FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Grad School Notes and Summary on Force and Statecraft (Chapter 12)

BONUS LINK:  My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here. 

Considerations - Ethical questions as fulcrum of transnational impact
            What is the legacy of the ethics of state sovereignty?
            Do transnational realities create cosmopolitan ethics?

Ethics and International Politics
Definition: “Judgments about human relations made on the basis of normative standards.”
- 3 standards:
            Limits on behavior
            Cognizance of consequences
            Responsibility for conduct
- Problem of the absence of ethical agreement
            F and S: state ‘realities’ vs. religious ‘aspirations’—deep historical roots
            But: enduring, transcendent & universal principles’ can be seen in many formulations other than religion
            For example: human security and human rights
           
- Theme throughout chapter: Can ends justify means?

- Full Challenge: reconciliation of should and can (ends and means), given uncertain outcomes
            Niebur: politics ‘where conscience and power meet’
            Problem of determining ethical action in conditions of uncertainty

- Raison d’etat as an ethics of state responsibility
            Prudence as restraint (vs. ends justify means)
            Maybe: challenge is not state vs. ethics but state based ethics vs. non state based   ethics.
            *Ends are results of the means (constructivist)

- Principle of non-agression
- Flip side is inviolability of sovereignty
            Ethical goal of delegitimating
- Concomitant criteria of jus in bello (justice in war)
            Protection of innocents
            Proportionality
            Basic of Geneva Protocol, CWC, landmine ban
            Presnece of norm despite absence of enforcement
- Jus in bello in the nuclear age: problems of deterrence
            oppositie of protection of the innocents
            absence of control or proportionality
- Jus ad bellum in a transnational world
            anticipatory self-defense in the age of terrorism
            human rights, humanitarian intervention
            distributive justice and migrations
            environmental issues
- Root of the problem: conflict of ethical foundations
            Hoffman: duties beyond borders, to individuals
            National security vs. human security
            State security vs. cosmopolitan security

*WRT enforcement of ethics—the realists would say that the strong do what they can on the basis of their might.  The strong set the norms. 







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