Wake Policy Project 2006 1

Morality Impact File

Must Act Morally -- General.........................................................................................................................................2
Must Act Morally – Intervening Actors ........................................................................................................................3
Consequentialism Is bad................................................................................................................................................4
Consequentialism Is bad................................................................................................................................................5
Consequentialism Is Bad ...............................................................................................................................................6
Moral Constraints Apply To Governments ...................................................................................................................7
Morality Can’t Be Solved by Other Actors ...................................................................................................................8
War is Immoral..............................................................................................................................................................9
Moral Decision-Making Applies to Policy..................................................................................................................10
Utilitarianism Bad .......................................................................................................................................................13
AT: Callahan – Rights Specific...................................................................................................................................14
AT: Callahan -- General ..............................................................................................................................................15
Categorical Rules Justified Even If One Can Imagine Exceptions..............................................................................16
Wake Policy Project 2006 2
Morality Impact File
Must Act Morally -- General
WE MUST ACT MORALLY, EVEN IF IT MEANS OUR OWN DEATH
Watson, philosophy professor, Washington University, WORLD HUNGR AND MORAL OBLIGATION, 1977, pp.
118-9.

One may even have to sacrifice one’s life or one’s nation to be moral in situations where practical behavior
would preserve it. For example, if a prisoner of war undergoing torture is to be a (perhaps dead) patriot even
when reason tells him that collaboration will hurt no one, he remains silent. Similarly, if one is to be moral,
one distributes available food in equal shares even if everyone dies. That an action is necessary to save one’s
life is no excuse for behaving unpatriotically or immorally if one wishes to be a patriot or moral. No
principle of morality absolves one of behaving immorally simply to save one’s life or nation. There is a strict
analogy here between adhering to moral principles for the sake of being moral, and adhering to Christian
principles for the sake of being Christian. The moral world contains pits and lions, but one looks always to
the highest light. The ultimate test always harks back to the highest principle – recant or die. The ultimate
test always harks back to the highest principle – recant or die – and it is pathetic to profess morality if one
quits when the going gets rough.
Wake Policy Project 2006 3
Morality Impact File
Must Act Morally – Intervening Actors
THE PRINCIPLE OF INTERVENING ACTORS MEANS WE AREN’T MORALLY
CULPABLE FOR THE DA IMPACTS. JUST LIKE MARTIN LUTHER KING WASN’T
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RIOTS AND VIOLENCE OF THE WHITE
SUPREMACISTS, WE AREN’T RESPONSBILE FOR INTERVENING ACTORS AND
THEIR NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
Alan Gewirth, philosophy professor, Chicago, ABSOLUTISM AND ITS CONSEQUENTIALIST CRITICS, 1994,
p. 38.

An example of this principle may help to show its connection with the absolutist thesis. Martin Luther King,
Jr. was repeatedly told that because he led demonstrations in support of civil rights, he was morally
responsible for the disorders, riots, and deaths that ensued and that were shaking the American Republic to its
foundations. By the principle of the intervening action, however, it was King’s opponents who were
responsible because their intervention operated as the sufficient conditions of the riots and injuries. King
might also have replied that the Republic would not be worth saving if the price that had to be paid was the
violation of the civil rights of black Americans. As for the rights of other Americans to peace and order, the
reply would be that these rights cannot justifiably be secured at the price of the rights of blacks. It follows
from the principle of the intervening action that it is not the son but rather the terrorists who are morally as
well as causally responsible for the many deaths that do or may ensue on his refusal to torture his mother to
death. The important point is not that he lets these persons die rather than kills them, or that he does not
harm them but only fails to help them, or that he intends their deaths obliquely but not directly. The point is
rather that it is only through the intervening lethal actions of the terrorists that his refusal eventuates in many
deaths. Since the moral responsibility is not the son’s, it does not affect his moral duty not to torture his
mother to death, so that her correlative right remains absolute.

