The Relative Irrelevance of Moral Norms in International Politics

An analysis of decision-making in foreign policy and of the nature and function of moral norms leads to the conclusion that morality has little effect upon international politics. The nation-state system compels statesmen to place national interests above morality, so that in most cases moral norms serve rather than determine interests. In some imponderable ways moral norms influence foreign policy decisions because they form part of the environment in which the decision-makers function. But this influence is vastly outweighed by the compelling need to guarantee the nation's survival under all circumstances and by the possibility to justify almost any behavior designed to do this in moral terms. This possibility exists because the broad, general and abstract formulation of moral norms subjects them to the most varied interpretation in concrete cases and because the system of norms permits an expedient choice of any of its parts to suit a given situation. How a norm is interpreted and which norms are chosen under given circumstances is largely determined by the interests at stake. Thus, an improvement of international relations toward more cooperation and peacefulness is more likely to come from the development and awareness of common interests than from commonly held moral norms. THE UNVERIFIED ASSUMPTIONS T nhere exists a widespread belief that the absence of common moral norms among the peoples of the world is largely responsible for the hostilities and the violence characteristic of international relations. The hopeful assertion is made that cooperative behavior and a more peaceful solution of international conflicts would be assured if only the nations could agree on common moral norms. The reasoning is, more or less, that moral norms prescribe the propriety of action. When the use of violence in human affairs is morally condemned and the maintenance of peace is elevated to a high moral value, people who adhere to these norms can always come to an agreement on whether they should or should not behave in a certain manner. In any case, acceptance of these norms would make it very difficult for either side in a conflict to engage in evil action toward the other. Ideally, these moral norms would become so embedded in international institutions and become so much part of the decisionmakers' social environment, that interests and goals incompatible with these norms would never be allowed to reach the acute stage in which their realization would be attempted. They would be discarded as soon as they were conceived. Swords may be beaten into plowshares.1 This belief may be considered an oversimplified and specialized aspect of the theory that the foundation of any integrated society is the normative structure of a common valueorientation among its members.2 So broadly stated, that is when all values are included, this theory can be justified at least on the grounds that if all the members of a society had differing and conflicting values, there could hardly be cohesion of any kind. The real problem in discovering the role played by values in maintaining a relatively peaceful society is to determine which values are relevant and in what manner they are relevant. Of special interest 1For some examples see F. Ernest Johnson (ed.), World Order: Its Intellectual and Cultural Foundation (New York: Harper & Bros., 1945), p. 22; Thomas Merton et al. Breakthrough to Peace (Norfolk, Va.: New Directions, 1962), p. 29; Arthur I. Waskow, The Worried Man's Guide to World Peace (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1963), P. 49. 2 E.g., Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils (eds.), Toward a General Theory of Action (New York: Harper & Rowe, 1962), pp. 159-189; Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 41-42. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.167 on Thu, 21 Jul 2016 04:06:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MORAL NORMS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS 227 here is the somewhat narrower question whether moral norms are relevant and why and how? A slightly different, though related theory is that the possession of common values is a community building factor.3 This is presumably true because almost anything people have in common has such a propensity. Common values would then contribute to the integration-and therewith possibly peacefulness -of a community not because they are values or because of their substance, but because they are something shared by the members. Their effectiveness would rest on the same basis that the flag as a common symbol to the enjoyment of a national sport could contribute to integration. Whether also the content, the substance of moral norms would have the effect of producing more peaceful behavior leads exactly to the crux of the hopeful assertion that common moral norms would produce a peaceful society. The assumption that they do implies an extraordinary confidence in the ability of moral norms to work as determinants of behavior. They would not merely be the rules and precepts according to which all behavior ought to be shaped, they would be expected, in fact, to shape behavior. They are envisaged as the checkpoint through which all decisions to act have to pass successfully. The moral norms would represent a superstructure over all social behavior, controlling it in its totality. An even furtive look at international behavior throughout the ages would raise serious doubts about the effectiveness of such a control or else raise serious doubts about the nature of moral norms applying to the international society. On this last point, the answer can quickly be provided that, at least as far as public confessions everywhere are concerned, the basic moral norms alleged to apply to international behavior are the same as are presumably to apply to any behavior. This reduces the scope of this investigation to the effectiveness of moral norms as controls in international behavior. In its pursuit a distinction can usefully be made between moral norms and interests.4 Both are classes of values and motivators of behavior. But they are psychologically and functionally different. Moral norms are evaluative. They are the rules according to which behavior ought to be shaped and, as long as they remain untranslated into law, their enforcement is a matter of conscience. Their function is to maintain the individual in coexistence with his fellow individuals in a society. Interests are the wants and desires of an essentially non-ethical-normative nature. They relate to -usually-material needs, directly or indirectly, and they function to produce behavior intended to satisfy these needs. The relationship between moral values and interests is hierarchical, with interests, or at least their realization, subordinated to morality.5 One of the most striking features of international behavior is the obvious disturbance in this hierarchy. Wherein may lie its causeswhether in the nature of international politics or in the nature of moral norms or in a combination of both-is the object of this investigation. For, if it should turn out that the influence of moral norms on international behavior is nonexistent or very limited, the acceptance of common norms by the nations as the remedy of international ills would not be very helpful; respectively, the prevailing ills must be due to other causes than the absence