In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda many scholars and policy-makers began to reexamine the concepts of just war and humanitarian intervention with a view to determining whether states have a positive duty to protect people who are being subjected to genocide and ethnic cleansing and other forms of gross human rights violations. The main bar to forceful military intervention to suppress genocide and ethnic cleansing is the Charter of the United Nations which is based on the principle of respect for national sovereignty and does not explicitly recognize humanitarian rescue as one of the grounds for organized military intervention authorized by the Security Council. However, in 2001 an international commission, chaired by Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, issued an influential report in which it was argued that there is a need for a new norm of international relations that would place a positive obligation on states to act either alone or in concert to protect innocent people against genocide, ethnic cleansing and other serious imminent human rights catastrophes.
In the context of this debate over the ethics of forceful humanitarian intervention, there was an interesting exchange between Jean Bethke Elshtain and Anthony Burke in which Elshtain, agreeing with the claim that there is a “responsibility to protect” innocent people from serious, widespread, and systematic human rights violations argued that there is also a “presumptive case in favor of the use of armed force by a powerful state or alliance of states who have the means to intervene, to interdict, and to punish in behalf of those who are under assault.” According to Elshtain, “the burden of this responsibility will be borne disproportionately by the United States, given its unique capability to project power.” Her argument was that because the United States is a “superpower” with unique military capabilities, it has a greater responsibility than other states to intervene on behalf of people who are threatened with ethnic cleansing or genocide.
President Obama invoked essentially this same argument in his speech last night arguing for a limited, punitive US military strike against Syria as a response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, 2013,
In response to her argument, Burke accused Elshtain of an “ethical sleight of hand” because she based her argument on the “Spider-Man ethic” under which “The more powerful have greater responsibilities,” for the international protection of human rights. Burke argued that in appealing to this principle she is “brushing aside” the important role of the United Nations and “its capacity for global debate and transparency,” that is, its capacity for open, democratic deliberation. The UN’s deliberative capacity would be by-passed by allowing “coalitions of the willing” to decide among themselves when military intervention was justified. Moreover, he says that ignoring the vital role of the United Nations, and relying on coalitions of powerful states casts the United States in the role of a superhero “with all the absence of moral ambiguity such a metaphor implies.”
In her reply to this charge, Elshtain wrote the following:
With all due respect to Mr. Burke, I do not believe he knows anything about Spider-Man. Any reader of Marvel Comics appreciates that Spider-Man is a tormented superhero and that his life is riddled with moral conflict and ambiguity. Does his loyalty to family and girlfriend take precedence over his duty to protect the innocent from torture and death? How can he be fair to the “domestic” and the “trans-domestic” at the same time? Spider-Man is always in danger of stretching himself too thin; always a bit exhausted; always wondering if he is doing the right thing. I chose Spider-Man rather than, say, Superman precisely because of the perduring conflicts Spidey faces. What a pity that Burke has not familiarized himself with this existential and troubled hero.
There are several points I should like to make about this exchange. First, Burke seems right in his argument that an appeal to the Spider-Man principle in this context does not by itself settle the question of when, if ever, forcible military intervention by nation states into the territories of other sovereign states in order to prevent or suppress massive human rights violations is morally justified. That a militarily powerful nation such as the United States could have intervened in order to suppress the genocide in Rwanda does not entail that it ought to have intervened. There were other considerations at that time, for instance, the Clinton administration did not want to get embroiled in another African conflict, like Somalia, in which US troops were placed in harm’s way even though there was no vital US national interest at stake. Whether this constitutes a “good excuse” for inaction in Rwanda is another question, but the point here is that there are always going to be other considerations at work. But this is why Elshtain is correct in pointing out that possessing “great power” does not absolve moral agents of moral ambiguity, quite to the contrary, it intensifies their moral quandary.
In the case of humanitarian intervention, no one would seriously expect nations such as Tuvalu or Antiqua to be the first to send its troops into a distant country in order suppress genocide or ethnic cleansing. It is far simpler if you are not very powerful because no one expects you to do very much other than take care of yourself and not harm others. So one might also want to say -- “With little power there comes little responsibility.”