Just like Martin Luther King wasn’t responsible for the violence of white supremacists, we aren’t responsible
for negative consequences of intervening actors
Alan Gewirth, philosophy professor, Chicago, ABSOLUTISM AND ITS CONSEQUENTIALIST CRITICS, 1994,
p. 38. (PDNSS1622)
An example of this principle may help to show its connection with the absolutist thesis. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
repeatedly told that because he led demonstrations in support of civil rights, he was morally responsible for the
disorders, riots, and deaths that ensued and that were shaking the American Republic to its foundations. By the
principle of the intervening action, however, it was King’s opponents who were responsible because their
intervention operated as the sufficient conditions of the riots and injuries. King might also have replied that the
Republic would not be worth saving if the price that had to be paid was the violation of the civil rights of black
Americans. As for the rights of other Americans to peace and order, the reply would be that these rights cannot
justifiably be secured at the price of the rights of blacks. It follows from the principle of the intervening action that it
is not the son but rather the terrorists who are morally as well as causally responsible for the many deaths that do or
may ensue on his refusal to torture his mother to death. The important point is not that he lets these persons die
rather than kills them, or that he does not harm them but only fails to help them, or that he intends their deaths
obliquely but not directly. The point is rather that it is only through the intervening lethal actions of the terrorists that
his refusal eventuates in many deaths. Since the moral responsibility is not the son’s, it does not affect his moral
duty not to torture his mother to death, so that her correlative right remains absolute.
Wake Policy Project 2006 4
Morality Impact File
Consequentialism Is bad

CONSEQUENTIALISM LEADS TO PARALYSIS – ALL ACTION RISKS POSSIBLE

CATASTROPHE, SO NO ONE ACTS
Charles Fried, law professor, Harvard, ABSOLUTISM AND ITS CRITICS, 1994, p. 170.

This line of analysis is enough to show that some quite plausible interpretations of absolute norms lead to
impossibly stringent conclusions, lead in fact to total paralysis. But the case is in fact even worse. For it the
absoluteness of the nor is interpreted to mean that the consequences – such as the death of an innocent person
– is overwhelmingly bad, then not only are we forbidden to do anything, for anything carries with it a risk of
death, we are indeed required to do nothing but to seek out ways to minimize the deaths of innocent persons.
For if such a death is so bad that no good can outweigh it, we are surely not justified in pursuing some good,
even if that good does not present this risk when we might instead be preventing this most undesirable of all
consequences. So this interpretation is to actually a prescription for paralysis, it is more like an obsession.
This norm, by virtue of this view of its absoluteness, takes over the whole of our moral life. Finally, since
every action will endanger the life of some innocent, even action intended to rescue some other innocent, we
cannot escape the further corollary of this interpretation that we must choose that course and only that course
of action expected to produce the greatest net saving of life – including, if need be, the deliberate, cold-
blooded killing of an innocent person. This situation is worse still, for this interpretation is not only
obsessive, it also opens the possibility of insoluable contradictions within any system containing more than
one absolute norm. The judgement that it is categorically wrong to lie would be interpreted in an analogous
way to mean that a false belief is absolutely bad – that is, so bad that nothing can justifiy producing or even
not eradicating it. But obviously, telling the truth will very often increase to some small extent the chances
that an innocent person will die, and in any event the time spent in eradicating false belief will not be spent in
warding off the danger of death from innocent persons. Now, deontological systems avoid the paralysis,
obsession, and contradiction of this interpretation. They are at once less and more stringent. They would not
allow killing an innocent even to save several innocents from death; but the consequentialist interpretation
would require the killing.

LACK OF CERTAINTY AND POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES MAKE

CONSEQUENTIALISM PRODUCE PARALYSIS
Germain Grisez, St. Mary’s College, ABSOLUTISM AND ITS CONSEQUENTIALIST CRITICS, 1994, p. 49.

Artificial as the example is, it makes the crucial point that whenever we have a real choice to make it is
because we are confronted with various possibilities, each embodying a diverse mix of human goods.
Consequentialism of proportionalism requires that one weigh and measure the good as represented in the
various possibilities and opt for the instance promising more good. But each of the several possibilities
comprises not merely so much (on an imaginary scale) of a certain human good, but a unique “package” of
instances of various goods whose very uniqueness makes it impossible to measure it against other, similarly
unique “packages” competing to be chosen. Many proportionalists recognize the difficulty with their system
and have tried to correct it. However, it cannot be corrected. Their system requires that two incomparible
conditions be met: first, that a morally significant choice be made; second, that the option offering the grater
quantity of good be known. Their approach is not just false but utterly unworkable, and thus it is
meaningless as practical guidance.
Wake Policy Project 2006 5
Morality Impact File
Consequentialism Is bad
IF CONSEQUENTIALISM VALUES LIFE, EACH ACTION MUST AVOID ANY RISK
OF KILLING INNOCENTS, PRODUCING PARALYSIS
Charles Fried, law professor, Harvard, ABSOLUTISM AND ITS CRITICS, 1994, p. 71.

