July 17, 2003


A foreign policy based solely on America's self-interest is not simply practical, but moral--which is why any "humanitarian" mission, such as the proposed campaign in Liberia, is a moral crime.

By Peter Schwartz

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Those who claim that the United States has a moral obligation to send troops on a "humanitarian" mission to Liberia have it exactly backward: our government has a moral obligation not to send its forces into areas that pose no threats to America's well-being. It is America's self-interest that should be the standard for all foreign-policy decisions--and not just because such a standard is practical, but because it is moral.
America was founded on the recognition of each individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This means that the government may not treat the citizen as a serf--as someone who exists to serve the needs of others. Rather, each citizen is a free, sovereign entity, entitled to live his own life for his own sake. No matter how loudly some people may wail about their need for your services, you are your own master. That is the meaning of your inalienable rights.
Those rights are contradicted by a foreign policy that makes Americans sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, such as the Liberians.
When the government of a free country performs its proper functions, it uses force only to protect its citizens' freedom. When the lives or property of Americans are at risk from some aggressor-state, our government uses force in retaliation, to keep its citizens free--free to pursue the goals and values that advance their lives.
This is what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although administration officials are afraid to say so openly, we overthrew those countries' governments strictly for our own benefit. America went to war to protect the interests of Americans. No dictatorship has a right to remain in power, and any dictatorship that has the capacity to use force beyond its borders and has shown a willingness to do so against U.S. interests is an objective threat to us and is a legitimate target for our military. Osama bin Laden, as well as Saddam Hussein, posed dangers--to Americans. The soldiers we sent to those two countries were fighting to defend their own interests. (Obviously, others also benefited from America's actions, but that was a secondary consequence; it was not our primary purpose and should not have been the standard that guided our decisions.)
Sadly, our policymakers are unwilling to defend the justness of a foreign policy of self-interest. Instead, they keep invoking selfless justifications. Our motive, they say, was not to keep Americans safe, but to help the oppressed Iraqis (the invasion was called "Operation: Iraqi Freedom") or to shield other countries from the dangers of bin Laden and Hussein. This altruistic premise is what makes the administration try to accommodate anti-Western "sensitivities" in Afghanistan and Iraq. This premise is what keeps the administration from using sufficient force to rid those lands of all remaining threats to Americans. And this premise is what leaves the administration philosophically helpless to resist the calls for becoming enmeshed in the problems of Liberia.
We desperately need some courageous official who is willing to state categorically that a moral foreign policy must uphold America's self-interest--and that by shipping troops to Liberia, we are sacrificing our interests. We are telling our soldiers to risk their lives in a senseless attempt to prevent, temporarily, rival warlords from butchering one another.
Contrary to the assertions of all who have suddenly become eager for a new American military presence abroad, offering ourselves as sacrificial fodder on "humanitarian" missions is not a virtue, but a moral crime. Where is the "humanitarian" concern for Americans? Why should Americans be urged to give away their money, their energies and their lives on a campaign that does not serve their interests? There are no rational grounds for asking Americans to suffer more, so that the Liberians may (perhaps) suffer less. When we are not being threatened, the government has no right to put American soldiers in harm's way. Our armed forces are supposed to be our means of self-defense--not self-renunciation.
If the administration wants to help the Liberians achieve peace and prosperity, it can start by mailing them copies of the Declaration of Independence. But if we genuinely value our freedom, we cannot make America into the self-abnegating slave of the entire world. To send our troops into a battle in which they have no personal interest--to send them to fight for the sake of warring tribes in Liberia (or Rwanda or Somalia or Kosovo)--is to negate the principle of individual liberty, upon which America is based.

