Morality & the question of means
Hehir, J. Bryan
A MONG ELECTED officials, speaking well is a vocational imperative, writing well is a rare commodity. Our country has had a tradition of political leaders who were superb writers; very...
...Moynihan's own general position in the foreign policy debate -- he is often described as a Jacksonian Democrat -provides a strategic place from which to highlight the question of means...
...Given the range of topics which he addresses and his penchant for finding unexpected modes of analysis, it is almost impossible for a consistent reader to agree with him all the time, but equally impossible not to be engaged by him and to feel rewarded by the effort...
...Moynihan's thesis, that an absence of concern for law cripples our choices and erodes our principles, is carefully argued...
...The essay on the MX deployment is particularly compelling...
...Moynihan's concerns are with the wisdom of policy choices and the morality of political action...
...On the basis of the (Continued on page 255) Commonweal: 234...
...foreign policy debate...
...The reason is the impact of MX deployment on the larger dynamic of the strategic balance: "What we do know is that these missiles, the most powerful and accurate we had ever developed, would be deployed in a mode so vulnerable as practically to invite a preemptive Soviet strike...
...Senator Moynihan's credentials in criticism of the Soviet Union are impeccable and quite visibly displayed in Loyalties...
...Moynihan's focus, as I read him, is on an ethic of means as a guide for foreign policy...
...In Moynihan's words, "The vote to deploy the MX in a launch-onwarning mode indicated either an absence of principle or else its abandonment...
...the logic of the pastoral can provide support for those who sense the danger of this "fatal mistake...
...But he argues persuasively (using the U.S...
...it is precisely this task, informing the strategic debate with a structure of principles, that the Pastoral Letter addressed...
...The Scowcroft Commission, which was instrumental in shaping the case for congressional approval of the MX program, argued in the end that the U.S...
...bishops' recent pastoral letter has been that it focuses on the means of the superpower rivalry (nuclear weapons) and fails to address the nature of the two systems in conflict...
...What means we choose are the measure of policy in areas beyond the nuclear question...
...had to build the MX to demonstrate its political will to the Soviets...
...In brief, the wrong means of defense produces a strategy that is indefensible strategically or morally...
...very few are in evidence today...
...He writes often and very well indeed...
...This sentence needs to be unpacked...
...The first essay in Loyalties is on the MX missile, the last one on international _9 Both highlight the significance of the means used to project American policy in the world...
...His most recent product, a slim volume with the intriguing title Loyalties, is a fascinating contribution to a controverted theme in the U.S...
...The unique combination of power and vulnerability (a mirror image of Soviet SS-18s and 19s) produces in both superpowers exactly the wrong inclinations: moves toward a launch-onwarning strategy...
...Senator Moynihan of New York is a welcome exception...
...The means question is a way to test both morality and wisdom...
...The MX invites attack precisely because it poses a threat (of "hard target _9 kill") to major Soviet systems and because the MX is vulnerable to attack...
...Novak, the Wall Street Journal, and others have found the French bishops' statement more persuasive because of its stress on the threat from the East and its much briefer, almost cryptic examination of Church/world watch I Morality.& the question of means J. Bryan Hehir the means issue in nuclear policy...
...He describes the MX as "perhaps the most fatal mistake in our history...
...Moynihan, always alert to Soviet perceptions of the United States, contends that a fixation on standing strong (or tall) without consideration of how we plan to demonstrate our political will can lead to disaster...
...The issue is one which turns on our ethic of means...
...Alongside the continuing discussion of how the pastoral is being used in the church, more attention should be given to how others are using it in the wider political and public debate...
...It is sometimes asserted -- and more often simply assumed without assertion -that the nature of the U.S.-Soviet competition renders a concern for means a luxury -- even a dangerous distraction -- in the policy debate, one of Michael Novak's persistent criticisms of the U.S...
...The burden of the final essay in Loyalties is the role of international law' as a guide for policy choices...
...bishops' pastoral) that a failure to address the means question leads to bad policy -- in both the normative and empirical sense of the phrase...
...The MX debate is not over --deployment has been approved but has not occurred...
...There will be no return to principle unless we teach ourselves how to weigh the moral dimensions and dilemmas of the decisions we are required to make...
...Moynihan has relied upon The Challenge of Peace in his effort to oppose MX deployment...
Vol. 111 • April 1984 • No. 8