For if the death of an innocent person really were that bad, then the norm would be no longer a limited, but a
pervasive one. What, for instance, if some action of mine carried a very slight risk of causing the death of an
innocent person? If the absoluteness of the norm is to be interpreted as making the fact of death so
overwhelmingly bad, it seems clear that I must not even take the slightest risk of killing an innocent person.
But really everything I do carries some risk that it will contribute to the death of an innocent person. Indeed,
we cannot even save the situation by limiting our calculations to the foreseeable consequences, for the limits
of the foreseeable are set by what we are obliged to look out for, if the consequence is as bad as all that, then
we must also hunt about to see if there is any conceivable way that we might inadvertently be facilitating it.
Of course there will always be some conceivable way, and that will be enough to stop us.

UTILITARIANISM SUBORDINATES JUSTICE IN THE NAME OF THE GENERAL

WELFARE.
David Lyons, PhD., Harvard, ETHICS AND THE RULE OF LAW, 1984, p. 127.

Utilitarianism can be understood as a theory of justice in this sense, one that makes all moral appraisal
subordinate to the service of welfare. But we also use the idea of justice ot refer to a specific virtue of
actions, individuals, and institutions. In this narrow sense, justice is distinguished, for example, from mercy
and benevolence. Utilitarianism has no clear theory of justice in the narrow sense, and utilitarians have
generally neglected this aspect of morality. Some utilitarians have suggested that the specific virtue of
justice amounts to decisions made uniformly or according to rule. This is plausible when justice concerns the
application of rules to particular cases, but it does not seem an adequate conception of the justice of rules
themselves or of social institutions more generally.

CONCEDING TO CONSEQUENTIALISM THREATENS INDIVIDUALITY *&

INTEGRITY
Judith Lichtenberg, research associate, Center for Philosophy & Public Policy, University of Maryland, YALE
LAW JOURNAL, 1983, p. 546-7.

If I am normally required to produce the objectively best state of affairs available to me, my life will not be
my own. My own concerns and desires will be lost in the larger calculus of goods and bads, and the shape
and content of my life will be at the mercy of that calculus. Full-time do-goodism will be my inescapable
duty. This may seem not only unrealistic, but also wrong and misguided, for human beings will cease to be
agents who are sources of choice and value and become machines that churn out the good. As a result,
consequentialism seems to undermine our integrity as agents. Call this – the idea behind the view that it is
not always wrong not to maximize the good – the objection from integrity.

J.J.C Smart, philosophy professor, University of Adelaide, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, ed.,
Knightbridge, 1973, p. 99

A feature of utilitarianism is that it cuts out a kind of consideration which for some others makes a difference
to what they feel about such cases: a consideration involving the idea, as we might first and very simply put
it, that each of us is specially responsible for what he does, rather than for what other people do. This is an
idea connected with the value of integrity. It is often suspected that utilitarianism, at least in its direct forms,
makes integrity as a value more or less unintelligible. I shall try to show this suspicion is correct.
Wake Policy Project 2006 6
Morality Impact File
Consequentialism Is Bad
UTILITARIANISM JUSTIFIES RAPE
David Lyons, philosophy professor, Harvard, ETHICS AND THE RULE OF LAW, 1984, p. 121

Utilitarianism holds that the only values that are basically capable of supporting reasons for action are human
interests, and that all human interests do so. We have already seen an argument challenging this claim. This
is the argument that rape could not be justified, to whatever degree whatsoever, by the pleasure that it gives
the rapist. Many arguments of this type are possible.

UTILITARIANISM JUSTIFIES SLAVERY

David Lyons, philosophy professor, Harvard, ETHICS AND THE RULE OF LAW, 1984, p. 122

Suppose, for example, that it would be more costly overall to eliminate slavery and at the same time meet the
needs of former slaveholders, such as Bernard, than it would to continue slavery. Utilitarianism must then
argue that it would be better to continue slavery; but the other course of action appears morally preferable. A
utilitarian might argue that slavery could not be supported by utilitarian calculations. He might claim that the
burdens imposed on slaves always outweigh the benefits realized by slavery. This is a plausible contention.
But a critic would reply that it is beside the point. Whether or not slavery creates more burdens for the
slaves, or creates more benefits than could be achieved by any alternative system, it is morally objectionable.
It subjugates some people to others’ control. It violates their rights.

