The Contra Affair and Qaddafi

One thing both of these articles demonstrate is how incredibly difficult it is to foresee the far-reaching consequences of a political act. In the Qaddafi "misinformation campaign," little appeared to be gained in the way of containing Qaddafi, which was the primary objective. Instead, the results were European apprehension and a damage of trust between the government, the media and the American people. In the Iran-Contra affair, instead of furthering "freedom" in Nicaragua and liberating hostages, the actors succeeded only in blackening their reputations and that of the President while supplying a "terrorist" state with weapons and supporting the bloody overthrow of a populist government in Nicaragua.

This further persuades me that political decisions cannot be consistently made in a utilitarian frame of mind. There are far too many variables to consider in foreign and domestic reactions for a preemptive analysis to definitively conclude that an action's ends will justify immoral means.

I do not mean to say that decisions should be made on a narrow, Kantian deontological criteria, either. One cannot simply blind oneself to the repercussions of one's actions. However, utilitarian measures should be used only as constraints, not a moral imperative. For instance, if an aggressive nation with nuclear power is oppressing its people by arbitrarily throwing them into jail, torturing them and eventually killing them, the moral thing to do would be to overthrow the oppressive government and allow the people to replace it with a non-oppressive regime. However, to ignore the possible (maybe even probable) outbreak of nuclear war would be foolish, naive and dangerous. Therefore, it may be necessary not to intervene. In this case, a moral action is constrained by a pragmatic utilitarian consideration.

This is as opposed to the practice of committing an immoral act because one supposes that a greater good would result. Perhaps that greater good would result, but any political act will certainly have unanticipated consequences that reach farther than a political actor could foresee.

I am not proposing this as a one-principle-fits-all model, as most Western political theorists seem inclined to do. I am simply saying that perhaps it's a good place to start.