Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
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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Aug '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
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.
This strikes me as rather obvious. Of course, "to a large degree" can mean different things to different people.
Well, what counts on a consensus on morality in the first place? People needn't agree about all moral moral issues to agree on enough. So how much is enough?
I think individuals also must frequently discern which path represents the lesser of two evils (especially, for example, in family politics) rather than getting to choose between right and wrong. So does that argument let states off the hook?
Edited on February 18, 2012 at 6:36amJun '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
If we always knew the end of the story, decisions would be simple. That's why we expect our leaders, assuming we've picked good moral persons in the first place, to make the decision they can live with. That's all we can expect.
Jun '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Why is Churchill immoral? Solzhenitsyn's view needs to appreciate the complications of Yalta.
Jan '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I'm not sure if you're suggesting that:
Solzhenitsyn was discussing this problem without having given it serious consideration from a variety of angles, including some sympathetic to Churchill, which I would disagree with;
We should appreciate the difficulty of negotiating with Stalin, which I would agree with;
We should appreciate the knowledge problems involved and the lack of hindsight, which I would agree with; or
Affirmatively claiming that Yalta was not a terrible moment of appeasement and moral surrender, which I would disagree with.
Jan '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
James Of England
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 desire to punish sovereigns leads us down some very dark moral and jurisprudential pathways. · 29 minutes ago
True, especially since it is always so selectively employed, there being no superintending sovereign to provide and to enforce objective law.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
So, how does one even begin to satisfactorily answer such a big question? Let's say morality and politics are both patterns of ideas, codes of behavior - institutions - that our species evolved to facilitate living together in groups (the size of the groups tending to become ever larger because of the economic benefits from division of labor etc). But why did we (and do we) need these two distinct patterns called "morality" and "politics"?
Maybe Solzhenitsyn provides some guidance when he says morality is more applicable to "individuals, families and small circles", but is less directly transferable to politics. So is it that morality is the rule book best suited to the small kinship groups and tribes within which we evolved, while politics is the more 'amoral' technology needed to rule much larger social groups - like 300 million Americans! A staggering number. And yet our primitive hearts crave morality in politics. Why?
I dunno. It's complicated...
Sep '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Since we're all, to one degree or another, writers on politics, it seems good, when we inquire into the role of morality in politics, for us to consider, and perhaps discuss, the morality of a writer on politics.
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Right. But this is precisely what Solzhenitsyn was condemning. Or almost precisely...he was actually rebutting Locke:
"And then came our Enlightenment, and by the eighteenth century we had learned from John Locke that it is inconceivable to apply moral terms to the state and its actions. Politicians, who throughout history were so often free of burdensome moral constraints, had thus obtained something of an added theoretical justification."
And this, he argues, is precisely when and why mankind began its accelerated decline.
Aug '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Right. But this is precisely what Solzhenitsyn was condemning. Or almost precisely...he was actually rebutting Locke:
"And then came our Enlightenment, and by the eighteenth century we had learned from John Locke that it is inconceivable to apply moral terms to the state and its actions. "
Hmm... Eighteenth century, you say? Somehow I think our Founders didn't get Locke's memo. Lucky for us!
After all, aren't the constraints imposed by a philosophy of limited government moral constraints of a sort?
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Well, what counts on a consensus on morality in the first place? People needn't agree about all moral moral issues to agree on enough. So how much is enough?
Hi Midge! Good to see you.
It strikes me that we have a problem in defining morality when we can't agree upon such things as a) what counts as life in the first place (here I'm speaking of the unborn and the acceptance of abortion throughout the globe); and b) whether some lives are more valuable than other lives (which is an important question when it comes to decisions made in war).
In terms of personal morality, I'd be curious to see what a random sampling of 20 Americans would list as the top 20 most immoral behaviors and then to contrast this with lists of people in different cultures.
Aug '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Right. But this is precisely what Solzhenitsyn was condemning. Or almost precisely...he was actually rebutting Locke:
"And then came our Enlightenment, and by the eighteenth century we had learned from John Locke that it is inconceivable to apply moral terms to the state and its actions. "
Hmm... Eighteenth century, you say? Somehow I think our Founders didn't get Locke's memo. Lucky for us!
After all, aren't the constraints imposed by a philosophy of limited government moral constraints of a sort? · 10 minutes ago
Hmm... I just realized that what I wrote doesn't make a ton of sense, given that Locke is famous for his philosophy of limited government. But on the other hand, how could anyone believe simultaneously that government should be limited and that it is inconceivable to apply moral terms (such as constraints and the consent of the governed) to the state? Which part of Locke is Solzhenitsyn referencing here?
And... Hi Diane!!!
Jan '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Morality is a form of rationality, in which individuals respect their own interests, and also the interests of others. It's essentially a mixed-motive rationality. It isn't merely rationality, because morality presumes respect for others.
Politics is also a mixed-motive rationality, only on a different dimension. Politics happens within groups. The welfare of the group rewards individual interests and the interests of others. But since the group rarely satisfies everyone equally, individuals contend with each other within the group, while at the same time advancing the group as a whole. Politics is the art of the mixed motive.
Both politics and morality are based on resolving mixed motives, so they naturally share many of the same qualities.
