means vrs ends morality regarding an interventionist foreign policy

I want to keep this thread fairly focused if possible. The focus being the morality regarding the means and not the ends of foreign intervention. Ayn Rand has many times said that the ends do not justify the means, so regardless of whether an interventionist foreign policy produces better results, the question is how can it be justified through objectivist philosophy.

If there are to be no taxes, no draft and no coersion how could the United States operate a foreign policy of interventionism? How could we send finacial aid to Pakistan with out taxes. Would we set up a state run charity to do so? Who in their right mind would donate their hard earned money to such a cause? And how does the government pay for the setup and administrative costs? What about our bases in other countris, who pays for these?

With regards to wars, obviously we have a volunteer army. But we would have to be completely honest with them about the reasons we're sending them to war. Deductive reasoning would infer that it is fraud (a form of coersion) to use their time, well being and lives for anything other than the honest reasons behind our actions. How many soldiers would have been willing to fight in Iraq if they were explicitly told and knew that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, was actually an enemy of Al Queda, had an underlying sectarian divide ready to turn into a civil war at any moment and had no WMD? Few if any? You could say we didn't know these things, but we definitely knew Iraq had no connection to 9/11 and a secterian division existed. In addition, much of the evidence was dubious (like the Italian letter) and it's pretty naive to think that oil interests and regional control weren't key factors.

Covert actions would be easier to justify since everyone in the CIA usualy knows why they're doing what they're doing, but still the funding is a problem. Who pays for this? The taxpayer? Nope, objectivism requires no taxes.

To me, it seems there is no realistic way to have such a voluntary interventionist policy. At least not one near the size and scope the US currently employs. It appears evident that an interventionist foreign policy can only be defended with the ends and not with the means. Am I wrong?

Post 1

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 - 1:57am

Well, quite apart from anything else, an awful lot of US political and military interventions are, taken by themselves, morally atrocious and could only be justified by reference to the ultimate ends they serve. When the means include killing thousands of civilians and supporting murderous regimes, either the ends justify the means, or nothing does. I think any intelligent supporter of these interventions would admit this, although they would say that the ends are in fact so important that they do justify these means. Maybe they do, that's not the point - the point is that if you want to be an interventionist you have to be a consequentialist (as you point out, Andrew). But if you're a consequentialist in foreign policy...why not in domestic policy?

Post 2

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 - 9:25am

I think you are missing some key ideas. First let us take a step back and ask what have we set up, and where is the world at? I think by the time the world is at the point where the US will not have any taxes, such policies won't be an issue. So are you creating something artificial? Probably. If we look at the longer term, let us say the next 100 years even, not all that long, how would the US get there? It would probably be gradual, meaning we might slowly dismantle the unnecessary socialist baggage and reduce government to a more manageable level, and institute some sort of lower, flat tax be it sales or income. By then, the world could well be much safer, and the military downsized even further, and with nations no longer a direct threat, either with a military or as a haven for criminals and terrorists, what you talk about could happen.

I don't necessarily agree with all your statements about Iraq, but let us put that aside and assume that the US transformed overnight into what you describe. After 9/11 there would be a lot of demand for action, and I think the $ would be available - certainly for Afghanistan. We probably would not have gone to Iraq without more allies though, so it might not have happened or happened later - really it is speculation. We probably would not do foreign aid, but if anyone did fund that they would probably account for what they GET a LOT better than now, and demand a lot more from say a Musharref - and that may make it more effective. Perhaps we would replace the fairly useless state aid with more capital investment, which would be better I think - so yes, if we did create a magical transformation I would be happy to have it happen and think we could cope with it. Remember also you just turned all those altruistic people into rational thinkers - so that would help.

Post 3

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 - 2:46pm

Kurt,

You're definitely right, we do need to be pragmatic about the whole thing. We can't reasonably get rid of taxes overnight. And I do agree we needed to go into Afghanistan (to get bin Laden, not nation build).

However, we have to set a course toward the desired aim, and preemptive wars and American hegemony are in the exact opposite direction. History has been very consistent regarding the correlation between war and state power. As Randolph Bourne wrote "War is the Health of the State". So if we want to aim at an objectivist or libertarian society we need to aim at smaller government and less foreign meddeling.

The point I was making however, was in a theoretical world though. Simply, on a philosphical and moral basis, how can foreign intervention be rationalized with the means and not the ends. I don't think it can be.

(Edited by Andrew William Syrios on 12/05, 2:49pm)

Post 4

Thursday, December 6, 2007 - 6:46pm