Moral equivalence
Encyclopedia
Moral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy
Moral hierarchy
A moral hierarchy is a hierarchy by which actions are ranked by their morality, with respect to a moral code. The notion of a moral hierarchy tends to be thin and untenable in cases spanning multiple cultures, because moral codes are not equal, or that certain codes are superior to others....

 can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. The term originates from a 1906 address by William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...

 entitled The Moral Equivalent of War, subsequently published in essay form in 1910.

The term has some limited currency in polemic debates about the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, and more currently, the Arab-Israeli conflict. "Moral equivalence" began to be used as a polemic term-of-retort to "moral relativism
Moral relativism
Moral relativism may be any of several descriptive, meta-ethical, or normative positions. Each of them is concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures:...

", 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
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

.

The purveyors of the device usually start by believing their side is morally superior. They use history, possibly selectively, to cast the situation as a big-picture struggle against an evil power. This evil could be totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

 or genocidal
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 policies or some other ostentatious villainy. They then justify the atrocities of their own side by claiming it to be a lesser evil compared with allowing the evil power to have its own way. These atrocities in this way become acts of good, not evil.

International conflicts are sometimes 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.

Cold War

In the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 context, the term was and is most commonly used by anti-Communists as an accusation of formal fallacy
Formal fallacy
In philosophy, a formal fallacy is a pattern of reasoning that is always wrong. This is due to a flaw in the logical structure of the argument which renders the argument invalid...

 for leftist criticisms of United States foreign policy and military conduct.

Many such people believed in the idea that the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 is by definition benevolent, that the extension of its power, influence and hegemony is an extension of benevolence and brings freedom to those people subject to that hegemony. Therefore, by definition, those who opposed that were by definition evil, trying to deny the benevolence to people. The USSR and its allies, in contrast, practiced a totalitarian ideology. A territory under US hegemony thus would be freed from possibly being in the camp of the totalitarian power and would help to weaken it. Thus, all means were justified in keeping territories away from Soviet influence in this way. This extended to countries not under Soviet influence but instead said to be sympathetic at all in any way with it. Therefore, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 under Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

 was not under Soviet domination, but removing him would help weaken the USSR by removing a government ruled with the help of a Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

. The big picture, they would say, justified the tortures carried out by the Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

 dictatorship as it served to weaken the totalitarian Communist camp and in time bring about the freedom of those under its domination.

Many of those who criticized US foreign policy at the time contended that US power in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 was used only to pursue an economically-driven agenda. They claim that the underlying economic motivation eroded any claims of moral superiority
Moral hierarchy
A moral hierarchy is a hierarchy by which actions are ranked by their morality, with respect to a moral code. The notion of a moral hierarchy tends to be thin and untenable in cases spanning multiple cultures, because moral codes are not equal, or that certain codes are superior to others....

, leaving the hostile acts in (Korea
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

, Hungary
1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....

, Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

, Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...

, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

) to stand on their own in justifying the human lives the conflicts had destroyed. In contrast, those who justified US interventions in the Cold War period always cast these as being motivated by the need to contain totalitarianism and thus fulfilled a higher moral imperative. That was so despite such things as the overthrow of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

's elected non-Communist Jacobo Arbenz, for instance, on behalf of the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

 with whom senior US officials had an important business relationship.

These people denied the existence of an "economic-driven agenda". 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
Moral superiority
Moral superiority is the belief or attitude that one's position and actions are justified by having higher moral values than one's political, religious or moral opponent; see "just war" concept....

" of the US could not and can not be "immoral." Hence an argument 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
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick was an American ambassador and an ardent anticommunist. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign and later in his Cabinet, the longtime Democrat-turned-Republican was nominated as the U.S...

, who was United States ambassador to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 in the Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 administration. Kirkpatrick published an article called The Myth of Moral Equivalence in 1986, in which 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.

