The World Peace Guide: All Members Must Employ Self-Practiced Morality for Peaceful International Relations

In my book "Non-Truth, Moral Nihilism, and Jacobin Cynicism" (see link to the left), I explain in detail why ethics, rather than economics, jurisprudence, or science, is and must be the unifying force of any successful human association. When we consider the primary parameters of human doing and undertaking - freedom and responsibility - the importance of morality becomes clear.  Human freedom is realized and revealed by how humans accept responsibility in all aspects of their existence, thus exposing their inner moral sense.

The bond between freedom and responsibility is so strong that one cannot be imagined without the other. This realization must have prompted neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl to demand the installation of a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast of the United States to complement the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast.

The importance of morality in sustaining human unity and prosperity - an issue that has always extended far beyond empirical and scientific study into the realm of metaphysics - suggests the need for a transcendent foundation, a religious-metaphysical frame of reference for any socially and politically collective of people. As the current state of most Western societies demonstrates, particularly in the United States, if this foundation becomes corrupted or lost, political entities are doomed to perish in the long run.

Morality as the foundation for prosperous human relations applies to both the individual and societal levels. And it works in the vast majority of personal interactions. In family, friendship circles, and the workplace, people usually respect the worth and identity of others. Where it fails, the enforcement structures that society provides itself in the governmental organizations of law and law enforcement intervene and produce what voluntary action of people did not accomplish. However, in international relations, there is no effective law enforcement mechanism. We have a ius gentium, or people's law, which is mostly enshrined in the United Nations Charter, but no enforcement authority. As a result, international relations are open to power politics, the implementation of individual members' national interests, the pursuit of unilateral and imperialist goals, and other considerations of dominance and exploit.

The mechanisms of international law established by the UN Charter, specifically the main task of the Security Council in maintaining and restoring world peace, do not function. Aside from a lack of enforcement capabilities, ideological prejudice and a lack of objectivity within the organization exacerbate the UN's weakness. Current examples for the ineffectiveness of the United Nations include the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War and the Hamas-Israel standoff.

But what if warring parties and those behind them adhered to timeless principles of international relations and national security ethics, instead of engaging in the old game of greedy power politics while promoting outdated enemy images? What if all nations recognized all members of the international community's equal standing and right to exist, regardless of their size, economic and military power, demographics, or ideological identity? What if all nations voluntarily followed the principle that no country may secure its own safety at the expense of the safety of others? What if even the most powerful nations accepted and welcomed the resulting balance of power among the international community?

Indeed, we would not have to witness Ukraine's utterly pointless and easily avoidable war, with its tens of thousands of dead soldiers, civilian casualties, millions of displaced people, refugees, and, on top of that, the dire economic and social consequences for Europe. More importantly, a world founded on this understanding would provide a stable platform for economic competition, trade, the exchange of ideas and education, as well as cultural and artistic achievements.

No matter how unlikely the realization of this demand is, it is still required if Kant's Eternal Peace formula - always thought only as an approximation to the state of complete peace - is ever to become reality. Powers, nation-states, and their alliances must abandon the national security models and demeanor that have guided global stability since World War II. New avenues for a minimal ethics of international relations must be explored, to supplement the rules outlined in international law and the UN Charter. Because the criterion of ethics is the voluntary application of an acknowledged rule, enforcement mechanisms would no longer be required.

Charlie Hebdo, a Beheaded Teacher and the Abuse of Free Speech

Could we possibly imagine a serious ethical and moral concept that would justify the killing of a person who, under the title of artistic creativity or political freedom of expression, albeit degrading to specific individuals or groups of people, expressed his conviction? Of course not. The cruel beheading of the teacher must be condemned. There are causal explanations, but there is no excuse.

However, the outrageous act that led to the teacher's death must not conceal the fact that the teacher has done wrong. Instead of using the blasphemous Muslim Muhammad cartoons of Charlie Hebdo as an example for the violation and abuse of the freedom of expression, he used them to justify and exemplify free speech, thereby triggering a misguided radical commit a political-religiously motivated murder.

The reactions to the French teacher's beheading by an Islamic fanatic prove once again, with a few exceptions, how inadequately educated even the "educated" people are among us and to what extent they lack the capacity for critical thinking.

It should be every educator's task to convey that freedom of expression is not absolute and, therefore, not unlimited. As in all other areas of human activity, free speech must be limited by the demands for the responsible exercise of human freedom. Elsewhere https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/03/the-crisis-of-morality.html I have outlined the connection between freedom and responsibility and have indeed made clear that both are only two sides of the same coin. We cannot think of freedom without responsibility, and responsibility is null and void if someone is not free to act. The liberty of man is thus about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom – arbitrariness, that is, to do what one will, manifesting itself in unrestricted ego-centrism – gives only the illusion of freedom. Whoever is a prisoner of his impulses and indifferent selfishness is not free; instead, he is taken hostage by his own morally deficient personality. 

 

From my essay on the Crisis of Morality: "True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and the legitimate aspirations of all other individuals. We must not mistake freedom as independence from everything, but rather has to be considered as a choice to something."

From this quotation, it becomes clear that our responsibility as human beings extends to all other human beings and living organisms in every social and political context, as they acquire relevance regarding our actions. The boundary between our freedom and the freedom of every other person, expressed in a formal and universally applicable way, is what we commonly refer to as justice. 

 

Injustice is, therefore, the extension of one's freedom beyond the bounds of justice into the realm of the freedom of another, preventing them from making use of their choice. If we meet the demands of justice by our own will, we exercise ethical and moral righteousness. This declaration also lays down the legislature's enduring task to determine at any time and any place the legitimate claims for freedom of everyone in relevant existential contexts and to lay them down as statutes of law. The application of justice is dynamic since it must consider the development of human coexistence and the respective contexts, but the idea of justice is timeless and immutable. This truth also explains why positive legislation that loses sight of this normative principle can embody wrong - as has happened so often in history. 