NO WAY TO EVALUATE A MORAL ACTION BASED ON CONSEQUENCES

J.J.C Smart, philosophy professor, University of Adelaide, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, ed.,
Knightbridge, 1973, p. 82

No one can hold that everything, of whatever category, that has value, has it in virtue of its consequences. If
that were so, one would just go one for ever, and there would be an obviously hopeless regress. That regress
would be hopeless, even if one takes the view, which is not an absurd view, that although mean set
themselves ends and work towards them, it is very often not really the supposed end, but the effort towards
which they set the value – that they travel, not really in order to arrive (for as soon as they have arrived they
set out for somewhere else), but rather they choose somewhere to arrive, in order to travel. Even on that
view, not everything would have consequential value; what would have non-consequential value would in
fact be traveling, even though people had to think of traveling as having the consequential value, and
something else – the destination – the non-consequential value.
Wake Policy Project 2006 7
Morality Impact File

Moral Constraints Apply To Governments

GOVERNMENTS STILL ACT WITH INTENT AND SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO
MORAL CONSTRAINTS

Thomas Donaldson, professor of business and ethics, ETHICS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 1995, p. 147.

States may not be human individuals, but they often behave with foresight and must be accountable to certain
moral principles. Genocide and torture are not to be weighed up by states on the scale of future
consequences; rather, states simply must not engage in them. The moral language of deontology may not be
sufficient for the moral interpretation of international affairs, but it turns out to be necessary.

STATES STILL POSSESS AN INTENT THAT CAN BE MORALLY EVALUATED.

Thomas Donaldson, professor of business and ethics, ETHICS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 1995, p. 149.

The state is not deprived of intentionality, as Hardin alleges, by the fact that “various officials of a particular
state must typically reach different conclusions about what is rationally required.” Like corporations and
judicial systems, states possess decision-making procedures designed to allow inferences abut the acts and
intentions of the state itself fro the acts of individual members. When, for example, majorities of the duly-
elected members of both houses of the U.S. Congress approve aid to Poland for the purposes of developing
its economic infrastructure, and when the U.S. President concurs, then we may correctly infer that the United
States has acted intentionally in giving aid to Poland.
Wake Policy Project 2006 8
Morality Impact File
Morality Can’t Be Solved by Other Actors
ONE MAY ARGUE THAT MORALITY CAN BE SOLVED BY OTHER ACTORS, BUT
THIS IN NO WAY AFFECTS THE MORAL OBIGATION OF THE OUR PLAN ACTOR
TO ACT
Aiken, philosophy professor, Catham College, WORLD HUNGER AND MORAL OBLIGATION, 1977, p. 53-4.

There is a danger in adopting this ‘last resort’ condition since it poses and additional epistemological
difficulty, that is, the determination of whether or not I am the last resort. Beyond this, it is an undesirable
condition because it will justify inaction where more than one person could act but where no one is acting. In
most emergency situations, there is more than one potential assistor. For instance, five persons may
simultaneously come across a drowning child. Each would be obligated to act as if (s)he were the last resort,
but no single one is the last resort, then all five may refuse to act, claiming that it is not their duty to act any
more than it is the duty of the other four and so each would be justified in not acting. If this condition is
placed on the right to be saved, the child could drown and none of the five spectators could be held morally
accountable. But surely the presence of another person at an accident site does not automatically relieve me
of a moral duty to assist the victim in need, any more than the presence of one police officer called to the
scene of a bank robbery relieves other officers in the area from attempting to apprehend the suspect.
Wake Policy Project 2006 9
Morality Impact File
War is Immoral

Just war language reinforces militarism

Sara Ruddick, Professor of Philosophy and Feminist Studies, New School for Social Research, GENDERING
WAR TALK, Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott, eds., 1993, p.114-5. (MHSOLT1499)
These ideals, I suggest, are exemplified in just-war languages and the "realities" to which they refer. In Western
philosophy, ideals of reason have sometimes been created in explicit connection with the ideals of war. As Plato put
the point boldly, an education in reason "must not be useless to warlike men [or women]"; rulers must prove
themselves "best in philosophy and with respect to war." Whatever the historical connections between reason and
war, contemporary war theorists, like other men of reason, resort to abstraction, binary oppositions, and sharply
bounded concepts.

