The connection between foreign policy and morality is surprisingly poorly examined. It is not wanting in words or assertions. On the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion we will read and hear millions of them on the moral authority of the UN, intervention in the affairs of sovereign states, democratic governments deceiving their citizens—and many other questions with a moral content.
But there has been little attempt to spell out general and coherent positions on these questions, to relate particular circumstances to general principles, or to acknowledge and confront the difficulty of discussing moral issues in the peculiar conditions and circumstances of international politics. What follows is a tentative attempt to do some of those things.
There are two widely held and sharply contrasting views on the subject. The first, in its extreme version, is that morality in foreign policy is like snakes in Iceland: there ain’t any. A more moderate version allows for some minor role for morality. But essentially, foreign policy and international politics are seen as necessarily amoral activities. In academic circles, this view is associated with the “realist” school.
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