In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
He continued:
Moral impulses among statesmen have always been weaker than political ones, but in our time the consequences of their decisions have grown in scale.
Moral criteria applicable to the behavior of individuals, families, and small circles certainly cannot be transferred on a one-to-one basis to the behavior of states and politicians; there is no exact equivalence, as the scale, the momentum, and the tasks of governmental structures introduce a certain deformation. States, however, are led by politicians, and politicians are ordinary people, whose actions have an impact on other ordinary people. Moreover, the fluctuations of political behavior are often quite removed from the imperatives of State. Therefore, any moral demands we impose on individuals, such as understanding the difference between honesty, baseness, and deception, between magnanimity, goodness, avarice, and evil, must to a large degree be applied to the politics of countries, governments, parliaments, and parties.
In fact, if state, party, and social policy are not based on morality, then mankind has no future to speak of.
Solzhenitsyn spoke these words by way of a condemnation of the Allied Powers for what he saw as a grotesque betrayal of millions of Soviet citizens who had shed their lives to rid the world of the horror of the Third Reich. In his estimation the West, in seeking to "ingratiate themselves with the victorious Stalin," rendered the Soviet people who had suffered the lion's share of World War II casualties as slaves to the murderous Stalin. And the worst part about this is that they—Churchill, Roosevelt, and later Attlee and Truman—did this knowingly.
Among the most unsettling strategic concessions made by Britain and the United States at Yalta was the repatriation of Soviet émigrés to the USSR regardless of their consent. I don't see any way around calling this immoral.
And yet, when it comes to morality in politics, especially politics of the international variety, conventional wisdom holds that it is impossible to hold states to the same standards that we hold individuals to. This is because players seldom have a choice between right and wrong, and more frequently are left to discern which path represents the lesser of two evils.
What then do we make of Solzhenitsyn's assertion that politics must be based on morality? How is this to be done when we no longer even share a consensus as to what constitutes morality in the first place?
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Mar '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
"What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?"
There was a time when this would have been a rhetorical question. Man, are we in trouble.
Oct '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
We have an amoral politics for an amoral time.
And, as we all know, it's the economy, stupid!
Nov '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
My first thought -- which doesn't begin to address the whole issue -- is that you always speak the truth about evil. Even if you can't right every wrong on the international stage, even if you have to make agreements with corrupt governments, you can speak the truth about the oppression.
That is one thing that George W. Bush sought to do that the current president does not.
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it! (I bet I am the only person any of you knows who ruptured an appendix in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.) My husband and I were students at the IAP at the time.
Awe inspiring speech. It was the first time I was practically overpowered by the impression of moral authority emanating from a person. You could feel it in the room.
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Leigh: My first thought -- which doesn't begin to address the whole issue -- is that you always speak the truth about evil. Even if you can't right every wrong on the international stage, even if you have to make agreements with corrupt governments, you can speak the truth about the oppression.
That is one thing that George W. Bush sought to do that the current president does not. · 2 minutes ago
You are channelling Vaclav Havel, too, Leigh. Another giant. You would love his "Power of the Powerless".
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Among the most unsettling strategic concessions made by Britain and the United States at Yalta was the repatriation of Soviet émigrés to the USSR regardless of their consent. I don't see any way around calling this immoral.
And yet, when it comes to morality in politics, especially politics of the international variety, conventional wisdom holds that it is impossible to hold states to the same standards that we hold individuals to. This is because players seldom have a choice between right and wrong, and more frequently are left to discern which path represents the lesser of two evils.
He spoke in Liechtenstein because, alone among the European powers and principalities. that tiny country refused to hand over Russian soldiers after war.
Edited on Feb 17 at 8:15pmApr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it! (I bet I am the only person any of you knows who ruptured an appendix in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.) My husband and I were students at the IAP at the time.
Awe inspiring speech. It was the first time I was practically overpowered by the impression of moral authorityemanating from a person. You could feel it in the room. · 3 minutes ago
It's moments like this that I feel honored to be a member of Ricochet. What an entity! Thank you, Rob et al., Dianne, and Katie for your various institution building, post creating and other roles in that moment of joy for me.
Jun '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it! (I bet I am the only person any of you knows who ruptured an appendix in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.) My husband and I were students at the IAP at the time.
Awe inspiring speech. It was the first time I was practically overpowered by the impression of moral authorityemanating from a person. You could feel it in the room. · 7 minutes ago
You can color me jealous with a capital "J". What an experience it must have been.
My closest brush with greatness was hearing Ronald Reagan give his stump speech in downtown SLC in the 1976 campaign. I was instantly enthralled, and remain so to this day. But Solzhenitsyn: the embodiment of moral authority.
Edited on Feb 17 at 8:10pmRe: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it!
WOW. Incredible.
The speech, as you say, is indeed awe inspiring and I've been thinking about it for weeks. We should discuss Solzhenitsyn's view of progress next!
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
katievs
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it!
WOW. Incredible.
The speech, as you say, is indeed awe inspiring and I've been thinking about it for weeks. We should discuss Solzhenitsyn's view of progress next! · 1 minute ago
Yes. His remarks about the telephone displacing us in time have stuck with me.
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I don't think that any of us can imagine what the weight of governing during World War II does to a person's morality. No matter how righteous your cause, having to regularly decide that it is worth millions of deaths to fight for it, while not wrong (indeed, in this instance, indisputably right!), has to deaden your moral concerns with sacrificing lives to smooth the path to victory.
Churchill and FDR, of course, were not huge believers in consent before the war, although FDR moderated his progressivism with some protections for individuals against tyranny (the secret ballot in union organizing elections, for instance).
We are better off today in almost every conceivable respect, and politicians are less comfortable with individual sacrifice, but we are not in a place to criticize people whose spiritual burdens were so impossibly great. None of us can know how we would have fared.
Edited on Feb 17 at 8:21pmJan '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Unless one country can defeat another so decisively in war that it can demand unconditional surrender, it lacks the kind a power a legislature has over the citizens. It cannot command; it can only negotiate. Attempting to impose its moral vision then becomes much less likely to have any effect whatsoever.
Pseudo-cat could correct me, but I believe that Aquinas wrote that not all sins can be punished by the legislator. How much less then can one sovereign punish another?
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
Leigh: My first thought -- which doesn't begin to address the whole issue -- is that you always speak the truth about evil. Even if you can't right every wrong on the international stage, even if you have to make agreements with corrupt governments, you can speak the truth about the oppression.
That is one thing that George W. Bush sought to do that the current president does not. · 2 minutes ago
You are channelling Vaclav Havel, too, Leigh. Another giant. You would love his "Power of the Powerless". · 18 minutes ago
Bush was willing to moderate his Armenian Genocide recognition advocacy when he was in power. I think it is difficult to know how to weigh up the price of Iraqi lives against the cost of discretion. Very few first principles are unqualified truths.
Nov '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
What then do we make of Solzhenitsyn's assertion that politics must be based on morality? How is this to be done when we no longer even share a consensus as to what constitutes morality in the first place? ·
To the first question: What I make of it is that it's plain as the nose on my face, plainer, because a politics without morality would be more disfigured than my face without a nose--keeping in mind that my nose ain't that pretty to begin with.
To the second: That we argue and disagree about what's moral, well, isn't that what politics, well-practiced, is all about? If we stop arguing about what's moral, when we decide either that we know for sure what is moral or that the question is not worth fussing over because there's no credible answer, well then, that's real trouble. Muddling around in the in-between, that's the misty land of politics and morals, where we puny humans are stuck to make the best we can of it. Yes, it's fuzzy, but that don't get you off the hook.
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
James Of England
Bush was willing to moderate his Armenian Genocide recognition advocacy when he was in power. I think it is difficult to know how to weigh up the price of Iraqi lives against the cost of discretion. Very few first principles are unqualified truths. · 0 minutes ago
You have a point there, James. Truth-telling is a particular power of the powerless. Those in power are in a different boat altogether. I think they can't lie. Bush could moderate his criticism, but not deny the genocide, for instance.
I don't envy those who have to make life and death decisions for thousands.
Edited on Feb 17 at 8:28pmRe: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Some of this goes back at least to Machiavelli who argued (pretty persuasively) that acting in the interest of his polity, the prince could not abide by the morality applied to individuals…
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
James Of England:
We are better off today in almost every conceivable respect, and politicians are less comfortable with individual sacrifice, but we are not in a place to criticize people whose spiritual burdens were so impossibly great. None of us can know how we would have fared.
There, I have a difference with you. I think we have to criticize. I mean, it's part of being a good and serious people to reflect, ethically, on history.
But you're right that we shouldn't do it facilely, or with any confidence that we could have done better in their place.
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Noesis Noeseos: Unless one country can defeat another so decisively in war that it can demand unconditional surrender, it lacks the kind a power a legislature has over the citizens. It cannot command; it can only negotiate. Attempting to impose its moral vision then becomes much less likely to have any effect whatsoever.
Pseudo-cat could correct me, but I believe that Aquinas wrote that not all sins can be punished by the legislator. How much less then can one sovereign punish another? · 3 minutes ago
The modern view that the path involves abusing the physical person of ex-sovereigns after they have left power strikes me a partial answer, but an abhorrent one. The UK's surrender of Pinochet was deeply shameful. Nuremberg, the ICTY, and the special court for Sierra Leone were worse. Retroactive and/ or secret law, judges who've written books calling for the victims to be punished regardless of the law.... The desire to punish sovereigns leads us down some very dark moral and jurisprudential pathways.
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
James Of England:
We are better off today in almost every conceivable respect, and politicians are less comfortable with individual sacrifice, but we are not in a place to criticize people whose spiritual burdens were so impossibly great. None of us can know how we would have fared.
There, I have a difference with you. I think we have to criticize. I mean, it's part of being a good and serious people toreflect, ethically, on history.
But you're right that we shouldn't do it facilely, or with any confidence that we could have done better in their place. · 0 minutes ago
I would like to associate myself with your improvements on my comments, and disassociate myself from any contrary implications in my poorly worded original. Thank you.
Nov '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
James Of England
Bush was willing to moderate his Armenian Genocide recognition advocacy when he was in power. I think it is difficult to know how to weigh up the price of Iraqi lives against the cost of discretion. Very few first principles are unqualified truths. · 0 minutes ago
You have a point there, James. Truth-telling is a particular power of the powerless. Those in power are in a different boat altogether. I think they can't lie. Bush could moderate but not deny the genocide, for instance.
I don't envy those who have to make life and death decisions for thousands. · 3 minutes ago
Good point.
There are places around the world where Christians are persecuted, where for an American president to draw attention to it might only intensify the persecution.