Just war theory conceals and licenses violence

Sara Ruddick, Professor of Philosophy and Feminist Studies, New School for Social Research, GENDERING
WAR TALK, Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott, eds., 1993, p.115-6. (MHSOLT1500)
Taken on its own terms, just-war theory is far more like its technostrategic counterpart than its moral concern would
suggest. Like their strategist counterparts, just-war theorists resort to abstraction, dichotomy, and bounded
definition. Like their counterparts, just-war theorists employ abstraction to take a distance from unreasoned
emotionality. Partly because the language of just-war theory is less evidently sexual/aggressive itself, it is even more
able than strategic discourse to occlude the sexual aggressivity of war. The moral emotions just-war theorists do
invoke -- righteousness, indignation, and (perhaps) shame and guilt -- conceal as well as license the cruelty and
delight in destruction that war provides. Most seriously, like its technostrategic counterpart, the language of morality
too easily obscures the realities of terrorizing and injuring, the defining activities of war. To repeat: Just-war theory
does not deny, and indeed insists on, the pain of victims. But as one learns to speak within the theory, to unravel the
puzzles the theory sets for itself, to assess "causes" and strategies by criteria the theory establishes, it becomes
increasingly difficult to give weight to the varieties of loss and pain suffered by individual victims and conquerors,
their communities, and their lands.

Just war theories sanitize war

Sara Ruddick, Professor of Philosophy and Feminist Studies, New School for Social Research, GENDERING
WAR TALK, Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott, eds., 1993, p.115. (MHSOLT1501)

Superficially, the languages of justice and strategy seem quite unlike. just-war theorists do not deny war's sufferings;
if war weren't so damaging, one would not require a moral theory first to justify and then to control the damage.
Unlike technostrategists who explicitly eschew moral questions, just-war theorists insist upon the interdependence
of ethics and politics, thereby providing the moral (soft and feminine) counterpart to realistic (hard and masculine)
instrumentality. Yet despite these differences, the justificatory languages of morality and strategy are intertwined.
The success of just warriors is dependent on the strategies that defense intellectuals legitimate. just conduct of a war
(jus in bello) depends upon the "smartness" and "cleanliness" of weapons, who acquire these virtues within the
strategic discourse that brackets pain and suffering as "collateral damage." To be sure, there is a frightening
disconnection between morality and strategy: might does not make right, but it does make victories. The capacity to
defeat and demoralize depends far more upon economic and technological than on moral resources. But the high
moral tone and abstract moral puzzles of just-war theory tend to divert attention from this fundamental, often
heartbreaking indifference of war to virtue.
Wake Policy Project 2006 10
Morality Impact File
Moral Decision-Making Applies to Policy

Should consider morality in strategic policy information

Robert S. McNamara, Former Secretary of Defense, Alternative Nuclear Futures: The Role of Nuclear Weapons in
the Post-Cold War World, eds. Baylis and O'Neill, 2000, p. 169 (MHHAR0772)

I would argue also that Kissinger and Sandel's emphasis on balance-of-power politics in the twenty-first century
assumes we will be willing to continue to accept a foreign policy which lacks a strong moral foundation. I am aware
that the majority of political scientists, particularly those who are members of the political realist school, believe
morality - as contrasted with a careful calculation of national interests, based on balance-of-power considerations - is
a dangerous guide for the establishment of foreign policy. They would say that a foreign policy driven by moral
considerations promotes zealousness and a crusading spirit, with potentially dangerous results. But surely, in the
most basic sense, one can apply a moral judgment to the level of killing which occurred in the twentieth century.
There can be no justification for it. Nor can there be any justification for its continuation into the twenty-first
century. On moral grounds alone, we should act today to prevent such an outcome. A first step would be to
establish such an objective as the primary foreign-policy goal both for our own nation and for the entire human race.

Morality has often been a part of US foreign policy

Robert S. McNamara, Former Secretary of Defense, Alternative Nuclear Futures: The Role of Nuclear Weapons in
the Post-Cold War World, eds. Baylis and O'Neill, 2000, p. 169-70 (MHHAR0773)

The United States has defined itself in highly idealistic and moral terms throughout our history. We have seen
ourselves as defenders of the human freedoms across the globe. That feeling was the foundation of Woodrow
Wilson's support for normative rules of international behavior to be administered by a League of Nations. Our
moral vision has had an impact on the world. It has led to the formation of a score of international institutions in the
economic, social, and political fields. But it remains under attack both within and outside the USA - by those who
put greater weight on considerations of some narrow national interest.
Wake Policy Project 2006 11
Morality Impact File
Morality Applies in Foreign Policy
Leaders aren’t exempt from moral considerations in foreign policy

Joseph Nye, Director, Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard, NUCLEAR ETHICS, 1986, p.8.
(MHSOLT0076)

In their personal lives, most people feel strongly bound by the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." But
presidents may have to take decisions that violate that rule if they are to protect their own people in wartime. The
fact that international politics is a difficult domain for ethics means that one must be cautious about too simple a
transposition of moral maxims from relations among individuals to the domain of states. But being president does
not release the statesman from the duty of moral reasoning; it merely complicates his or her task. One must examine
the arguments leaders give for claiming there is no choice or for why they think normal moral rules that we use in
daily life should not be applied in particular cases. The burden of proof rests on those who wish to depart from
normal morality. While that burden may often be met, the quality of their argument and conclusions deserves close
examination. Some arguments for disregarding normal moral rules are fallacious.

