassing 'selves' on the other hand.
The exception I referred to is enforcement of more or less generally
excepted ends by a society on some of its members that have chosen to belong
to that society and that have had a fair chance to democratically influence
those ends. The amount of force that can morally be used by that society
depends on the extent to which those defective members threaten that
society.
Enforcing U.N. resolutions (including that against the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait) seems relatively rational to me, provided that it is done by a force
that represents and is under the command of the U.N. and that ALL U.N.
resolutions are enforced. A better alternative than military
counter-invasion (after earlier chances to dissuade or weaken Saddam Hussein
had been missed) might still have been a boycott against Iraqi and Kuwaiti
oil and/or requiring Western oil companies to withdraw their technical
support until Iraq would withdraw from Kuwait.
Freeing people from totalitarianism, establishing democracy, combating
terrorism, ... I'm very skeptical whether it is realistic to expect that
such ends can be realized better with military means than with non-military
lures. A totalitarian regime can be ended with military means, but a
democratic one cannot be built that way. And the perceived injustice of
being forced without any form of consent is an even better breeding ground
for terrorism than poverty.
By the way: weren't you skeptical about the value of democracy because of
the risk of its degeneration into mob-rule? Do your really think it wise to
export the American type of democracy (which in your opinion is vulnerable
to mob-rule) to countries with a definitely higher percentage of followers
of irrational religion than the USA??
Supporting the U.S.A. to rebuild Iraq by sending police forces seems
relatively rational to me again, provided that the U.S.A. doesn't put them
to shame by using comparable methods to combat terrorism as Saddam Hussein
used to combat his opponents (even if less extensively). What is your
opinion on how systematically these immoral methods of interrogation
were/are used by the USA? Is it true that representatives of dictatorial
regimes (especially Latin-American ones) learnt such methods in the past in
the School of the Americas? Is it true that this school was closed when that
was made public somewhere in the 1990's ... only to be reopened under
another name?
It is not fully clear to me (possibly because of a grammatical defect) what
you meant with the second part of the last question, where you apply
'rationality' to an idea (notion) rather than to (the motivation of)
military action.
Rationality CAN also be used as a criterion for judging an alleged relation
between an idea and experience or
between an idea and the ideas one shares with other people. But then it
means something like 'so evidently untrue, that no-one possessing all his
wits would entertain it'. The rationality of (the motivation for) military
action is not very comparable to the rationality of an idea, i.e. the truth
of this 59% statistic and the alleged irrational influences in American
politics.
Until recently I would have thought the idea 'that hard line religious nuts
play a central role in U.S. foreign policy decisions' irrational. It does
not
fit my experience with the Americans I know to think that a large enough
percentage of Americans could be described as such and I deem American
politics democratic enough to make sure that only a sizable proportion of
like-minded people can have a noticeable influence on policy decisions.
Even if the statistic of 59% believers in the literal truth of Revelations
that shocked me overestimated the problem 2 or 3 times over, irrational
religion could still have a considerable (dangerous) influence in American
politics. Especially in times when Republicans are in power, if I may assume
that they will be represented stronger in the Republican constituency than
in the Democratic one. Is that right?
Summarizing: the idea that irrational religion is a political danger (in the
USA, but because of American's superpower status also globally) sounds less
irrational to me now than it did before.
You continued:
'The Netherlands and the rest of the civilized world has much more to worry
from Muslim fundamentalists than Christian ones, especially when the Muslim
fundamentalists get their hands on atom bombs.'
Why? Only a minority of Muslim fundamentalists is prepared to use terrorist
means and only a minority of these direct these terrorist means against the
USA and Europe (rather than against targets in their own region). What
percentage of Christian fundamentalists is prepared to use any means
available to realize their ends? To what extent do their ends or their means
damage global public interests and/or Western self-interest (e.g. by
destabilizing the Near-East)?
An issue very much related to what we discussed until now in this sub-thread
is to what extent Christian fundamentalists in the USA influence military
policy. Is there a relation between the alleged fact that the Pentagon
(and/of the think-tanks influencing it) seriously consider first-use of
weapons of mass destruction if considered necessary and the influence of
Christian fundamentalists and apocalyptic/millenarian thinking in
American politics?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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