The Ethics of International Relations
Rebecca Beard offers clarification on the supposed clash between the ‘practical’ and the ‘moral’.
According to Aristotle, politics is ethics: both in terms of the ends it attempts to serve, and the means by which this should be achieved. Because politics deals with the fundamental question of what we ‘ought’ to do, it is intimately intertwined with the ethical conception of the ‘good’ and the behaviours that must be attributed to its achievement. Misunderstandings of the nature of ethics and politics attempt to construct a clear line between issues deemed to be ‘practical’ and therefore external, and those considered ‘moral’ and therefore belonging to the ethical realm.
This underlying assumption (particularly prevalent within international relations theory), which claims that the pragmatic is distinguishable from the ethical, is wrong. Rather than existing externally from the ethical realm, what we classify as ‘pragmatic’ simply offers an alternate ethical frame. Ultimately, all political theories are ethical ones, classifying actions as morally right or wrong, on the basis of how they function within their own understanding of the ‘good’ (the ‘telos’) and therefore prescribing what ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ be done.
‘Ethics’ versus ‘practicality’: A shaky morality
The matter as to whether international or political dilemmas can or should be construed as either inside or outside the ethical realm raises further questions regarding perceptions of ethics, politics and the relationship between them. Fundamentally, the debate hinges on our definition of ethics and politics, and from this, how, if at all, we choose to distinguish between the ‘moral’ and the ‘practical’.
A broad conception of ethics would present this definition as the principles that guide and regulate human behaviour. Whereas morality has to do with the rightness or wrongness of an action, ethics deals with the wider framework of ideas that determine this judgment. Aristotle notes that “every inquiry, and simultaneously every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good”. Ethics is teleological; that is, it conceptualises an ultimate ‘good’ and thus sets out a normative structure as a means to achieve that end.
In understanding politics, it is necessary to understand ethics, not simply because one informs the other, but more fundamentally because politics is the epitome of ethics. As politics has the capacity to legislate over society (domestic or international), prescribing what we are to do and from what we are to abstain, it is by its very nature a normative discipline. Politics is ‘architectonic’ in that the decisions it makes assume the existence of, and aim towards, a particular ‘good’, and in doing so articulate a particular mode of behaviour in the process. Politics is therefore an ethical realm; its aims are concerned with an ultimate end. The idea that a political issue might be deemed beyond the scope of ethics is therefore inherently contradictory.
Opposing this view is a conceptualisation that presents ethics and politics as distinct entities, drawing a clear line between the ‘moral’ and the ‘practical’ areas of an issue. Machiavelli’s foundational realist text The Prince epitomises the attempt at drawing this distinction. Rather than making claims about man as he ought to be, Machiavelli endeavours to record man’s nature and make suggestions on how this is best served. Practically speaking, all individuals are self-interested and should therefore do whatever is necessary to achieve and maintain power, and, in doing so, reject what might be classified as ‘moral behaviour’. By pitting moral and practical against each other, Machiavelli seeks to distinguish a politics beyond ethical frameworks.
Typically, international relations frameworks tend to create the same false ethical dichotomies between theories of state behaviour. The most prominent of these is the distinction between realism (which is practical, detached and amoral), and liberalism (normative and moral). Contemporary realists, such as Carr and Morgenthau, reassert Machiavelli’s claim. Whilst it cannot be denied that both of these frameworks contain distinct and at times conflicting perspectives, the classifications made on the basis of morality are flawed because they misunderstand the nature of ethics.
The translation of this alleged theoretical disparity to the real world of international politics is evident in the rhetoric of state leaders and diplomats. Recently, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton asserted that: “Foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology.” Policy documents, such as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) paper on the Responsibility to Protect, distinguish between a ‘practical’ and a ‘principled’ approach. By failing to identify the fact that the pragmatic can be an ethical or principled framework, the paper demonstrates both a misunderstanding that leaders have towards their roles and decisions, and also a confusion as to the fact that the actions they take might somehow be neutral or ‘outside’ of moral judgment.
Rather than engaging with ethics as a philosophical umbrella under which different and competing understandings of the ‘good’ operate, a popular tendency is to conceptualise it through a narrow and individual lens. The question of ethics is brought down to a purely deontological perspective: a code of moral absolutes. This characterisation misappropriates and confuses the distinction between ethics as an overarching and inescapable system to comprehend teleology, and the specific ethical interpretations that operate internal to it.