 

Consequently, it becomes clear how completely irresponsible and thus (morally) unjustified any form of blasphemy is, since it affects the religious practitioner in his legitimate claim to freedom, without any justification for this interference. Even if a legal stipulation (either immoral or ill-conceived) would allow and thus lawfully condone blasphemy; it is never ethically justified to mock or ridicule other people's faith. Provoking Muslims by making fun of their Prophet Muhammad is just about as out of place as provoking Christians by mocking Jesus Christ in works of satire and art. In Paris, Charlie Hebdo was misguided and irresponsible when he taunted Islam's religious figures in his satirical magazine, as was Ms. Pamela Geller in her cartoon contest "Draw Muhammad" in Garland, Texas. In both cases, the agitators hid behind misinterpretations of the principle of free expression, whether in a misguided understanding of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or in neglect of the moral-philosophical ideal that dictates responsible action.

Genuinely free and entirely responsible people have long understood that responsible behavior is never merely exhausted by complying with the law. They comprehended that the legal provision lays down, first and foremost, the conditions that someone does not have to suffer, while moral responsibility determines what we must do and how we should act.

 

 

The Crisis of Morality

If society turns immanent - I use the term immanence in the Kantian epistemological tradition of everything that remains within the boundaries of possible experience - and loses its transcendent basis, its particular religious-metaphysical reference, it will perish. Western civilization has profoundly gone down this path in recent decades, and restorative measures have been mostly ineffective. Yet, every culture arises from its religious foundation, derives its cohesive strength from it, and perennially regenerates itself through it. The common denominator for any civilization has got to be transcendent. Everything immanent, above all also science, is prone to opposing and conflicting interpretation, which is why anything immanent cannot serve as a constant unifier. The paradox of this truth lies in the fact that precisely the faculty unable to fathom the transcendent, namely human reason, comes to acknowledge the necessity of the transcendent.

In sacred terms, the transcendent manifests itself in religion; in secular terms, the transcendent manifests itself in morality. As religion serves as the horizon of meaning and represents common and uniting values, morality – and by no means economy – is the underpinning category of immanent life routine.

As civilization as a whole disintegrates when it loses its religious foundation, so do social and political life fail if morality subsides. We can ultimately lead every crisis of politics back to a moral crisis or, more precisely, to the fact that the fading of morality has not been detected or reacted to in time.

Morality constitutes the crisis of responsibility, as only the moral human being binds itself to act responsibly because of an inner and voluntary disposition to do so. Whether one excels in the economy, is an educator, contributes to the safety of the society by way of constabulary or military service, or works as a politician on bettering the social conditions of his constituency – the quality of their achievements depends on their morality, which is their commitment to act responsibly.
 
The notion of freedom inextricably links the categories of morality and responsibility. Only if the human being is free to decide between alternatives to act can he take on responsibility for his actions and be held accountable for his doing (or not doing). Not being able to withdraw from this responsibility constitutes the intrinsic moral quality of being human.

Human freedom is about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom, epitomizing in unconstrained egocentrism, is mere arbitrariness and no freedom at all. True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and all other individuals' legitimate aspirations. Liberty must not be mistaken as independence from everything, but instead has to be considered as a choice to something.

Inappropriate use of freedom equals irresponsibility, which equals immorality. The absence of a personal and inner disposition to act righteously necessitates the enforcement of correct behavior from the outside. While morality cannot be imposed from the outside but rather springs from an intimate and inner urge to "ought" righteously, legality comes with law enforcement. Indeed, we cannot even imagine human statutory law without its intricate linkage to the ability to be carried through by force.

Suppose we put these considerations into a political context. In that case, we find throughout history and the modern world governmental systems that allow for freedom and individual responsibility, and those collectivist forms of government that don't. Thus the futility of the debate about capitalism versus socialism as socialism is a collectivist form of government, whereas capitalism is a form of economy. While the relatively closed and collectivistic socialist societies typically embrace the economic concept of a planned market economy, free and open democratic societies usually feature free-market economies as the typical characteristic of capitalism.

Capitalism can only exist in a political environment that allows for responsibility – for there are freedom and morality – and can only survive if the proponents of this system are generally prone and willing to use that freedom by acting morally. Thus, capitalism's problem is not the lack of legal regulations, but rather the irresponsibility – in other words: the immorality and human immaturity – of its proponents. The one who cannot impose boundaries upon himself in a self-legislating manner needs to get the proper behavior forced upon from the outside. Inappropriate, dishonest, and illegal behavior is even possible under existing laws and regulations. The political system of open and democratic societies, and the economic system of capitalism can function in the end only if the inner moral disposition, the outlined sense of responsibility, can be instilled and realized. This ideational concept is empirically sound in general terms.  On Wall Street, the one who derives his incentives to act mostly from greed and the idea of personal enrichment proves his moral immaturity to the same extent as the guy from Main Street, who buys himself a home on a loan that he can't afford. Both have not understood the meaning and import of free society and its ensuing stakes for the individual.

The price of freedom is the responsibility, and those who are unwilling to pay this price, do not deserve freedom. They must not wonder why they are subjugated continuously to regulations, legal impositions, and governmental encroachment.

Although the subject of further consideration, it becomes quite clear that only through appropriate socialization and education processes can the desired attitude on life be achieved. All those national and international comparisons on high school and college levels of knowledge and education regarding mathematical, technological, and language skills are vain, as long as the instruction does not result in independent judgmental abilities. And the quality to acknowledge the significance and indispensability of responsibility as the existential manifestation of freedom in any social context.