First, I assume everyone knows somewhat about nasty and quickly escalating civil war situation in Syria, at least from what the media has reported anyway. If you do not here is a link to standard information regarding the civil war and chemical weapons attack on civilians and the president of Syria Bashar Al-Asad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Ghouta_attacks (I recommend reading this anyway, it's pretty informative; click links if you are skeptical of any wiki information.)
The only facts or premise given is that chemical weapons inducing immense pain, suffering and death were dropped into unarmed civilians killing thousands and injuring many in Ghuota, Syria 21 Aug. It does not seem convincingly clear who actually is responsible, and ordered the attacks. The Syrian government blames the rebels and the Rebels blame the Syrian government. This action is an international war crime against the Geneva convention issued in 1949 decided by the international governing body the United Nations in which the United States is a part of. Syria, a member, never signed the 1993 chemical arms agreement.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/28/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html
The nations in the UN including Great Britain and Syria's ally Russia have opted out from a military action against Syria. This forces the powerful and already strategically positioned U.S. to bypass the UN if it must punish Syria for international crimes. This would also be an international crime for the United States- acting without UN consent, which Obama attempts to justify by saying that these crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished in order to prevent more chemical attacks.
But the question should be asked, if the U.S. acts without UN approval, then what order and legislation is there in international politics anyway? It weakens the whole system when a country behaves without international consent.
Prior to the chemical attacks U.S. policy towards the civil war was 'non-involvement' unless chemical weapons were used, which laid a blue print for one of the sides to trigger the involvement of the powerful United States.
"Assad also said that the process is "two-sided" and suggested it will work only if the U.S. halts its threats of military action against Syria. He suggested that signing any deal would be tied to the United States' refraining from backing Syrian rebels." -USA Today
The international stance is complex and shaky from a consequentialist standpoint (definition: a moral right is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence). Always with war there is mass fear and uncertainty, for what good is rationality and morality without life itself? It seems fair to say that when war or killing is on the table, moral issue of lying as discussed in class becomes almost non-existant. Government officials will go against Kantian Ethics or universal law which condemn lying in a heart beat in order to protect their citizens or eliminate potentiality of harm; which is the philosophy behind the War on Terror; to eliminate harm potential in America.
You see a common theme, potentiality and uncertainty: prediction. How does one justify an action based upon a prediction?
Well, if the consequence is probable if the action occurs, and vice versa. This is how one could justify dropping the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If one kills X number of people in order to save more than X number of people. This touches on Utilitarian ethics which we'll discuss next in class I believe. In this case, the issue is not only death, but suffering, which how does one quantify or justify suffering? One could argue that no possible action could be taken except causing suffering to a group of people, which will motivate another force from using a higher level of suffering. Suffering incident A < potential Suffering incident B = more Good, in a wrong versus wrong, "no other solution" dilemma.
It is a possibility that makes sense if the rebels fired upon their own people in order to frame al-Asad and engage the United States for their cause, it would only be a tiny amount of pain and death in comparison of the ongoing civil war, which has a death toll near the 100,000 mark and countless torturing and war crimes committed from both sides, in comparison. So there is a potential for the "atomic bomb" ethics here from Rebel forces granted certain criteria are true.
Do you think Obama is using a nobel lie in order to threaten the Syrian government to comply with weapons conventions? And what policy should the U.S. take in order to fulfill the most good, from the most rational standpoint - that will most likely minimize lives lost and eliminate any suffering.
Side note: to make the issue even more complicated, lives lost can be quantified and rationalized based upon the premises that 1 life = 1 life. But how do you quantify suffering? This appears to be the cause of the slippery ethical slop, and the root of the chaos and uncertainty displayed by political officials. This is why these weapons are banned, because they cause unquantifiable suffering, whose use cannot be rationalized under any circumstance. Or can it?
Lots of questions, eager to hear responses.
T
Presidential Address on the issue:
Latest info:
I agree that this is an interesting application of Kant's theory. Fortunately, it looks like there may be an agreement in which Syria turns over its chemical weapons, avoiding the need for US military involvement; however, the situation still raises some interesting points. Kant argues that, for an action to be just, the "maxim" behind that action must be a "universal law." The military strikes would almost certainly kill not only Syrian soldiers, but also civilians. The maxim "it's okay to kill civilians" cannot be made a universal law.
ReplyDeleteThe example of the Hiroshima bomb is also interesting. At what point does it become ethically and morally okay to kill in order to save other lives? Is it the responsibility of our government to protect as many Americans as possible, even if it means killing the people of our nation? How does Kant's theory apply to war and military decision making in general? These are all interesting and complex questions that arise from such an analysis.
Sam Jordan
Now we start to get into Utilitarianism and consequentialism, which call for a reduction of suffering and allows for decisions to be made on predictability of consequence. It seems that consequentialism may be the overarching ethical force, even over deontology. Why have a universal social law if consequences do not matter? How ever consequentialism is tricky because it calls for inductive reasoning and high prediction capabilities. It also allows for strong criticism even if someone had good intentions but made poor calculations. So yeah, universal law would not allow for these things to happen, but universal law might be a tad over rated when things start getting tricky or when someone's life might be in danger, or there is a risk someone is not willing to take. Which is similar to the trolley scenario we talked about in class.
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