Does the end justify the means?
War in Iraq
by Simon Longstaff
Australia's regional neighbours have been stung by John Howard's bold endorsement of unilateral, pre-emptive military action to secure the safety of Australians. The Prime Minister is clear that waging war in another country is justified (even required) to protect Australian citizens.
But where is the line to be drawn in a line of argument that seems to be based on the principle that 'the ends justify the means'? What is there to be said in response to the growing number of people inclined to follow the lead of the United States by reserving the right to strike first?
Perhaps a partial response can be found in Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes classic account of how people fare when they put their faith in personal power.
For Hobbes, the central truth of human relations is that no person is so weak as to be unable to threaten another's life and no person is so strong as to be free from that threat. As he puts it, the 'state of nature' is one of perpetual warfare as people compete for the same, limited resources. Hobbes' state of war does not require that there be actual fighting. Fear of one's neighbour is enough to reduce the human condition to one in which life is, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
Hobbes' solution to this problem was to propose an historic compromise in which the safety of all would be guaranteed if and only if, each and every person, without exception, would enter into a social contract to surrender a measure of their individual sovereignty into the hands of “common power to keep them all in awe”.
Before Hobbes, it had been thought that this proposition only made sense for the weak, poor and wretched. Hobbes challenged this view by pointing out that no amount of riches or power was sufficient to ensure personal safety. Thus, the social contract required all to subscribe or none.
States, like Australia, exist in an international order that is the equivalent of Hobbes' 'state of nature'. In the world of international affairs, sovereignty is jealously guarded. Powerful nations, like the United States, have come to believe that their military and economic power will keep them safe. In such a world, there is little reason to compromise sovereignty. Free from threat, why cede the power to act unilaterally?
We now know that no group is so small as to be unable to cause lethal damage to a state and that no state, not even the US, is so powerful as to be free from the fear of such an attack. The citizens of the world's liberal democracies are already paying the price for this changed security environment. Driven by fear, democracies have begun to curtail liberties that their citizens often secured only after centuries of effort. They have embarked on a costly 'war against terror' that has no obvious end.
In short, we seem to have entered a world that is starting to look more and more like that described by Hobbes – an international 'state of nature' in which fear leads to lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
In such a world, some might argue that the USA is the obvious candidate to take up the sword of Leviathan. But a more careful reading of Hobbes will show how mistaken this approach would be. Leviathan is not a role merely to be assumed by the most powerful of the existing players. Instead, it must be created anew – a product of consent rather than coercion.
Perhaps we need to allow a measure of sovereignty to pass into the hands of a common power that can assure justice and safety for all. This probably means revamping the United Nations and giving it, or some successor body, teeth enough to 'keep all in awe'.
The institutions of global governance will also have to be reformed in order to ensure widespread legitimacy – especially in the eyes of the weakest members of the international community. If this is too ambitious a project, then we might at least invite our leaders to abandon the fantasy that unilateral action will ever make us safe. Without consent, even Leviathan is powerless.
discuss this articleDr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre.
This article was first published in Living Ethics, issue 50, summer 2003.
© St James Ethics Centre