QUESTION OF THE MONTH
Each month we will select the most original or thought provoking question to display here. The prize is the Pathways CD-ROM containing the current snapshot of the 3500+ Pathways pages on the web, together with Anthony Harrison-Barbet's 900 page e-text Philosophical Connections, containing profiles of 126 Western philosophers with detailed hyperlinked analysis of the historical progression of their ideas.
Prize Question for June 2010
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 17:34:19
Penny asked:
This is a political philosophy question about the incompatibility of national sovereignty and international institutions such as the UN, EU, treaty commitments and the legitimacy (or not) of enforcement mechanisms. I'm sorry it's so long.
For my entire adult life I have been a strong supporter of the UN and international law as the best hope to prevent and mitigate wars and help bring about, if not perfect global peace, harmony and justice, at least a reduction of conflict and more peaceful coexistence. I dislike nationalism, and particularly superpatriotism, which seem to me one of the principal causes of conflict, and have looked forward to the decreasing importance of nation states.
Now, since I've developed an amateur interest in philosophy and ethics, I discover that national sovereignty is seen by many as key to human progress and civilisation since at least the Enlightenment; that it is inalienable and by definition supreme, meaning that states cannot relinquish any part of their sovereignty, thereby destroying any claim to legitimacy of international law (and the courts to enforce it). I read, too, that while states have the authority to make treaties and sign up to conventions if they wish, they can also break them at will if that suits, and that no other state or institution has (or can have) legitimate authority to prevent them, or penalise them for doing so (or even, it seems, have grounds to criticise them, since states are not moral agents).
So when those of us who were against the Iraq war complained that it was a war of aggression, or we cite the Geneva Conventions (rather than basic morality) on the treatment of prisoners, or the Law of the Sea when unarmed passengers are killed on ships in international waters, or the discriminatory application of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, or we welcome the establishment of the ICC, apparently we haven't a philosophical leg to stand on.
If nothing short of a world state (inevitably oppressive and therefore far from desirable) can legitimately override national sovereignty, what is to be done? Are we stuck forever with a Hobbesian state of nature in the international arena, where the strongest countries can generally expect to prevail over the wishes and needs of the weakest, backed by the threat of superior brute force?
I was warned that studying philosophy would force me to rethink some of my fundamental beliefs, which was true and is stimulating, but I'm finding this very hard to come to terms with. Is there a way round or over the sovereignty stumbling block to greater global justice, a philosophical route to legitimacy for what I think of as progressive international institutions?
Response from Geoffrey Klempner
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