Critics of morality in foreign policy covertly employ moral standards

Joseph Nye, Director, Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard, NUCLEAR ETHICS, 1986, p.7.
(MHSOLT0077)

Considering the nature of the international milieu, it is not surprising many diplomats and serious students of
international politics have tended to be cautious about the role of ethics in foreign policy and have warned about the
possible disastrous consequences of well-intentioned moral crusades in such a difficult domain. But there is a
difference between healthy realism and total skepticism. It does not follow from the difficulty of applying ethical
considerations that they have no role at all. The total skeptic who argues that there is no role for ethics in
international politics tends to smuggle his preferred values into foreign policy, often in the form of narrow
nationalism. When faced with moral choices, to pretend not to choose is merely a disguised form of choice.

Accepting moral concerns in foreign policy make intervention less necessary

Robert Kagan and William Kristol, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and editor of
The Weekly Standard, THE NATIONAL INTEREST, Spring 2000, p.62. (MHSOLT0477)

It is worth pointing out, though, that a foreign policy premised on American hegemony, and, on the blending of
principle with material interest, may in fact mean fewer overseas interventions than under the "vital interest"
standard, not more. Had the Bush administration, for example, realized early on that there was no clear distinction
between American moral concerns in Bosnia and America's national interest there, the United States might have
been able to nip the Balkan crisis in the bud. With the enormous credibility earned in the Gulf War, President Bush
might have been able to put a stop to Milosevic's ambitions with a well-timed threat of punishing military action.
But because the Bush team placed Bosnia outside the sphere of "vital" American interests, the resulting crisis
eventually required the deployment of thousands of troops on the ground.

Morality has often been a part of US foreign policy

Robert S. McNamara, Former Secretary of Defense, Alternative Nuclear Futures: The Role of Nuclear Weapons in
the Post-Cold War World, eds. Baylis and O'Neill, 2000, p. 169-70 (MHHAR0773)
The United States has defined itself in highly idealistic and moral terms throughout our history. We have seen
ourselves as defenders of the human freedoms across the globe. That feeling was the foundation of Woodrow
Wilson's support for normative rules of international behavior to be administered by a League of Nations. Our
moral vision has had an impact on the world. It has led to the formation of a score of international institutions in the
economic, social, and political fields. But it remains under attack both within and outside the USA - by those who
put greater weight on considerations of some narrow national interest.
Wake Policy Project 2006 12
Morality Impact File
Morality Applies in Foreign Policy
Many US foreign policies are based on moral judgments

Robert S. McNamara, Former Secretary of Defense, Alternative Nuclear Futures: The Role of Nuclear Weapons in
the Post-Cold War World, eds. Baylis and O'Neill, 2000, p. 170 (MHHAR0774)

Many of the most controversial foreign-policy debates have found both sides basing their arguments on moral
considerations. US policy towards Cuba today is justified on moral grounds by its supporters who say it is immoral
to support dictators who abuse human rights. And it is attacked, on moral grounds, by its critics who say it leads to
suffering by the mass of the Cuban people. Similarly, a US policy toward China which placed primary emphasis on
support of individual civil rights might well weaken the Chinese government's ability to increase the access of the
mass of its population to advances in nutrition, education, and health.

Leaders aren’t exempt from moral considerations in foreign policy

Joseph Nye, Director, Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard, NUCLEAR ETHICS, 1986, p.8.
(MHSOLT0076)

In their personal lives, most people feel strongly bound by the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." But
presidents may have to take decisions that violate that rule if they are to protect their own people in wartime. The
fact that international politics is a difficult domain for ethics means that one must be cautious about too simple a
transposition of moral maxims from relations among individuals to the domain of states. But being president does
not release the statesman from the duty of moral reasoning; it merely complicates his or her task. One must examine
the arguments leaders give for claiming there is no choice or for why they think normal moral rules that we use in
daily life should not be applied in particular cases. The burden of proof rests on those who wish to depart from
normal morality. While that burden may often be met, the quality of their argument and conclusions deserves close
examination. Some arguments for disregarding normal moral rules are fallacious.
Wake Policy Project 2006 13
Morality Impact File
Utilitarianism Bad
Utilitarianism allows totalitarianism and war
Kateb, 1992 (George, Prof of Politics, Princeton Univ., The Inner Ocean: individualism and Democratic Culture;
Cornell University Press, p.11) (PDCL1162)

