Politics as a Vocation

Young Ezra Klein makes a good point:

What I want is not a foreign policy vision that builds from a foundation of values, but from one of consequences. Whether a policy is concordant with America's view of itself is less important than its likely outcomes. The Paul Wolfowitzes of the world had thought plenty about values and were perfectly capable of discussing their vision of Iraq as a shining city on a Mesopotamian hill. What they hadn't thought about were outcomes -- constraints on our action and capabilities, the likely effects on others' actions of our use of force, etc. Good thing they weren't really pressed on the subject, lest they'd have had to conjure up a postwar plan for a reception that didn't include candy and flowers -- a plan they didn't have. But they weren't questioned, because they were effectively able to keep the conversation focused on values -- do you care about liberty? hate tyranny? believe Arabs can be democratic? -- rather than consequences.

I believe, however, that it is strictly forbidden to make this point without citing Max Weber's "Politics as a Vocation". What Ezra is complaining about is the need for US foreign policy to be guided by an ethic of responsibility focused on whether or not our actions will, say, lead to massive chaos and bloodshed rather than a focus on "moral clarity" or whether or not our policy proposals are, in some sense, grounded in high ideals.

Comments

So the point is, what, that people should be realists instead of idealists? That's pretty banal.

Posted by Al | June 28, 2007 4:30 PM

"Realism," as practiced by GOP presidents, means supporting the young Saddams, Osamas, and Noriegas of the world. So that world is unfortunately tainted, Al.

And the point may be banal, as is the point that the executive is bound by law and the Constitution, but we live in tragically non-banal times.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 28, 2007 4:37 PM

Klein seems to be using 'values' to mean something like 'intentions'. Counterposing 'values' to 'consequences' makes no sense, as it only in reference to values that one set of conseuquences may be judged (one might say 'evaluated') as preferable to another.

Posted by David Tomlin | June 28, 2007 4:37 PM

Ah read that book -- ah loved it! But ah thought the title was "Politics as a VAcation! "

Posted by G. W. Bush | June 28, 2007 4:53 PM

David Tomlin beat me to it.

Ezra's complaint really is about deficiencies in the application of instrumental reason. But it is impossible to engage in instrumental reasoning at all without assigning relative values to the various possible outcomes of the actions under consideration.

Posted by Dan Kervick | June 28, 2007 5:00 PM

David Tomlin and Dan Kervick beat me to it. Unless your value system ignores consequences, I don't see how you get around having to deal with both. In fact, isn't this exactly the point that Young Jon Chait was making? Young Ezra Klein is just echoing people like Old David Broder, who thinks it should all be about results and not ideology. But how do you know what results you want without at least a value system?

Posted by minderbender | June 28, 2007 5:05 PM

who think it should be all about results... "thinks" is defensible, but awkward... should have rephrased

Posted by minderbender | June 28, 2007 5:09 PM

The Paul Wolfowitzes of the world were either being dishonest about what outcome they wanted in Iraq, or they were not very good in predicting the likely success of our actions, or both.

Posted by blah | June 28, 2007 5:58 PM

So he's basically arguing against non-consequential ethics? Kinda obvio by now, but right. More power to him.

Posted by Reality Man | June 28, 2007 7:00 PM

I think the cut is between utopianism and ameliorating diasters that are here today. The evils of today should be addressed rather than Crusades launched so there will be no evil in the world of the future. Utopianism is often a an excuse for doing evil as to gain utopia all is justifed. Witness the attacks on Democracy launched by the Bush adminstration in the name of ridding the future of terrorism. There is zip wrong with promoting Democracy but if only small steps can be taken today to promote Democracy that is completely all that can be effectively done to promote Democracy. Of course, with this utopianism I am giving the best spin to what the Bush administration did. The reality is that Cheney lied to the nation to secure oil. Other neo-cons had other perphaps even more reprehensible motives.

Posted by apollo | June 28, 2007 7:03 PM

I was about to say "David Tomlin, Dan Kervick, and minderbender beat me to it", but I'm going to disagree actually.

I think Ezra is just using "values" colloquially to mean "If you spend a lot of time talking about abstract stuff, chances are you have not thought your plan through. Also chances are you are using the part of your brain that gets irrationally overexcited about fantasies of doing Big Important things."

Of course it is formally true that we must value something in order to make judgements about whether we like this or that situation.

But, I take it Ezra means we should back away from abstract, value-heavy talk and instead focus on values that are so uncontroversial (e.g. the value that says "we shouldn't all die in a nuclear attack") that really we would just call it common sense.

