Mr. Marshall says, as many people do, that when it comes to international politics, “[t]here is no universal power to secure the rights of all people; it can be said that countries are in a state of nature.” This is because “[t]here is no one country with global hegemony.” Thus “[n]ations act amorally, and regard the concept of natural rights as little more than paper conveniences. If a country tries to act with morality as its guiding force, it loses power and gets left behind.” The conclusion he draws is that “consequentialism in foreign affairs is necessitated (in my view) by the nature of the highly competitive, amoral Hobbesian world order.”
I think it’s true that countries are in a state of nature, since there is sovereign authority over them. But it doesn’t follow from that that nations act amorally. According to Locke, Hobbes’ primary error with regard to the state of nature is his assumption that there is no moral code in the state of nature. In fact, there is. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, he says, and reason is that law. This is true of individuals as well as of nations—since the keeping of faith belongs to men as men, and not as members of society, people from different societies still are upset when they are victims of theft or other wrongs. Nations are no different. Regardless of their backgrounds, nations tend to be outraged when they are invaded, or subjected to other wrongs.
That there is a universal moral standard by which the acts of nations can be judged is reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which is addressed to a “candid world.” The presumption is that, regardless of the background of the person reading the Declaration, the reader’s conclusion will be the same if the reader is fair—that any people subjected by another people to the outrages listed in the Declaration, is, and of right ought to be, free and independent. The Declaration concludes with the assertion that the American states may do all things which free and independent states may “of right” do. There are some things which states may not, of right, do.
There is an international, natural moral order which nations can violate. Now, it is certainly true that many nations act without regard to the concept of natural rights. China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, many others. But I don’t think it’s true that a nation that tries to act in conformity with the international moral order gets left behind. I suspect that America’s position in the world—respected even where it is not loved by large populations—is in large part due to the fact that America has tended to abide by the natural moral order. God, I know we’ve done many, many wrong things in violation of that order, and a partial list of them would take up a lot of space. But our resistance to international tyranny in World War II and the Cold War has brought us many dear friends, both on the national level and on the individual level (i.e., refugees). And our all-too-frequent violations of the international moral order have harmed our prestige throughout the world—they are the first things our critics seize upon. Take, for example, Abu Ghraib. Our enemies in the Middle East seized upon this with fervor. Why? Because the wrongs committed by American authorities there are within the understanding of any person regardless of background—that is, they violate natural moral law.
The notion that it is efficacious to act immorally, or inefficacious to act morally, is a severe handicap, widely referred to as “maturity.” But in fact it is not mature—it is a great fantasy to assume that one can succeed in violation of moral law, or that such success, if possible, is worthwhile. I think our foreign policy should be guided by moral considerations as well as prudence. Obviously it is not wise (nor is it moral) for us to go about, as John Quincy Adams said, in search of monsters to destroy. But it is both wise and moral for us to be consistently guided by the propositions of the Declaration, in our foreign policy. As I’ve said before, I do believe that it is America’s destiny to free the world—wisely, yes, but to do it.
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