Foreign Policy

What actions should we take when another country is engaged in actions that we consider to be unjust?

Should we rush in and force the citizens of that country to live by our standards — presuming that we have all of the right answers and anybody in another country who disagrees needs to be forced, if necessary, to accept our way of doing things? Or should we sit back while human beings in another country are tortured, enslaved, and murdered, closing our eyes and ears and saying, “It’s not my problem.”

Neither option appears on the surface to be acceptable.

The first speaks of arrogance. It brings to mind a long and bloody history of one people forcing its will on another — crusades, jihads, inquisitions, and genocide where people enforced their prejudices with threats of imprisonment, torture, and death, only to be proved wrong in the end.

The second option sounds like the actions of a city who, upon hearing screams in the parking lot below his apartment window, investigates to find a child being raped and murdered. In response, he closes the window and turns up the volume on the television to drown out the screams.

Both options raise legitimate concerns. There is callousness to doing nothing. There is a danger of doing too much. There is no clear mark where one can stick a flag and say, “This amount of intervention is just right.” It is an issue over which reasonable people will always disagree.

{h3>The Neighbor’s Child

There are several who argue that we should do nothing to correct the injustices in a foreign country. They are only injustices in our own eyes, and we should leave them alone to handle their own affairs. They have a right to their autonomy, and we have a duty not to interfere with how they run their country.

The situation brings to my mind a similar problem; that of a situation where two families disagree over how best to raise children.

We have reason to support a presumption that, no matter how much one disagrees with the parenting decisions made within a neighboring household, we may protest and argue all we want, but we may not interfere. Even when the family is related to ours -- a brother or sister raising our own nieces and nephews — we are permitted to voice our opinion, but nothing more. Our neighbors and relatives may accept or reject our advice and our arguments as they see fit. Besides, who is to say, really, that we are right and they are wrong; could it not be the other way around?

However, this duty not to interfere is not an absolute prohibition, it is an overrideable presumption. There are certain decisions that a parent has no right to make, and certain situations that he has no right to force his child to endure. At some point, the threat to the health and well-being of the children necessitates taking some action — some form of intervention.

Overridable Presumption

The concept of an “overridable presumption” is most famous in a criminal trial. An accused has a right to be presumed innocent, and thus left alone unless somebody can provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this presumption is false. A criminal is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Similarly, a family is presumed to have a right to its autonomy until proven to be engaging in some form of action that obviously threatens the health and well-being of the children.

The same doctrine of an “overridable presumption” applies to foreign policy. There should be a presumption that grants the people of each country autonomy to direct their own affairs, even if one disagrees with the choices they make. However, when their choices involve the death and suffering of large segments of their population “ when the majority tyrannizes a minority or a dictator fulfills his desires through the suffering of the people, then, as with the parent whose choices promote the death of suffering of his own children, there is not only a right, but a duty, to intervene.

International Agreement

Another issue relevant to cases where a person may disagree with how a neighbor treats their child involves the legitimacy of unilateral action versus appeals to the court of public opinion.

A peaceful society is not possible where each citizen feels that he may exercise his own private discretion in when and how he may interfere in the lives of another. People tend to judge their own opinions too highly, and will see merit in interfering with others where there is none. Those others, at the same time, will see no merit in the intrusion. Unrestrained unilateral action to interfere in the lives of others is a quick recipe for unrestrained violence.

This is one of the main justifications for the presumption of autonomy “ to avoid the violence that arrogance would otherwise inspire.

Why do we appeal to an impartial jury in determining the guilt or innocence of a person? Because the angry mob is too likely to see guilt where there is none, and is too likely to use violence that is far beyond what is proportional to the crime, heaping injustice upon injustice and wrong upon wrong.

Of course, if an individual sees a threat of imminent harm “ he sees a parent on the verge of killing or maiming his child, and there is no time to call the authorities “ he may act. However, in acting, he should be prepared to face the judgment of the community after the fact, and allow them to judge if he acted rationally or rashly.

In the case of nations, again, the moral rules are the same. If there is time, then the best way to make sure that one is not drawing unwarranted conclusions is to present the evidence to an impartial jury and see if they agree. If there is not enough time, then the nation must act, yet, at the same time, be willing to accept the judgment of others as to whether its actions were justified, or the results of paranoid delusions or self-serving rationalization.

These arguments are not new. James Madison presented them in defense of the Constitution, in the Federalist Papers Number 63.

An attention to the judgment of other nations is important to every government for two reasons: the one is that independently of the merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a wise and honorable policy; the second is that in doubtful cases, particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of the impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed.

I argue that we would do ourself a service to pay attention to Madison ’s advice.