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

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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 action—freedom and responsibility—the importance of morality becomes clear. Human freedom is realized and revealed by how individuals accept responsibility in all aspects of their existence, thereby exposing their inner moral sense.

The bond between freedom and responsibility is so strong that one cannot exist without the other. This realization may have inspired neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl to advocate for the installation of a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast of the United States, complementing the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast.

The importance of morality in sustaining human unity and prosperity—an issue that extends far beyond empirical and scientific study into the realm of metaphysics—suggests the need for a transcendent foundation. A religious-metaphysical frame of reference is essential for any social or political collective. As the current state of most Western societies, particularly in the United States, demonstrates, when this foundation is corrupted or lost, political entities are doomed to decline in the long run.

Morality, as the foundation for prosperous human relations, applies to both the individual and societal levels. It works in the vast majority of personal interactions. In family, friendship circles, and the workplace, people generally respect the worth and identity of others. Where it fails, the enforcement structures provided by society—through governmental organizations, law, and law enforcement—intervene to achieve what voluntary action could not. However, in international relations, there is no effective law enforcement mechanism. While we have ius gentium (people's law), which is largely enshrined in the United Nations Charter, there is no enforcement authority. As a result, international relations are often governed by power politics, national interests, unilateral and imperialist goals, and other considerations of dominance and exploitation.

The mechanisms of international law, established by the UN Charter—particularly the Security Council's primary role in maintaining and restoring world peace—do not function effectively. Aside from the lack of enforcement capabilities, ideological bias and a lack of objectivity within the organization exacerbate the UN's weakness. Current examples of the United Nations' ineffectiveness include the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Hamas-Israel standoff.

But what if warring parties and their backers adhered to timeless principles of international relations and national security ethics, rather than engaging in the old game of greedy power politics while promoting outdated enemy images? What if all nations recognized each member 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 adhered to 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 within the international community?

Indeed, under such principles, we would not witness Ukraine’s utterly pointless and easily avoidable war, which has resulted in tens of thousands of dead soldiers, civilian casualties, millions of displaced people and refugees, and 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, and cultural and artistic achievements.

No matter how unlikely the realization of this demand may seem, it is still necessary if Kant's Eternal Peace formula—often viewed only as an approximation to the state of complete peace—is ever to become a reality. Powers, nation-states, and their alliances must abandon the national security models and attitudes that have shaped 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 framework that would justify the killing of a person who, under the guise of artistic creativity or political freedom of expression—despite being degrading to specific individuals or groups—expressed their convictions? Of course not. The brutal beheading of the teacher must be unequivocally condemned. There may be causal explanations for such an act, but there is no excuse for it.

However, the horrific act that led to the teacher's death should not obscure the fact that the teacher himself made a mistake. Rather than using the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo as an example of the abuse of free expression, he used them to justify and exemplify free speech. In doing so, he unintentionally triggered a misguided radical to commit a politically and religiously motivated murder.

The reactions to the French teacher's beheading by an Islamic extremist further reveal, with few exceptions, how inadequately educated many of the so-called "educated" people are and to what extent they lack the capacity for critical thinking.

It should be the task of every educator to convey that freedom of expression is not absolute and, therefore, not unlimited. Like all other areas of human activity, free speech must be limited by the responsibilities inherent in the exercise of human freedom. Elsewhere, I have discussed the connection between freedom and responsibility and made clear that they are two sides of the same coin. We cannot think of freedom without responsibility, and responsibility is void if one is not free to act. The liberty of human beings is, therefore, about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom—defined as the arbitrary exercise of will, manifesting itself in unchecked egoism—gives only the illusion of freedom. A person who is a prisoner of their impulses and self-centeredness is not free; rather, they are held hostage by their 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 for independence from everything; instead, it must be understood as a choice within the framework of something larger."

This quotation highlights that our responsibility as human beings extends to all other individuals and living organisms, in every social and political context, because they hold relevance in relation to our actions. The boundary between our freedom and the freedom of others, when expressed in a formal and universally applicable manner, is what we commonly refer to as justice.

Injustice, therefore, occurs when one's freedom extends beyond the boundaries of justice and infringes upon the freedom of another, thus preventing them from exercising their own choices. When we meet the demands of justice through our own actions, we practice ethical and moral righteousness. This principle also establishes the ongoing responsibility of the legislature to define, at any given time and place, the legitimate claims to freedom of all individuals in relevant contexts and to codify them into law. The application of justice is dynamic, as it must account for the evolution of human coexistence and its respective contexts, but the concept of justice remains timeless and unchanging. This truth explains why positive legislation that neglects this normative principle can embody wrong—something that has occurred throughout history.

As a result, it becomes clear how utterly irresponsible and morally unjustifiable any form of blasphemy is, as it violates the legitimate claim of religious practitioners to freedom, without justification for such interference. Even if a legal provision (whether immoral or ill-conceived) were to permit blasphemy, it would never be ethically justifiable to mock or ridicule another person's faith. Provoking Muslims by making fun of the Prophet Muhammad is just as inappropriate as provoking Christians by mocking Jesus Christ in satirical works or art. In Paris, Charlie Hebdo was misguided and irresponsible when it mocked Islam's religious figures in its satirical magazine, just as Pamela Geller’s cartoon contest "Draw Muhammad" in Garland, Texas was irresponsible. In both cases, the agitators hid behind misinterpretations of the principle of free expression—either a misguided understanding of the U.S. First Amendment or a neglect of the moral-philosophical ideal that dictates responsible action.

Truly free and responsible individuals have long understood that responsible behavior is never simply about complying with the law. They recognize that legal provisions primarily set the boundaries for what one cannot do to avoid harm, while moral responsibility dictates 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.