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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

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That piece is filled with doubletalk and nonsense. If 'moral' means anything, it means taking courses of action, or thinking in ways that do not necessarily coincide with self-interest. So a foreign policy that only takes self-interest into account, is by definition, a non-moral policy.
It is true that US foreign policy is based on self-interest. To suggest that such a policy is a 'moral' thing is to be confused about the meaning of the word, and the value of morality.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I was aware of the fact that the author had some connection with Ayn Rand. She is seriously confused.
Granted, different cultures have different moralities. Show me one culture that equates morality with self-interest and I will be very surprised. (Unless you want to call the Objectivists a culture). Clearly the Romans could not have equated self-interest with morality since their soldiers died for their empire. They thought they were being honorable and moral in dying for their country. It is only in rare cases that death is in a person's self-interest.

I see altruism as the view that a person should never act in their own self-interest. I take this to be a narrower interpretation of morality than the one I proposed. I think morality and self-interest can sometimes coincide. In other words, both altruism and Rand's selfishness are mistaken in their understanding of morality.

I also think it is irrational to behave or think in any manner just because a deity tells you to.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

If you're following orders because the deity is bigger than you are, I don't think that would be moral. You would just be intimidated.

Why do you think suicide is immoral and against self-interest? If a person is suffering a lot of pain with no hope of relief, I think committing suicide would be a wise act. I don't think I'd call it moral, unless the circumstances were very unusual such as a person being tortured for information which would harm another person and the person being tortured decided to commit suicide rather than continue being tortured or risk giving out the information which would harm someone else.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

It's not all that bad to be a moral relativist. It's better than being an objectivist!!
It strikes me that most serious moral thinkers are moral relativists. Life is far too complex to make universal general moral claims that hold under all conditions.

I don't see how following the deity's orders could be moral. Moral means thinking about the consistency and consequences of actions. Following orders just because they are orders violates our 'right' to think through the implications of our own actions.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

The long quote in the first post is the work of the devil - making a virtue out of a failing etc., etc. Anyway, it may well be in our respective countries self interest, in the longer term, to do what are apparently unselfish acts in the short term.

I'd be interested in learning where you guys think 'morality' (ethics, principles - lets not get too semantic) comes from. What I see in our evolutionary history is dark & dreadful. Group selection works only in very few species cases - the rest is individual/close relative selection. Do we, to quote the robot in the Ridley Scott film, 'have delusions of morality'? Perhaps our 'morality' is merely a justification for our prejudices or a way to get others to behave the way we want them to, while the evolutionary beast lurks within. I think politicians pull this trick on a daily basis. Just thought I'd lighten things up

There seem to be good evolutionary reasons for morality in a social species. Petr Kropotkin in his book Mutual Aid was one of the first to point this out.
I think we can find this biologically rooted phenomenon in two parts of our lives. In our ability to feel things about other people such as love, hate, spite etc. And in our ability to think about the world in broad terms that transcend our own immediate self interest. So morality is rooted in feeling and thought. Not unlike the ideas of the great Edinburgh philosopher immortalized in the new statue on the main street--David Hume.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Kerry, Botnst, thanks for your thoughts, ..interesting. Personally, I think the 'Darwinian nightmare' is a real issue (the argument that we're just sophisticated animals maximising our self-interest - The Selfish Gene & all that), but I take some comfort in the fact that we as individals find it worthwhile having this dialogue, that we as a species have any kind of large-scale civilisation at all..it's pretty remarkable when you step back and look at it. Though given the mess the world's in, I try not to look too hard sometimes

..sorry guys, off topic again

Kerry, you mentioned David Hume - he was quite a guy, wasn't he? I remember the impact his writing on the nature of causality had on me as an undergraduate..that it is just induction..repetition of seeing one event following the other. Has this been superceded, or built on, or does it still stand?

I've been reading up on 'conciousness' recently, trying to figure out if anyone has an explanation I can grasp. Seems like the biggest problem ever..how do atoms bumping together lead to self-awareness..good topic for a drunken discussion down the pub..

Lots of people tried to answer Hume. Kant is the most interesting in my opinion. I don't know of any convincing argument for the objectivity of causality.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Oh :GAG:

Did you guys hear about the mathematical horse? It could do all kinds of math but when confronted with coordinate geometry it just rolled over and died.

Moral of the story is you can't put Descartes before dehorse.

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman