I was recently at a family function of my in-laws on my wife’s father’s side. We were discussing the concept of right and wrong in government as it related to sovereign nations. In other words, if a people, say those of France, say capital punishment is wrong, shouldn’t it be wrong everywhere? Should they fight to defend this belief everywhere?
My response was yes and no since other countries are sovereign nations and they have a right to make laws as they see fit, while the moral object can be right or wrong.
It then begged to question what a sovereign nation was. I likened it to accreditation of a university. If a governing body of recognized universities came together to decide what criterion was needed for an applying institution to become a university (or chartered a third party entity), that body could declare what was and was not a university. Likewise, sovereign nations can set criteria by which other countries could be judged as actual sovereign nations.
I was sort of pulling this out from under my seat, so I was wondering what yous guys thought.
well, you could take the very realpolitik standpoint and say that a sovereign nation is any nation that has the capacity to maintain its sovereignty.
Try this.
Any group that can exercise the right to use or not use capital punishment over a given area can claim to be soveriegn to the degree that they can exercise that right exclusively.
Isn’t that a circular argument?
And does a border delineate if capital punishment is right or wrong? Or abortion? Or polygamy? Or prostitution?
Well a soveriegn can’t control whether capital punishment is right or wrong, only if it is legitimate or illegitimate.
What made the Roman Empire legitimate to the Apostle Paul when he penned the 13th chapter of Romans? Ye have yer answer. I.e., the thug that claims to be sovereign, who, tho’ he may be a thug and arrived at sovereign power through mere thuggery, nevertheless may not be opposed because doing so would unleash a greater evil. That’s about as “legitimate” as it gets… I think.
Romans 13
But what if my tax dollars go to something that I think is objectively wrong?
What if the government prosecutes good actions and/or rewards evil ones? Not just the Nazis did/do it.
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How about if the government has a “legitimate” policy that is objectively immoral? Is it right since the sovereign authority says or has policies that label it right?
Another question: Would it be better for the world to have a global government?
The UN seems (tries) to be that body now.
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It seems as if people are saying
1. the power to govern was given to those who take the power (or God gives to them)
2. the government’s policy is not necessarily right
(3. borders are lines are influence).
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But what if my tax dollars go to something that I think is objectively wrong?
Too bad. You’re not giving them voluntarily, donating them, as it were, to Planned Parenthood, or to facilitate unjust war, or to line the pockets of ADM. In this City of Man, we are faced almost entirely with prudential judgements involving the lesser of evils. In the case of tax dollars, we have the remote cooperation in grave evil which we all share by paying taxes or shopping at discount stores or driving when we could’ve walked or passing gas versus the evil having your life (and that of your family) destroyed by the IRS (or any other thug) collecting taxes (or protection money, as the case may be).
Another question: Would it be better for the world to have a global government?
No that would be far… FAR… ***FAR**** worse. The ideal is the smallest jurisdictions possible, with the most modest of powers (e.g., families, communities, tribes, states, confederations), that being consistent with humane governance.
How about if the government has a “legitimate†policy that is objectively immoral? Is it right since the sovereign authority says or has policies that label it right?
Of course might does not make right. But the (prudential) question becomes what alternative is there? Will overthrow of certain evil power result in a net positive good? Will a better, less evil, more humane, more moral, power take its place? Soon? Or will the attempted overthow result in centuries of warfare with increasingly brutal tactics? Or a complete power vaccuum in which utter lawlessness reigns?
Moral teaching usually makes it obvious what the ideal is. It just doesn’t tell us how to get there by way of political or ideological means. I take that silence as advocacy of extreme skepticism toward political or ideological solutions, which almost invariably, according to the Law of Unintended Consequences, end up creating even bigger problems than the ones solved, assuming the rare case when the original problems were in fact solved.
Countries are areas where humans have drawn artificial borders. Look at Earth from space and show me the borders. What if the vote among the countries was for capital punishment 101-100?
Ummm, you can’t see rivers from space? High mountain ranges? Vast desert spaces? Oceans?!?!?!! Ya know… the things that have traditionally separated people? Sure the guy with the spaceship doesn’t see “borders”… but that’s because he’s got a freakin’ spaceship!
I think your first question — should nations fight to enforce their moral conclusions outside their physical boundaries? — is far more interesting than the question of defining sovereign nations.
Sovereign nations, regardless of the philosophical concept you put behind them, exist. They are not likely to go away any time soon, if ever. Discussing the philosophical bases for their existence is just intellectual masturbation.
It is far more important to address the question of whether sovereign nations should, and should be allowed by others, to enforce their moral conclusions outside their physical boundaries. That’s the stuff of wars and has been the cause of many, many deaths throughout history. It is a real problem that bears on us every day.
Unfortunately, your answer of “yes and no” is exactly the answer that, in my opinion, should cause the most amount of war. What you have said, essentially, is that nations are justified in enforcing their morality abroad and justified in resisting such enforcement at home. If both of those are true, then the object of sovereignty is no less than a contest for the widest domination — the ultimate evil in Steve’s political universe (as described above).
Perhaps a better answer would simply be, No, sovereign nations have no right to enforce their morality outside their physical boundaries.
I agree. That was my main question, more or less. The definition of sovereign nations was just a necessary caveat.
I disagree on this point. Their definition which leads from this discussion is crucial is defining their function/boundaries.
No. You misunderstood my “yes and no”. I didn’t say that countries should go to war over morality. Their sovereign status allowed them to basically do what they wanted but still the object (action/legislation) could be right or wrong. I didn’t say one nation should go to war over their objections.
I believe war should be for defense only.
Hence, originally we went to war with Iraq over defense, which was justified. Then, after the defense reason went to pot (no WMD), W. changed his reasons to “bringing democracy to Iraq” which was not justified (but went with our ideology; God help the people of Iraq).
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(1) The definition of the function and boundaries of sovereign nations is only required to determine how they should behave if you believe that philosophical foundations for social structures are also behavioral justifications for social conduct. But in reality, it is more likely that social conduct will be used to justify the function and boundaries of social structures like sovereign nations, such that the philosophical “foundations” are merely ad hoc conceptualizations designed to reify the social conduct of those who are able to exercise the most power.
(2) If nations can internally enforce laws that are morally at odds with the laws of other nations, then there can be no such thing as a meaningful “universal declaration of human rights” (or similar declarations), because such a declaration would be worthless without enforcement and no nation would be allowed to enforce it against the offending laws of other nations.
But the idea of war as “defense” could take you around that problem and justify exactly the kind of war you see as unjustified. What is being defended? The integrity of a sovereign nation, or the rights of people to be free from oppression? If you believe both that nations can differ on morality and that the laws of different nations can have moral conduct (i.e., they are Right or Wrong) then you must by implication believe that Right nations will believe the people of Wrong nations are subject to unnecessary suffering. They must then make another moral decision: Is it Right to let those other people suffer when we have the power to stop that suffering? Is it Wrong to interpose our will over the right of their sovereign government to enforce Wrong laws?
Essentially, that puts nations who consider themselves Right (which no doubt includes all nations) into a dilemma regarding all nations that are less powerful. Do we defend only our right to be Right, or do we also defend the right of others to be free from Wrong?
How modern nations answer that question has, I think, changed our conception of sovereignty.
If I understand you correctly, a philosophical discussion on the topic of sovereign nations is only used to justify actions of the powerful by the powerful. If this is what you’re saying, I disagree. As an active citizen, I should be able to reason why the sovereign nation of which I am a member engages in certain actions. If I disagree, I should act to counteract my nation’s actions.
It could be decided that a nation’s sovereignty is diminished or voided if certain actions took place. For instance, the UN (the body that presumably assigns sovereignty) could declare that a nation is essentially under breach of contract that the UN defines (by other sovereign nations). This has taken place a few times.
Can’t it be both? What if the latter takes care of the former?
We should keep out of other sovereign nations business, unless the nation is deemed non-sovereign. Is this possible? I think it is.
I disagree. I think some nations think they are wrong. Then through internal conflict (violent or non-violent), change can happen.
Sovereignty sure is hard to get a hold of conceptually and in reality.
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That’s pretty awful too. The smallest governments can easily become polarized and unjust. We’ve seen the feds step in often to correct such things happening on the local level in the U.S. This is why pluralism is such an important concept, but it only seems to work well on a larger scale. Unfortunately, a hybrid approach may be best, though the actual implementation in the US may be wanting.
You are right, though. Localites can be far more efficient and less wasteful than their larger counterparts. Unfortuntely, some things only make sense on a larger scale. Perhaps what might work best would be where the larger entites provided consolidated services which the smaller consumed. These smaller ones would be free to choose other services, or do it themseleves if more efficient, essentially creating a market based system. (Have I mentioned I’m a true believer in the market system?)