I do not mean to take seriously the idea that utilitarianism is a satisfactory replacement for the theory of rights. The
well-being (or mere preferences) of the majority cannot override the rightful claims of individuals. In a time when
the theory of rights is global it is noteworthy that some moral philosophers disparage the theory of rights. The
political experience of this century should be enough to make them hesitate: it is not clear that, say, some version of
utilitarianism could not justify totalitarian evil. It also could be fairly easy for some utilitarians to justify any war
and any dictatorship, and very easy to justify any kind of ruthlessness even in societies that pay some attention to
rights. There is no end to the immoral permissions that one or another type of utilitarianism grants. Everything is
permitted, if the calculation is right.

Utilitarianism justifies the tyranny of the majority

Maximiano, Associate Professor of business ethics DLSU School of Business, ‘03 (Jose Mario Maximiano, Nov 6,
Business World, “The View from Taft,) (PDCL1163)

According to the utilitarian principle, the correct action, decision or judgment is the one that will produce the
greatest net benefits at the lowest net costs for the greatest number of people. Sad to say, this principle has no eyes
to see and no brains to know who are those who have less in life, and those who are disadvantaged and less gifted.
Like a horse with blinders, utilitarianism automatically focuses on the majority, regardless of socio-economic status.
In the application of the utilitarian principle, therefore, it is possible that those who have more in life would benefit
more, while those with less would benefit less. The utilitarian principle seems inadequate when applied to situations
that involve the basic rights of others. Was the government ethically correct in demolishing some shanties to pave
the way for the beautification project specifically for a visiting leader? Similarly, was the government ethically
correct to drive away some indigenous tribes to give way for the construction of a dam? While some would see
beautification, greening, cleaning and the construction of the dam as benefits, others may see the same as unjust and
unfair, and hence as costs, because those projects may at times violate the basic rights of others.

Utilitarianism justifies doing evil in the name of preventing evil, causing war and violence

Richard Norman, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Kentucky, ETHICS, KILLING, AND WAR, 1995,
p. 207 (PDCL1164)

Since the waging of war almost invariably involves the deliberate taking of life on a massive scale, it will be
immensely difficult to justify. I have argued that utilitarian justifications are not good enough. We cannot justify the
taking of life simply by saying that the refusal to take life is likely to lead to worse consequences. An adequate
notion of moral responsibility implies that other people's responsibility for evil does not necessarily justify us is
doing evil ourselves in order to prevent them. We cannot sacrifice some of our people for the others and claim that
we are justified by a utilitarian calculus of lives.
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AT: Callahan – Rights Specific

Rights must come first or they will always be violated in the name of security

Kateb, Professor of Politic Princeton University, ‘92 (George, The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic
Culture; Cornell University Press, p. 5) (PDCL1165)
All I wish to say now is that unless rights come first they are not rights. They will tend to be sacrificed to some
purpose deemed higher than the equal dignity of every individual. There will be little if any concept of the integrity
or inviolability of each individual. The group or the majority or the good or the sacred or the vague fixture will be
preferred. The beneficiaries will be victimized along with the victims because no one is being treated as a person
who is irreplaceable and beyond value. To make rights anything but primary, even though in the name of human
dignity, is to injure human dignity.

Protection of rights over all else creates a quality to life which promotes community development sustaining
human survival; making survival the ultimate goal promotes and unsustainable authoritarian society

Schroeder, Professor of Law, Duke University, ‘86 (Christopher H. Schroeder, “RIGHTS AGAINST RISKS”,
APRIL, The Columbia Law Review, 86 Colum. L. Rev. 495, p. 519-20) (PDCL1166)