Morality is not merely an autonomous realm of conduct, unconnected to nature or self-interest. It is the opposite: integrated with each of these in accordance with what might be deemed ‘good’. What distinguishes ethics is not the fact that it has a concrete and absolute conception of the ‘good’ in and of itself, but that the frameworks within it conceive this end in accordance with their own pursuits. Of course, this means the existence of competing and irreconcilable internal interests of what this ‘good’ might be, but that does not mean it does not exist to begin with.
Because the arguments of realism pit ethics against pragmatism, by basing themselves on a flawed and limiting understanding of what ethics and morality entail, the assertion that political decisions are somehow external to ethics cannot stand. Aristotle’s concept of an integrated politics and ethics (a blurred line between what we might deem the practical and the moral) must hold.
Beyond a false dichotomy: Pragmatic matters as ethical frames
Flowing from this, we find that in the false dichotomy of ethics versus pragmatism, the arguments, theories and perspectives that we associate with the latter are ethical frameworks in and of themselves. Contrary to assertions that ‘practical’ behaviour is amoral and therefore not party to the ethical realm, it is false to believe that it does not yield to an ethic. Machiavelli’s language, at the foundation of this debate, is telling; he is advocating a ‘should’, a set of practical actions that ought to be followed to achieve an end of power. Applying Aristotle’s conceptualisation of ethics to Machiavelli’s theory simply sees power as the ultimate ‘good’. In this sense, what The Prince deems to be immoral or amoral behaviour is the necessary means to achieve it. Within this ethical understanding, ‘evil’ is accepted as practically good or useful, and individuals are morally obligated to adopt this behaviour if they are to achieve the desired ‘telos’, or powerful ends.
Realism is often classified as amoral because of its claim that it does not strive to be normative. Unlike liberalism, which describes a world with the potential for cooperation, realist theory merely focuses on describing the world as it is: anarchic, with states vying for power in order to survive. However, alongside its description of the status-quo, realist thought also analyses the behaviour of states: monitoring motivations, and the success and failure of actions in relation to how they serve their attempt at survival.
In this way, realism deals just as much with prescribing particular behaviour as liberalism does. If the international system operates in a particular way, and states must do whatever it takes to survive in this system, survival becomes the ethical ‘good’. As a result, any action that perpetuates this ‘good’ – no matter how it might be deemed through other lenses (invasion, nuclear proliferation, state sovereignty etc.) – is morally right. Within the ethical framework of realism, states ‘ought to’ take actions to secure power, in order to achieve the ‘good’ of survival.
Furthermore, if, according to realist thought, the state represents the primary actor in the international relations system, it must also be considered the ultimate moral force, because its existence creates the possibility for an ethical political community to exist domestically. In this understanding, the existence of the state represents the supreme ‘good’, and an ethic of responsibility towards its protection is thus required. Therefore, states ‘ought’ to focus on policies that strengthen sovereignty and security, and ‘ought not’ accept behaviours that threaten these.
For this reason, any distinction made between ethical and pragmatic approaches is intellectually unsound. Terms like ‘ethical realism’ (whose antithesis is ‘amoral realism’) are not just synonyms, but miss the point. Perceptions of issues in terms of pragmatic considerations simply emphasise a different kind of ‘good’. They are not, as Machiavelli might argue, external to ethical concerns, but rather yield to their own internal ethic.
Reconsidering the issue: A situated debate between ethical frames
Political and pragmatic theories, therefore, are not external to the question of ethics when it comes to the consideration of matters of international relations. Even more fundamentally, if politics, as we have seen, is essentially concerned with the determination of behaviour in light of what is views to be the ‘good’, then it follows that we conceptualise politics as ethics. In this light, it cannot be argued that any political issue falls outside of the scope of ethical debate.
Situations in international relations considered through a framework of realism are ethical dilemmas. Justifications for actions on the basis of being ‘practical’ and therefore non-ethical, whether made within the theoretical realm or espoused by our leaders, are grounded in a false approach to ethics. International relations needs to move forward and embrace the full ramifications of the frameworks it adopts, including their ethical dimensions. Until this occurs, we will remain muddled in our efforts and limit our ability to explain and shape the politics around us.
