We all know how well men rationalize their nonrational preferences, yet after doing our just-war calculations and obtaining an answer in favor of war, we then proceed with a clear conscience to commit ghastly acts. Certainly some wars must be fought, but we are best able to know which wars should be fought when they touch us personally. Reality is always more complicated than we imagine, and the farther the reality is from our own experience the less we can understand it. This is the moral basis for nonintervention, for staying out of other peoples' problems because we do not know well what to do about them. Epistemological humility, a recognition of the limits of man's ability to know, is found at the very root of the Christian conservative tradition.
Epistemological hubris is in the heart of every utopian tyrant who wants to make the world obey.
When he thinks he can play god, he does abominable things. During the Gulf War, there was some public discussion among religious intellectuals of whether war with Iraq was justified, with the consensus being that it was. Before and after our intervention in the Balkans, there was no such discussion. Based on images and allegations relayed by television, Americans decided that the Serbs were evil and deserved to die. It is not for us mere mortals to judge the earth.