September 11 and the Death of Moral Judgment

September 11 and the Death of Moral Judgment

The nation is in crisis: a national security crisis and a crisis of moral judgment. What is the right thing to do? People disagree. Then comes the big mistake: observing disagreement, people conclude that there is no right answer, no way to make a judgment. Worse, they conclude that to judge is arrogant and dangerous, so that in an odd twist, the only thing that appears to be morally irresponsible is the attempt to make a morally responsible judgment.

On the contrary, abdicating judgment is the problem. Democracy itself is based on the notion that reasonable people will disagree and that it is possible to make judgments about our disagreements - not that there is necessarily one right answer; there may be several partially right answers. But there are certainly some wrong answers and better and worse judgments about them.

So, how do we judge? First, we can think clearly about the words we use. Second, we can stop looking for pure good or pure evil; innocence and guilt are not found in pure forms in the real world. Third, we can learn to distinguish among kinds and degrees of evils (And there are plenty of kinds: cruelty, neglect, exploitation, etc.)

To illustrate:

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

Many people fighting for very different causes call themselves "freedom fighters." But they usually let us know what they mean. Osama bin Laden's statements tell us that his goal is to free the Muslim world of infidels and their influence. He seeks freedom to establish theocratic regimes that would suppress women, as well as religious and political dissidents. We can argue about whether or not this is "freedom" in any meaningful sense, but the important thing is to be clear about what he means. For the sake of argument, let us say that he is a freedom fighter. Martin Luther King was a freedom fighter. Mahatma Gandhi was a freedom fighter. Neither could be called "terrorist" by any stretch of the imagination. They renounced violence as a means. Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, embraces a strategy of targeting civilians in order to terrify and intimidate the population, undermine opposing governments, and achieve his political aims. Whether he is a freedom fighter or not, he is a terrorist.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

This is an important practical principle, but it is not a moral principle.