I'm not sure if I agree with Ezra on that. But I would interpret his point that way.

Posted by mk | June 28, 2007 10:28 PM

Responsibility *isn't* a moral value now?

Posted by Korha | June 28, 2007 10:48 PM

Followup...

1. One problem here is that Bush and co. often say things like "Spreading freedom is the best way to minimize terrorism in the long term", i.e. they explicitly anchor abstract values to uncontroversial values like survival. Frankly, I'm not sure they are wrong when they say that.

2. The problem with "Freedom leads to Survival" is not that Survival is a bad goal. It is not that Freedom doesn't really help Survival. The problem is that they don't have a good plan to create Freedom.

3. The question therefore is not really about the ultimate values you use to measure things, because Bushies can always say Survival is the ultimate value, and that is not very abstract at all. Ezra's recommendation is insufficient to deal with that path of reasoning.

4. Instead, if your contention is that "dreaming about Spreading Freedom gives people these delusions of grandeur, which makes them unable to plan properly" then just say that. Just say "I don't trust a plan that uses the word Freedom 20 times in a 1000 word speech. I don't think they've really thought it through. I think they are getting caught up in their own flights of fancy. I think they have a half-baked plan and they like the sound of their own words."

5. (But. Remember "weapons of mass destruction?" Talk of mushroom clouds is not an appeal to some great abstract ideal. So, if you want an idiot-proof foreign policy paradigm, you have to remember how this war was actually sold.)

Posted by mk | June 28, 2007 11:01 PM

You guys are slowly discovering conservatism.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 28, 2007 11:52 PM

Erza's argument has its uses and its appeal, but the issue cuts both ways...

In the run-up to the Iraq War, most of the arguments FOR the war were results oriented. They focused on what would happen if we did not invade Iraq. There was plenty of loose talk about liberty and gracing foreign peoples with beautiful American ideals...but when you get down to it the justification for the war was the threat that existed if we didn't act.

Now naturally, there were also plenty of people predicting opposite outcomes and making consequentialist arguments against the war. Among these were many of the "expert culture" that the Bush administration ignored. Then as now, consquesntialist arguments were some of the strongest arguments against the war. However, they were severely hampered by the limited intelligence provided to the American people on the exact nature of the threat posed by Saddam.

At the same time, there was a broad array of intellectuals arguing against the war on moral, or legalistic grounds. This included Kantian appeals to international law, just war theorists of all stripes (from academics to the Vatican), and old-fashioned moral arguments against unwarranted military aggression. In my view, if the Left had paid more attention to these formal arguments against aggressive and unnecessary wars, and less attention to utilitarian arguments for war ("The Gathering Storm" etc.), then it would have been better enabled to make its case for restraint to the American people. The neocons were able to claim the "language of idealism" in their false promises of liberty for all. In reality, liberals should have been making a stronger case that the war was 'intrinsically immoral' from the start.

Erza Klein is correct that the "language of idealism" was used to enable and justify the war machine. But one of the great pitfalls of utilitarian and/or "pragmatic" thinking is that it is just as easily co-opted by nationalist impulses--by protecting the supposed interests of the particular national community.

Neither Kantian nor utilitarian approaches are sufficient in themselves. Indeed, in the real world principles and results blend together. For example, the violations against international law and the perceived immorality of our actions have bred resentment and thus bad consequences. In any case, it would be a mistake for the Left to dismiss Kantian and Human Rights based thinking because the right wing employed human-rights slogans in its propaganda. There is rigorous thinking, and then there is propaganda. Both utilitarian and Kantian slogans can be co-opted to evil ends--we need both facts and reason to fight them.

Posted by Scott Kern | June 29, 2007 2:58 AM

Matt,

It's also interesting that you bring up "Politics as A Vocation". In that text, Weber brings up a fact few in the US tend to recognize--that journalists are political actors. Journalists, like politicians, should be bound to the "ethic of responsibility" that distinguishes virtuous political action. It's a lesson Weber learned well from the first world war.

Posted by Scott Kern | June 29, 2007 3:04 AM

This isn't exactly rocket science. You have to know what your values are, what your interests are, and to have some idea of what balance you assign to them.

IOW, you need to know what you want. But that isn't that hard to sort out, really.

Having gotten that far, acting responsibly in that context is what grownups do, or at least what we're supposed to do.

The overriding fact is that, as an actor on the world stage, Bush and his gang don't even remotely impersonate grownups.

Posted by low-tech cyclist (formerly RT) | June 29, 2007 9:21 AM