Applying a Virtue Ethics approach to the question:
Was Tony Blair right to take Britain into war with Iraq?
Project Plan
Introduction
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was supposed to be a just war, one entered into regretfully and for virtuous reasons. I intend to apply a Virtue Ethics approach to this claim.
Setting the Stage
After a short introduction, I shall discuss the nature of war. I need to establish that it can at times be virtuous. While war can never be a good thing, tragic dilemmas can exist of the form "If we don't go to war, X will happen (or will continue to happen) which will be worse". The four arguments I shall be considering can all be reduced to this form. As this will form the backbone of my discussion it requires a few hundred words.
Ethical Agents
To apply Virtue Ethics to this question, I first need an agent. It is possible to consider countries as agents. They have interests, needs, and duties just as individuals do. They also have distinguishable characters. While I will not be using this idea directly, analogies will be drawn between countries threatening countries and individuals threatening individuals, so one or two hundred words on the topic are appropriate.
Instead I shall be focussing on the political leader himself. Some discussion will be necessary as to any special considerations for the virtuous agent as political leader. Can a good political leader be a good person, or is being a good political leader like being a good thief? Are the virtues applied differently?
While a political leader may find himself in tragic dilemmas where he is forced to act in an apparently vicious manner for the greater good, I hope to show that if phronesis is correctly applied this need not prevent him being a characteristically virtuous person. As this is key to the discussion, around five hundred words are warranted.
The Four Arguments
While there have been many arguments put forward, both as official justifications and suggested real reasons, I shall only be considering the following four. I hope to devote roughly a thousand words to each.
- The Direct Threat Argument: Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to Britain itself, either through military weapons or terrorism, and war was an act of self-defence.
- The Indirect Threat Argument: Saddam Hussein posed a threat to British interests or allies, and war was necessary to defend them.
- The Humanitarian Argument: Saddam Hussein was a bad person, and had to be removed on humanitarian grounds
- The Legal Argument - Saddam Hussein consistently flouted international law, and the threat of war was necessary to force him to comply.
For simplicity, I shall take the arguments at face value and won't dwell on their logical validity. I shall assume that the facts supporting the arguments are true, and that the motives are as stated. A hundred words or so are warranted to justify this decision.
For each scenario I shall examine if it is really a tragic dilemma and if so if war is really the lesser evil. What are the consequences of not going to war? Are there any third alternatives? What ways are available for minimising the impact of the war? I shall examine the appropriate duties of care of the leader, and discuss the appropriate virtues and vices. In each case I shall illustrate the arguments by comparing them to analogous scenarios involving violence between individuals.
Case 1) Direct threat argument
The leader has a duty of care to country and citizens, and is responsible for defending them against threats. Compare to a parent's duty of care and protection. What are the appropriate virtues and vices?
Different threats warrant different responses. A burglar in your house physically threatening you with a weapon is a different kind of scenario to verbal threats from an irate neighbour. Which, if any, would warrant a violent response from a virtuous agent? Which, if any, best compares to the threat from Saddam Hussein and Iraq?
After a recap of a political leader's duties of care I shall, through use of examples, attempt to find criteria whereby a virtuous individual would (with regret) resort to violence. I shall then examine whether these criteria can be applied to political leaders.
Some parties tried to compare the threat from Saddam Hussein to the threat from Hitler. It may be appropriate to examine this comparison.
Case 2) Indirect threat argument
This is a broader argument than case 1, and includes topics such as oil and Israel which many believe are the true reasons for the war. Many of the arguments introduced for case 1 apply here also, but a discussion of closeness becomes important. Does the same threat warrant the same response when it is directed against you, your family, close friends, vague acquaintances, strangers? Is it more or less virtuous to defend a stranger than a family member? Does this comparison hold when we're talking about a political leader, and comparing a threat to his country with a threat to another country?
It may be appropriate to consider the military strength of the other country. Israel is quite capable of defending itself without outside assistance. Some words comparing defence of the weak with defence of the strong are appropriate.
An examination of the Kuwait war may be appropriate, when an ally (or at least a country that it was in Britain's interests to protect) was invaded.
The discussion would be conspicuously incomplete without some words on oil. Undoubtedly, Britain depends on oil, and having such a large amount controlled by an unfriendly country is not in our interests. An argument can be made that defence of the oil supply is within a leader's duty of care.
Case 3) Humanitarian argument
When is it virtuous to intervene in another's affairs? When is it appropriate to intervene violently? It is easy to imagine scenarios where violent intervention could result in more harm than good. Is this one? War is devastating, but the war against Iraq was always going to be short, so perhaps short term devastation is less bad than long term suffering?
In this case there are definitely more alternatives than just war or nothing. However, when diplomacy, sanctions and threats fail to have significant impact, war may well be the only option left untried. A virtuous agent would certainly leave war as the last resort, but how great must the humanitarian crisis be before the last resort is resorted to?
Case 4) Legal argument
Many arguments here are shared with case 3. Again, there will be other alternatives such as sanctions, but if those fail when can war be resorted to? How bad must a transgression of international law be before war is justified? The worst transgressions are humanitarian issues, and so this case then becomes identical to case 3.
One interesting argument specific to this case is the necessity of carrying out a threat. If threatening war is necessary to enforce international law, does the virtue of integrity demand we carry out the threat?
Loose Ends
After the main discussion, space permitting, there may be a few loose ends that warrant addressing for completeness. Assassination for instance, it could be argued, is more virtuous than war. The issue of human rights may need some words, as might such things as moral justification in a state of nature. However, it would be easy for any of these to run away with the discussion, and they are not central, so they must be kept to a minimum if they are discussed at all.
I shall finish with a short summary and conclusion.
Project Outline Summary
This discussion provides ample scope for a project of 6000 words, yet is focussed enough to prevent it spiralling out of control. If the word count does threaten to increase significantly beyond the maximum, the four arguments could be reduced to just two: self-defence and intervention. In the unlikely event of running short of material, the discussion of the virtuous agent as political leader could be expanded substantially without going off-topic, as could the discussion of a country as an ethical agent.
I accept that applying virtue ethics to political situations is largely unexplored territory, and that my main problem will be a lack of supporting material, but I am genuinely interested in the subject, both in general and in this question specifically.