Actually, expanding the idea of preservation to include bodily integrity on the basis of quality of life considerations
has already pointed the way to a more realistic statement of those individual characteristics worth protecting. The
same considerations of quality of life counsel recognizing some freedom of action and initiative within the definition
of the morally relevant aspects of the individual. Doing so is consistent with a long political and philosophical
heritage. Deeply ingrained in practically all theories of the rights tradition is the vision of a person as capable of
forming and entitled to pursue some individual life plan. 91 Given this vision, placing survival or bodily integrity
absolutely above all other ends would be tantamount to saying that the life plan that one ought to adopt is that of
prolonging life at all costs. That idea is unacceptably authoritarian and regimented. It would be extremely
anomalous for a theory supposedly centered on the autonomy of the individual to result in a conception of justice
that constrained all individuals to a monolithic result. Individual human beings want more from their lives than
simple bodily integrity, and the conception of an individual, of what defines and constitutes a person, as so limited is
peculiarly impoverished. Individuals are capable of formulating and pursuing life plans, of forming bonds of love,
commitment, and friendship on which they subsequently act, of conceiving images of self- and community-
improvement. Some of these may directly advance interests in human survival, as when dedicated doctors and
scientists pursue solutions to cancer or develop chemical pesticides with a view to assisting agricultural self-
sufficiency in developing countries. Some may dramatically advance the "quality of life," rather than survival itself,
as when Guttenberg's press made literature more widely available or when Henry Ford pioneered the mass
production of the automobile. However, even individual initiatives of much less demonstrable impact on the lives of
others constitute a vital element that makes human life distinctively human. A just society ought to understand and
value this element both in the concrete results it sometimes produces and in the freedom and integrity that are
acknowledged when individual liberty to conceive and act upon initiative is respected.
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AT: Callahan -- General
Survival is not a value in itself- people take risks all the time we must uphold rights otherwise there would be
policy paralysis

Henry Shue, Professor of Ethics and Public Life, Princeton University, 1989 (Nuclear Deterrence and Moral
Restraint, pg. 45-6) (PDCL1167)

When we pursue several values simultaneously, we face the fact that they often conflict and that we face difficult
tradeoffs. If we make one value absolute in priority, we are likely to get that value and little else. Survival is a
necessary condition for the enjoyment of other values, but that does not make it sufficient. Logical priority does not
make it an absolute value. Few people act as though survival were an absolute value in their personal lives, or they
would never enter an automobile. We can give survival of the species a very high priority without giving it the
paralyzing status of an absolute value. Some degree of risk is unavoidable if individuals or societies are to avoid
paralysis and enhance the quality of life beyond mere survival. The degree of that risk is a justifiable topic of both
prudential and moral reasoning.

Utilitarian justifications for embryonic stem cell research endorse commodification of humans

Robert D. Orr, MD, Director of Ethics, Fletcher Allen Health Care at the University of Vermont College of
Medicine, Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, Fall, 2001, 2 Yale J. Health Pol'y L. & Ethics 189, p. 195
(PDOCSS218)

Moreover, the Nuremberg tribunal, guided by the overarching principle that human beings are never to be treated as
a means to an end, but must always be ends in themselves, soundly rejected the above arguments. It is sad and ironic
that as the generation that bequeathed to us the Nuremberg Code is passing, we are discarding the wisdom it gained
at such a high price. Using identical utilitarian and pragmatic reasoning, contemporary politicians, scientists, and the
public at large are endorsing the commodification and destruction of members of our human family.

Utilitarian justifications for embryonic stem cell research endorse commodification of humans
Robert D. Orr, MD, Director of Ethics, Fletcher Allen Health Care at the University of Vermont College of
Medicine, Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, Fall, 2001, 2 Yale J. Health Pol'y L. & Ethics 189, p. 195
(PDOCSS218)

Moreover, the Nuremberg tribunal, guided by the overarching principle that human beings are never to be treated as
a means to an end, but must always be ends in themselves, soundly rejected the above arguments. It is sad and ironic
that as the generation that bequeathed to us the Nuremberg Code is passing, we are discarding the wisdom it gained
at such a high price. Using identical utilitarian and pragmatic reasoning, contemporary politicians, scientists, and the
public at large are endorsing the commodification and destruction of members of our human family.
Wake Policy Project 2006 16
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Categorical Rules Justified Even If One Can Imagine Exceptions

Categorical rules still justified even if there are circumstances where they could be violated
Mark Tushnet, Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Wisconsin Law Review,
2003, 2003 Wis. L. Rev. 273, p. 282 (HARVCL3470)
Categorical approaches are designed to offset this tendency by screening out of consideration the features of the
circumstances that are likely to induce misjudgment. And, under some conditions, they may succeed in doing so,
when the categorical rules address decision-makers who might not appreciate the importance of considerations
thought to be peripheral to their more central tasks. Consider, for example, a categorical rule against torture by
police officers. Judges might think that in the abstract they can imagine situations in which torture might be a
valuable investigative technique. Judges might think that they must communicate rules effectively to police officers.
They might also think that any verbal formulation of the (limited) circumstances in which torture might be
acceptable is too likely to be misinterpreted in ways that would lead the officers to engage in torture more often than
they should. The judges could then conclude that they should announce a categorical rule against torture despite
their awareness that such a rule does not correspond to their own sense of what is acceptable.