It would also be simpler for Spider-Man if he was a libertarian and did not believe as a matter of principle that he had any positive moral responsibilities of beneficence that he owed to anonymous strangers. If Spider-Man was a libertarian he would mind his own business, probably marry his girlfriend and settle down to a quiet life in the suburbs, displaying his superpowers only as entertainment for children’s birthday parties. His life would be far less complicated if Uncle Ben had told him only that he should not abuse his superpowers, and not also that he should use them to advance the common good. If Spider-Man was not a ‘liberal’ and did not believe that he had positive moral responsibilities of beneficence to come to the aid of suffering humans he would only have to observe negative duties not to use his powers to harm others -- he would not feel obliged to go out of his way to help them when they could use his help. He would not have to go around fighting “evil-doers” all the time. But Spider-Man happens to be an idealist who believes in things like human rights and the rule of law. He believes that his superpowers confer upon him a unique responsibility to protect these values, and that his failing to act on these responsibilities would be wrong.
As Elshtain said, “The United States is itself premised on a set of universal propositions concerning human dignity and equality. There is no conflict in principle between our national identity and universal claims and commitments. The conflict lies elsewhere—between what we affirm and aspire to, what we can effectively do, and what we can responsibly do.” If the United States believes that it has a moral responsibility to protect and promote freedom and human rights, then its “superpower” status often makes its leaders that they ought to use those powers to protect others from “evil-doers” when they can do so without great cost or risk to the national interests of the United States, and where there are no other “good reasons” why it should not do so.
For instance, it does not seem that the United States regards the lack of UN Security Council authorization for the use of military force to constitute a “good reason” against military intervention in other cases: it used its military powers in Kosovo in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001, and in Iraq in 2003 without such authorization, and in each of these cases, did so at least in part because of patterns of gross human rights violations in those countries under their previous governments, but also, in part because its leaders also believed that military intervention was in the national interest of the United States. In the first two of these cases, the UN gave these interventions its retrospective blessing -- but not for Iraq, a war that is now widely regarded as the greatest blunder in American foreign policy since Vietnam. Burke has a point then when he argues that that decision-making by “coalitions of the willing” underpinned by the “idealism and power of the United States,” cannot “match the possibility for greater dialogue, equality, and transparency present in the (admittedly imperfect) United Nations.” But the deliberative powers of the government of the United States are also imperfect. It's leaders often becomes morally conflicted and wonder whether it is doing the right thing or not doing something it ought to be doing. It sometimes uses its power in ways that cause more harm than good. Being an idealistic superhero (or a superpower) definitely has its downside.
It is not a coincidence that Spider-Man is an American comic book character.While the notion that there is a link between power and moral responsibility has broad intuitive appeal, and the Spider-Man Principle may indeed already have become part of American “folk ethics”, there are some obvious reasons to doubt that this principle is true as it stands; the main ones being that ethical duties do not arise directly from facts, and “can” does not imply “ought”. For instance, it is true that the United States of America can launch a massive nuclear attack that would obliterate Denmark. But it certainly does not follow from the fact that it can do this that it ought to do so. Generalizing from this example, although one has the power to do something does not imply that one ought to do that thing. While correct this logical argument fails to take into account cases in which the prospective agent or agents is already under a moral obligation of some kind to do the thing in question. So, for example (pace Peter Singer), if I have a moral obligation to rescue a drowning child from a shallow pond, and can do so without great cost or risk to myself, then, morally I ought to do it. So, then, if we assume that the United States, like other nations, as a moral obligation to protect innocent people from crimes against humanity, and that it can do so without great cost or risk to itself, then it ought to do so.
This was essentially President Obama's argument in his address last night on Syria. But there is still a problem with this reasoning. The problem is that the agent, in this case the United States, may also be under other moral obligations which would lead to a contrary course of action. Among other things, the US in under an obligation, which is both moral and legal, to obey the international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. Attacking Syria without authorization of the UN Security Council when the US is not directly defending itself against an immanent threat, would violate this obligation. This is one powerful counterargument that President Obama did not address last night. This is unfortunate, since then his argument boils down to the dubious claim that the United States, because of it unique military capabilities, may violate international norms in order to enforce them.
References:
- International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The Responsibility to Protect. (Ottawa: IDRC, 2001). See also, Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, “The Responsibility to Protect.” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 6 (2002).
- Jean Bethke Elshtain. “International Justice as Equal Regard and the Use of Force,” Ethics & International Affairs, 17, no. 2 (2003), pp. 53-64,
- Anthony Burke. ”Against the New Internationalism,” Ethics & International Affairs 19, no 2 (2005), p. 80.
- Jean Bethke Elshtain. ”Response to ’Against the New Internationalism’ Against the New Utopianism,” Ethics and International Affairs, 19, no. 2 (2005), p. 93.
