In recent times the opinion has often been expressed that the large Western countries are afraid or do not want to help Ukraine as hard as they could. If this is the case, one may wonder whether it is possible to find a philosophy and rhetoric that would sway even a little their fear and reluctance in a better direction for Ukraine.
Like other thinkers, I believe that thinking and decisions about ongoing aggression are still influenced (or even determined) by the fear of nuclear war. At first glance this hypothesis may seem unreasonable, in the sense that at the moment there is not much talk about nuclear war. In the first days of the war there was more talk about it, and often with an obvious note of panic.
However, just because the nuclear threat isn’t talked about as much anymore doesn’t mean it no longer has an impact. Nuclear arsenals have not disappeared anywhere, over the past two years the problem of nuclear war has not been solved unnoticed. Probabilistic statements that because threats are not followed by action, therefore there will be none, do not mean that there is now no need to fear nuclear war and that anything can be done.
But what can you really do? The main Ukrainian rhetoric of Estonian politicians can be summarized with four key words: brutality, condemnation, warning and rules-based world order. Each of these rhetorics has its own little sense, but they don’t work enough because the rhetoric of nuclear war (or the fear of nuclear war) can prevail over them all. What if the Russians had committed atrocities? What if the sovereignty of countries should be respected? what if, if Russia is not stopped, the war will one day reach Western Europe? What if the world were to be rules-based?
Nuclear war is still too scary. Other things survive somehow, but not nuclear war. Or even if he survived, it would still be too scary. What is happening in Ukraine is not a sufficient reason to approach such an atrocity.
To the extent that the leaders of major Western countries find it necessary to rationally justify their delays and failures to intervene, fears and reluctance towards Ukraine, it seems that they are trying to present it as a moral consideration. This consideration could be called the principle of least sacrifices.
“Given that nuclear war promises frenzied destruction and massive casualties, any other course of action is better.”
An argument that attempted to justify non-intervention in the Ukrainian war with possible nuclear war might indeed have a reasonable and moral philosophical basis. The basis for this would be a utilitarian way of thinking. It is necessary to do what will ultimately bring the most good and least harm to all those affected by the situation. If one course of action promises to bring less sacrifice and suffering than another, the course of action which brings less should be preferred. Since nuclear war promises insane destruction and massive casualties, any other course of action is better.
For a philosophical thinker such an attitude would deserve attention, but the problem is that the principle of the least number of victims and Article 5 of the NATO Treaty are incompatible. If this principle prevents assistance to Ukraine, it should also prevent the application of Article 5 in the event of an attack on a NATO country, if the attacker is a nuclear power.
There is no doubt that if London, Paris or Washington were hit by some of the bombs that hit Kiev, the reaction would be swift and painful. It certainly would not happen that Britain, France or the United States would contemplate escalation in such a situation and somehow fail to get out of it.
If we accept this, we should also accept that the risk of nuclear war is not an absolute moral taboo in the Western world. The question can only be under what conditions such risk taking is permitted. If conditions are right, nuclear-armed Western nations will risk nuclear war and consider it moral enough, regardless of the amount of destruction and suffering. The principle of least sacrifice is balanced by other considerations.
This means that, at least for some NATO members individually, the risk of nuclear war is acceptable. But in reality it seems acceptable to all of NATO. This is demonstrated by the rhetoric surrounding Article 5, which talks about protecting every square inch of every member state. At the same time, the conditions for risk taking seem quite strict. Deliberately attacking a chicken coop on NATO territory could give moral permission to risk nuclear war. On the contrary, a thousand or ten thousand victims in non-NATO territory do not give this moral permission.
However, from a philosophical point of view, we must ask ourselves how living or not living in a certain territory can change something in the moral framework linked to the risk of nuclear war. Nuclear war should be something total, absolute. The argument that presents nuclear war as an intolerable monstrosity is based precisely on the idea that nuclear war is potentially uncontrollable and on a large scale, perhaps involving the entire planet and all of humanity.
A moral principle with which to justify an attitude based on territory or alliance would have to be very strange from a philosophical point of view. It should say something like this: “It is morally permissible to risk the destruction of humanity if the motivation for initiating the process of destruction is the protection of one kind of people; it is not permissible to risk the destruction of humanity if the motivation for initiating the process of destruction is the protection of another type of people; the first type of people is those who live in NATO on the countries’ territory; the other type of people are those who live on non-NATO territory.”
“If the second kind of people can be tortured and killed, the first kind of people cannot even touch the ground they walk on.”
In fact, the principle would be even more unpleasant. Here one should not only postulate that there is a type of privileged people for whom otherwise intolerable risks can be taken, but also assert that the ground under the feet of these privileged people is also sacred and inviolable. While the second type of people can be tortured and killed, the first type of people must not even touch the ground they walk on. As already mentioned: if you have a choice between a NATO chicken coop and piles of non-NATO corpses, the chicken coop trumps the piles of corpses.
It is quite difficult to understand how the idea of different types of people, some of whom have more right to life (or the end of the world?) than others, can be acceptable in a civilization that generally fights fiercely against the division of people. in classes. Condemns the attitude that women, blacks, homosexuals or immigrants are less valuable as human beings or do not have equal rights.
The battles over these positions, at least in recent decades, revolve around less at stake than the right to life. The main rights in question all presuppose that the right to life already exists. But currently Ukrainians do not seem to have as much right to life as the French, Germans, Estonians or Latvians.
Every time someone seriously comes up with a square inch spell, I think they are unconsciously subscribing to this very attitude: we born have a right to life (and the end of the world), but they unborn do not. T.
Rhetoric trying to convince leading Western countries to help Ukraine more seriously should also bring out such thoughts, but requires a more critical and reasonable attitude towards the NATO Treaty and its Article 5.
Philosophically speaking, one cannot accept a tone-deaf response to a demanding questioner who shows photos of a Ukrainian girl with amputated legs, hugging her amputated mother at the edge of the bed, both with dutifully courageous smiles on their faces. The questioner asks, “If you are so powerful and so intelligent, if you have such a just and valuable civilization, why do you allow these things to happen? Why can’t you stop everything?” And the interviewee responds, with some guilt, but still without hesitation: “The point is that NATO is a defense alliance.”
2024-01-19 08:06:00
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