Moral equivalence
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Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to characterize in a negative way the claim that there can be no moral or ethical hierarchy decided between two sides in a conflict, nor in the actions or tactics of the two sides.
The term has some limited currency in polemic debates about the Cold War, and more currently, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Moral equivalence" arose as a polemic term-of-retort to "moral relativism," which had been gaining use as an indictment against political foreign policy that appeared to use only a situation-based application of widely-held ethical standards.
Sometimes international conflicts are viewed similarly, and interested parties periodically urge both sides to conduct a ceasefire and negotiate their differences. However these negotiations may prove difficult in that both parties in a conflict believe that they are morally superior to the other, and are unwilling to negotiate on basis of moral equivalence. Frequently, there will be the sense on both sides that the other person started it. for example, if one schoolboy suddenly hits another for no reason, and his schoolfellow hits him back, they might both be punished for "fighting" on the grounds that it doesn't matter who "started it".
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[edit] Cold War
In the Cold War context, the term was and is most commonly used by political conservatives, as an implied accusation of logical fallacy, for liberal criticisms of United States foreign policy and military conduct. Some liberals contend that US power in the Cold War was used only to pursue an economically-driven agenda. They claim that the underlying economic motivation erodes any claims of moral superiority, leaving the hostile acts (Korea, Hungary, Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua) to stand on their own in justifying the human lives the conflicts had destroyed. The typical conservative counter is the claim that there was in fact, a moral difference between the Soviet Union and the United States, and that policy arising in defense of the "moral superiority" of the US could not and can not be "immoral." Hence an argument, according to conservatives, which claimed that the two parties could be viewed as "equally" culpable in a struggle for supremacy, would be advocating "moral equivalence."
An early popularizer of the expression was Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was United States ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration. She published an article called The Myth of Moral Equivalence in 1986. She sharply criticized those who she alleged were claiming that there was "no moral difference" between the Soviet Union and democratic states. In fact, very few critics of United States policies in the Cold War era argued that there was a moral equivalence between the two sides. Communists, for instance, argued that the Soviet Union was morally superior to its adversaries. Non-Communist critics usually argued that the United States itself risked creating a "moral equivalence" when some of its actions (such as supporting the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government of Chile in 1973), or Reagan's support for the Contra insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, put it on the same level of immorality as the Soviet Union.
[edit] Arab-Israeli conflict
In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term is commonly used by defenders of Israel. They accuse of moral equivalence those who describe acts of Palestinian terrorism, such as suicide bombing against civilians, on one hand, and the retaliatory acts of the Israeli Defense Forces, on the other, as equally reprehensible.
Joel Mowbrey, a pro-Israeli writer, summarizes the coverage of the events:
- "The coverage of the [recent] 'violence' has largely read like the equivalent of a chess match. Hamas refuses to halt suicide bombs. Israel targets a top Hamas leader. Suicide bombing in Jerusalem kills 16. Israel 'retaliates' with a strike in Gaza. What's at work is probably not anti-semitism, but a misguided attempt at objectivity. But reporting 'facts' in a moral vacuum is not objectivity; it is, in fact, just the opposite. Absent proper context, the situation can seem as if it is two equally justifiable sides making moves and countermoves, nothing more."
In recent years many commentators have called the continued Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza as "morally reprehensible" and as being the "root cause of Palestinian terrorism." This is not necessarily the same thing as arguing that there is no moral difference between terrorist bombings which kill Israeli civilians and the Israeli retaliation to those bombings, but Israelis frequently see such critics as taking this view.
As with the United States during the Cold War, critics of the Israeli government argue that it is Israel's actions which are creating a "moral equivalence." Aron Trauring, an American peace activist, argues that Israeli air-strikes against the homes of Hamas leaders makes Israel no better than Hamas:
- "Civilians were directly targeted for death as part of an act of revenge on the part of the Israeli government. This is exactly the justification Hamas et al use for their military actions against Israeli civilians. They say the adults killed in their activities are people who perpetrate the "murderous occupation" against the Palestinians. They say these Israelis deserve to die just like Hamas leader Salah Shehada. If innocent dies as well, its just collateral damage. In essence we have reached moral equivalency."
The Israeli writer Yaacov Lozowick explains Israel's moral dilemmas:
- "Restricting the freedom of movement of entire communities is immoral. Refraining from these restrictions when there is unequivocal proof that this will lead to the murder of innocents is worse, because movement restricted can later be granted, while dead will never live again. Demolishing the homes of civilians merely because a family member has committed a crime is immoral. If, however,... potential suicide murderers... will refrain from killing out of fear that their mothers will become homeless, it would be immoral to leave the Palestinian mothers untouched in their homes while Israeli children die on their school buses. Accidentally killing noncombatants in the cross fire of battles being fought in the middle of cities is immoral, unless... refraining from fighting in the Palestinian cities inevitably means the Palestinians will use the safe havens of their cities to plan, prepare and launch ever more murderous attacks on Jewish noncombatants. These concrete examples and others like them demonstrate the moral considerations that Israelis... have been dealing with since the Palestinans proudly decided to use suicide murder as their primary weapon." ("Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars", p.260)
[edit] WWII atrocities
Suggesting a moral equivalence between a number of acts carried out by the Allies during the Second World War and the deeds of the Nazis, especially the Final Solution is a common strategy employed by apologists for the Nazis in Germany, such as politicians of the National Democratic Party of Germany. Forms of the argument are also found in the works of authors not sympathetic to Nazism per se, such as F.J.P. Veale, Noam Chomsky, and Joseph Sobran. Commonly cited as examples are the Allies' aerial destruction of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Hamburg and Dresden, the systematic murder and rape of East Germans by the Red Army, etc.
Notable in this context are Justice Jackson’s comments at the Nuremberg Trials:
"If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us...We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
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[edit] Further reading
- Jeane Kirkpatrick, The Myth of Moral Equivalence, Imprimis, January 1986, Vol. 15, No. 1