There are obvious differences. With individual morality, moral agents evaluate how actions will affect others. But in politics, especially in a free society, no individual can possibly calculate the impact on 310 million people. Political systems, therefore, rely on majorities - not on the prescience of each individual.
Neither morality nor politics can survive without that basic respect for others.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I think one of the big disappointments that people had after the war was that returning POWs to Stalin didn't serve any purpose. In other words, Western powers sent millions to GULag just to maintain friendship with Uncle Joe.
I grew up in the Soviet Union (in Latvia, to be exact); and I knew a lot of people who had Polish passports after the war; and this passport gave them a chance for life and liberty in the West. However, all Soviets were sent right back to prison...
So, I am curious - what complications of Yalta you have in mind?
Jan '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I think it's a little naive to pretend as if the problem of employing morality when ruling over others is a new one, or that we've gotten worse about it. Probably the best characterization of the difficulties in moral politics was the Republic, where Socrates tries to define justice in the individual by drawing an analogy to justice in the state. Hobbes and Machiavelli both eschew morality for the sake of practical maintenance of power, which is preferable to anarchy. Even the founders were somewhat utopian about the high-minded ideals in the constitution that were betrayed by a country under the yoke of slavery. This is the eternal struggle between pragmatism and idealism - the good tend towards virtue, but not without understanding the heavy underpinnings. This is why Shakespeare wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Often idealism is sacrificed for the sake of practical considerations.
May '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
It seems to me that discussion of morality in political action must first recognize that even the very concept only makes sense if there is agreement between parties on what the specific standards of morality are. If that agreement does not exist there is no recourse except war and the subsequent imposition of my moral standards on you (assuming I am able to prevail.)
This is the fallacy of liberal "thinking". They think that all men everywhere share a common moral understanding. But nothing is more obviously false. Thus, in current terms, if we want to stop Iranian Islamic radical terrrorists from nuking Israel, we have to either persuade them, or demonstrate to them, that we are capable and willing to use every force at our disposal, up to and including their total destruction, to force them to accept our standard of morality. It worked with Germany. It worked with Japan. It hasn't been tried since. Because foolish people thought that "if we were just more tolerant" they'd come around. Liberalism cannot win because liberalism is not prepared to force its moral standard (if, indeed, it has one) on anyone.
Edited on February 18, 2012 at 8:47amNov '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Tom Lindholtz:
Because foolish people thought that "if we were just more tolerant" they'd come around. Liberalism cannot win because liberalism is not prepared to force its moral standard (if, indeed, it has one) on anyone. · 6 hours ago
Edited 6 hours ago
Except for those within their own country who oppose liberalism.
Mar '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Right. But this is precisely what Solzhenitsyn was condemning. Or almost precisely...he was actually rebutting Locke:
"And then came our Enlightenment, and by the eighteenth century we had learned from John Locke that it is inconceivable to apply moral terms to the state and its actions. "
Hmm... Eighteenth century, you say? Somehow I think our Founders didn't get Locke's memo. Lucky for us!
After all, aren't the constraints imposed by a philosophy of limited government moral constraints of a sort? · 9 hours ago
Or it could be that Solzhenitsyn was flat wrong on this. I've read Locke and certainly didn't get this impression from his Two Treatises on Government or A Letter Concerning Toleration. To suggest that the decline of Western civilization began with Locke is just goofy. When Locke was a youngster fresh out of the university he was all about the sovereignty of the monarch, so maybe this is what old Alex was referring to. But if so, that's a dishonest characterization of an historical figure just to make a point.
Aug '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
It strikes me that we have a problem in defining morality when we can't agree upon such things as a) what counts as life in the first place (here I'm speaking of the unborn and the acceptance of abortion throughout the globe)...
It seems to me that we'd be OK politically if the decision as to whether to allow abortion or not, and under what circumstances, were returned to the states, where it used to be. Which is consensus of a sort -- the agreement to disagree is a vital form of consensus for a peaceful life!
Someday I mean to dig up an essay on abortion by Robert Nisbet in which he argues that too great a preoccupation with abortion is unconservative -- not in accordance with the longest-held traditions of either the Church or the laws of Western civilization -- and post it here. His take would be interesting to discuss.
Even if people can't agree on whether abortion is murder or not, I would hope civilized people could agree that it's a shameful, tragic business, not something to be proud of, even if it is legal in some places and circumstances.
Aug '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
It strikes me that we have a problem in defining morality when we can't agree upon such things as... b) whether some lives are more valuable than other lives.
I think it makes sense to believe that to God, who is all-knowing and all-loving, all lives are equally valuable, but to also acknowledge that it's no great scandal that we treat some lives as more valuable to us than others: unlike God, we're creatures of limited knowledge and attachments.
I don't see how a society could survive if people attached no value to the lives of those they didn't know personally or admire as role models. But equally, how could it survive if people didn't first look after themselves, if spouses didn't first look after each other, if mothers didn't put their own children first?
Each creature is chiefly recommended into his own care, and after that, to the care of those who know him most personally. Moving up the chain, heads of state have to consider their own citizens first. Which isn't at all the same as treating foreign citizens like trash.