Stephen Wertheim: When Humanitarianism Hurts
[Stephen Wertheim is a doctoral student in History at Columbia University.]
A duty to intervene. The responsibility to protect. Never again. This is the language of international ethics in our time. It is the language of justice construed as categorical imperatives. To deny the force of these injunctions is, supposedly, to stoop to the amorality of realpolitik. But to accept them -- what would that mean?
If we believe there is a duty to stop genocide, it matters only whether there is genocide. We need think no further. Genocide must be stopped. States must act. All competing values are trumped; politics is adjourned. Never mind what the consequences of a mission to stop genocide might be. No matter if intervention, however intended, seems more likely to do harm than good. Merely inquiring about consequences is subversive. It denies the duty to intervene. For if you think outcomes matter, you have to entertain the possibility that, on reflection, the most humane way to act might fall short of stopping genocide. It might even be to do nothing at all.
Categorical duties in politics are problematic not because they moralize but because they moralize in a particular way. They turn us into Martin Luther. They have us adopt what Max Weber called an ethic of ultimate ends, wherein intentions count for everything and results are left to fate. Now Weber did not fully disclaim such an ethic. He found inspiration from the politician who is normally prudent but one day reaches his limit of compromise and stands his ground. Some risks are worth taking, some revolutions worth trying, and a humanitarian disaster might sometimes warrant responses that will probably hurt but just might really help (though the risk is always easier to bear when others will pay most of the price). But the duty to intervene and the responsibility to protect command us to do more. They admit only ultimate ends. They install as the default posture what should be a rare exception -- and must be a rare exception if order is preferable to chaos.
Yet who today actually thinks like Luther? No one says projected consequences do not matter. Humanitarian interventionists do not consciously espouse an ethic of ultimate ends. In fact, they typically qualify the "duty to stop genocide" with a proviso requiring capability. As Bill Clinton's doctrine held, "If the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing."
But this is logically incoherent. The international community almost always possesses the raw physical capability to halt genocides on the global periphery; if really necessary, intervening states could prioritize stopping genocide before all else, conscripting their citizens and so forth. So the question is never whether raw capability exists or does not. No bright line is possible. The only question is what courses of action can realistically be taken, what tradeoffs they entail, and what consequences can be expected to flow from them. Categorical duty cannot mix with this. It requires any proviso to yield a stark yes-or-no because either there is a duty or there is none. Moral necessity thereby eviscerates concern for capabilities and consequences. If the duty is meaningful, the maxim is: "we must do everything to stop genocide." If the proviso is meaningful, the maxim is: "we should assess what can be done and act prudently." We cannot have necessity and preserve our choice, too....
Read entire article at The Utopian
A duty to intervene. The responsibility to protect. Never again. This is the language of international ethics in our time. It is the language of justice construed as categorical imperatives. To deny the force of these injunctions is, supposedly, to stoop to the amorality of realpolitik. But to accept them -- what would that mean?
If we believe there is a duty to stop genocide, it matters only whether there is genocide. We need think no further. Genocide must be stopped. States must act. All competing values are trumped; politics is adjourned. Never mind what the consequences of a mission to stop genocide might be. No matter if intervention, however intended, seems more likely to do harm than good. Merely inquiring about consequences is subversive. It denies the duty to intervene. For if you think outcomes matter, you have to entertain the possibility that, on reflection, the most humane way to act might fall short of stopping genocide. It might even be to do nothing at all.
Categorical duties in politics are problematic not because they moralize but because they moralize in a particular way. They turn us into Martin Luther. They have us adopt what Max Weber called an ethic of ultimate ends, wherein intentions count for everything and results are left to fate. Now Weber did not fully disclaim such an ethic. He found inspiration from the politician who is normally prudent but one day reaches his limit of compromise and stands his ground. Some risks are worth taking, some revolutions worth trying, and a humanitarian disaster might sometimes warrant responses that will probably hurt but just might really help (though the risk is always easier to bear when others will pay most of the price). But the duty to intervene and the responsibility to protect command us to do more. They admit only ultimate ends. They install as the default posture what should be a rare exception -- and must be a rare exception if order is preferable to chaos.
Yet who today actually thinks like Luther? No one says projected consequences do not matter. Humanitarian interventionists do not consciously espouse an ethic of ultimate ends. In fact, they typically qualify the "duty to stop genocide" with a proviso requiring capability. As Bill Clinton's doctrine held, "If the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing."
But this is logically incoherent. The international community almost always possesses the raw physical capability to halt genocides on the global periphery; if really necessary, intervening states could prioritize stopping genocide before all else, conscripting their citizens and so forth. So the question is never whether raw capability exists or does not. No bright line is possible. The only question is what courses of action can realistically be taken, what tradeoffs they entail, and what consequences can be expected to flow from them. Categorical duty cannot mix with this. It requires any proviso to yield a stark yes-or-no because either there is a duty or there is none. Moral necessity thereby eviscerates concern for capabilities and consequences. If the duty is meaningful, the maxim is: "we must do everything to stop genocide." If the proviso is meaningful, the maxim is: "we should assess what can be done and act prudently." We cannot have necessity and preserve our choice, too....