Leftist critics usually argued that the United States itself created a "moral equivalence" when some of its actions, such as President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

's support for the Contra
Contras
The contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's dictatorship...

insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

, put it on the same level of immorality as the Soviet Union.
Following the dissolution of the USSR, the expansion of US influence has continued. The purveyors of the moral equivalence device have continued to demand this in the form of NATO expansion, the overthrow of rogue states, the invasion of Iraq, and the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

. The morally inferior opponents have been recast as Islamic fundamentalists, anti-Israeli powers, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, drug traffickers, and Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 nationalists, among others.

Arab-Israeli conflict

In the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the term is commonly used by defenders of Israel. They accuse of moral equivalence those who describe acts of Palestinian terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, 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, views on this matter:
"The coverage of the [recent] 'violence'... has largely read like the equivalent of a chess match. Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

 refuses to halt suicide bombs. Israel targets a top Hamas leader. Suicide bombing in Jerusalem kills 16. Israel 'retaliates' with a strike in Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...

. What's at work is probably not anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

, 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."


The Israeli writer Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick , is a German-born Israeli historian and writer. He was the director of the archives at Yad Vashem.-Biography:Yaakov Lozowick was born in 1957 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. In 1980, he gained qualifications as a tourist guide. In 1982, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in history...

 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."

World War II atrocities

As in the other cases, the moral equivalence device is used by those who claim that the Allied side by definition was good and the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

 was by definition evil. The war was cast as a big picture struggle - that allowing the Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

 to have their own way would be so horrible that anything done by the Allies became justified. World War II has become a favored example for those who use the device because of the magnitude of the Holocaust and the implications of the successful implementation of Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...

. It becomes a matter of suggesting that the present-day case (Israel-Palestine, Cold War) is one where the victory of Evil (Palestinians, Soviets) would be akin to allowing Hitler to win World War II. That such horrors happened thus make the possible worst-case scenarios seem more likely.

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
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...

 is a common strategy employed by apologists for the Nazis in Germany, such as politicians of the National Democratic Party of Germany
National Democratic Party of Germany
The National Democratic Party of Germany – The People's Union , is a far right German nationalist party. It was founded in 1964 a successor to the German Reich Party . Party statements self-identify as Germany's "only significant patriotic force"...

. Forms of the argument are also found in the works of authors not sympathetic to Nazism, such as F.J.P. Veale, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

, Joseph Sobran
Joseph Sobran
Michael Joseph Sobran, Jr. was an American journalist and writer, formerly with National Review and a syndicated columnist, known as Joe Sobran. Pundit Pat Buchanan called Sobran "perhaps the finest columnist of our generation", although Sobran was fired from National Review by his one-time mentor...

, and Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. As a novelist, he often focuses on minute inspection of his characters' and narrators' stream of consciousness, and has written about such provocative topics as voyeurism and planned assassination...

. 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.

Their point is to say that though the implications of an Axis victory, in particular a German victory, would be horrible, that this did not justify Allied atrocities. Those who defend the atrocities say that even if firebombing Dresden, for instance, served very little military purpose, even the slightest purpose justified it and also, German people bore responsibility for the horrors of the war and that they had to be punished for that.

Notable in this context are Justice Jackson
Robert H. Jackson
Robert Houghwout Jackson was United States Attorney General and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court . He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials...

's comments at the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

:

"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."

Further reading

  • Jeane Kirkpatrick
    Jeane Kirkpatrick
    Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick was an American ambassador and an ardent anticommunist. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign and later in his Cabinet, the longtime Democrat-turned-Republican was nominated as the U.S...

    . The Myth of Moral Equivalence, Imprimis
    Imprimis
    Imprimis is the monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College, described by Salon.com as "the most influential conservative publication you've never heard of" and by Rush Limbaugh as "one of the best and most important publications that I read."-History:Imprimis was founded in 1972 by Clark Durant...

    , January 1986, Vol. 15, No. 1
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK