The Journal of Value Inquiry 36: 1–8, 2002. EDITORIAL © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Vulnerability, Global Authority, and Moving Away from a Local Maximum of Value THOMAS MAGNELL Editor-in-Chief

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, pundits have proclaimed with near unanimity: “Everything changed on September 11th.” The refrain has been repeated so freely that it has gained wide acceptance as an unarguable truth. As it is, the assertion has been left largely unargued. No doubt it is hyperbole: everything has not changed. It is not clear that it could or that it would even be coherent to say that it could. But like much hyperbole, the overstatement is not without a point, in this case a point about responding to the attacks and to a perceived threat of future attacks. The attacks provoked a sharp military response, while the perceived threat generated a general doctrine to retaliate against terrorists, wherever they may be, and all who harbor terrorists. The military response, which required the invasion of a sovereign state, was carried out without a declaration of war. The general doctrine, perhaps to become known as the Bush Doctrine, placed no limits on future military incursions anywhere in the world, with or without a declaration of war. Throughout most of the world, the military response was favorably received. Certainly in the United States, it was widely popular. The general doctrine garnered much less notice anywhere than might have been expected. If criticism of the doctrine was surprisingly muted outside the United States, it went largely undiscussed by Americans, though their silence was clearly an indication of tacit approval. The rapid adoption of a military posture by the United States can undoubtedly be described as a change of some moment, one that might even be wrong to second guess. Military action was advocated on grounds of selfdefense, and without any serious alternatives, only a pacifist or a fool would fail to see that as a prima facie reason to engage the military. Self-defense, a basis for behavior rooted in prudence, carries moral weight for consequentialists and deontologists alike, whether it concerns individuals or nation states. Indeed, matters of self-defense are arguably the first duties of governments, however many or few other duties might be. The wisdom of

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the particular military response is harder to determine, even for officials with greater access to information and a firmer basis for assessing its credibility than the rest of us. Under the circumstances, the actions taken would be hard to gainsay at this time, whatever we might come to think in the years and decades ahead. But however viewed, a military response under the circumstances could hardly be thought to be unexpected. In that sense, the rapid adoption of a military posture was not so much a change as a response of an enduring type from a nation subject to foreign attack. The general doctrine is more of a change. As a statement of policy, it is a declaration of prior justification for open-ended military action taken in the name of combating terrorism. It serves as a warrant for pre-emptive as well as retaliatory military strikes against all suspected terrorists and the nations where they may be found. Without some specification of the minimal conditions for coming under suspicion of past or future terrorist conduct, the general doctrine is nothing less than a blank check for unlimited exercise of military power. But let us suppose that the conditions are simply yet to be specified and that when they are set out, they will be conditions that a reasonable person would accept, whatever that may come to in practice. Even then, in sanctioning military action anywhere in the world, the general doctrine abrogates accepted notions of sovereignty. It does so in principle. All nations are subject to military incursion by the United States, on the general doctrine. No doubt actual incursion would be subject to political constraints or perceptions of political constraints. But the abridgment in principle of claims of sovereignty remains a breathtaking departure from accepted norms of nation states. Sovereignty is a right of control, and the leaders of all nations claim rights to restrict intrusive actions by foreign powers as a matter of course. This is no less the case for the United States than any other nation. Indeed, it underlies the retaliatory actions that were actually taken. As things stand, no nation can accept the general doctrine. This makes the scant discussion that it has fostered all the more remarkable. By way of explanation, it may be said that the general doctrine is not to be taken seriously and that it is naive to regard it as anything but political rhetoric. The trouble with this is that there is no reason to believe it true. Members of the government of the United States from the President to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives give every indication of standing by the general doctrine, and do so irrespective of party affiliation. Even as the first bombs were being dropped on Afghanistan, several other nations were being named as probable candidates for military strikes. Possibly, as events unfold, there will be no perceived need to implement the general doctrine. More likely, it will be implemented, but seriatim, and for only a handful of nations. With each successive implementation, the risks of further military actions give rise to questions about its prudence. Yet with the world as we find it, the general doctrine cannot be dismissed out of hand, especially if it is tempered by

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ordinary considerations of risk pertaining to military action. Too strong a case can be made for the general doctrine itself on grounds of prudential value. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon frightened many people. What they may have brought home for some people and should have produced in everyone is a heightened awareness of vulnerability. A few committed individuals were able to kill 3,500 people and cause billions of dollars of damage in one morning by ruthlessly commandeering four civilian aircraft, with three of the four hitting their mark. Similarly organized, committed individuals could do much the same anywhere in the world. No alchemy is needed to turn high-momentum flying gas tanks with wings into guided missiles. As horrors go, however, that one is pretty tame. Even small nations have done much worse. Why then should we have a heightened awareness of how vulnerable we really are? The answer has to do with cost. With the advance of technology, the cost of killing and wrecking havoc declines. Twentieth century technology made large-scale war possible as it had never been before, because mowing people down and blowing buildings up became cheap and easy, at any rate for some nation states. The pace of technological advance has not slowed, and twenty-first century technology is sure to keep the slope of the cost of wholesale killing and wrecking havoc negative. In the twentieth-century, communists were intent on appropriating the means of production. In the twenty-first century, all manner of coreligionists will be able to put their hands on large-scale means of destruction. The philosopher who stands out for maintaining a focus on vulnerability is Hobbes. He is usually described as an early contractarian whose views in ethics and politics were motivated by fear. He helped to give color to that description with his own favored quip reflecting his premature birth in the year of the Spanish Armada: “Fear and I were born twins.” Fear is certainly wrapped up in his thought, but not just any fear however small or out of place. He was particularly concerned with rational fear of meeting with harm or death from willful actions of others. What makes such a fear rational is our vulnerability. Were we invulnerable, there would be no reason to fear others. Were we significantly less vulnerable than others, we would have less reason to fear them than they would have to fear us. As it is, Hobbes accounted individuals equal or equal enough on this score, because the differences between individuals, by and large, do not lead to significant differences in vulnerability. Equality or near equality of vulnerability is an empirical matter. Among healthy, minimally intelligent adults, a gun or small weapon, a so-called equalizer, is enough to settle any doubts about near equality of vulnerability for all practical purposes. Historically, the same cannot be said of groups of individuals organized into nation states, where vulnerability has been inversely correlated to military strength. The correlation has not been perfect. Occasionally, militarily weaker nations have prevailed over their stronger rivals. But the correlation has been close enough to make nations bear the

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considerable costs of maintaining standing armies. As long as the means of inflicting harm could be effectively deterred and deflected by military strength, the costs have been more than sensible from a prudential point of view. That, however, has always depended on the nature of the means of inflicting harm. That in turn has depended on the level of technology that could be drawn upon. The presence or absence of near equality of vulnerability is contingent on technology. The near equality of vulnerability for individuals that Hobbes noted stems from an inability of individuals to defend themselves over time against other individuals bent on inflicting harm. Left to themselves, individuals seeking to satisfy their own desires are in a poor position to do so. Jointly unsatisfiable desires among individuals produce conflicts with concomitant motives for aggression. An individual may fend off particular attacks by brain or brawn. But with back turned or eyes closed in sleep, an individual is prey to the wits and weapons of others. Lacking a ring of Gyges or a comparable technological cloaking device, an individual will eventually succumb. Individual strength does not ensure personal security. As technology brings down the costs of large-scale means of destruction, nation states come to face conditions of near equality of vulnerability parallel to the conditions for individuals. No longer do large armies have to be amassed to threaten national security. Weapons of mass destruction become cheap enough for small nations, poor nations, like-minded bands of individuals, even prosaic criminal organizations to seriously menace large, wealthy, militarily strong nations. Not only nuclear proliferation, but the spread of production of biological and chemical agents leaves no nation safe from aggression. Particular attacks may be repulsed, but the cumulative risk of assault grows. Indeed, the conditions for nation states in the twenty-first century are worse than anyone is acknowledging. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred while the militarily strong nations were not at war or especially at odds. Afghanistan could not call on allies in response to the military action of the United States. Only someone pollyannish or blind to history would suppose that the circumstances surrounding similar attacks in the future would always be so benign. What might have happened, how many nations, large and small alike, might have been affected had the Empire State Building and the Pentagon been hit during the Cuban missile crisis? Technological advances will bring us to a threshold of risk, if they have not done so already. If we are not there yet, the time left before crossing is not far off, and waiting for confirmation is like waiting for the tires to squeal while gong around a curve before applying the brakes. But whether there already or with a little time to go, upon crossing the threshold, we enter a world where military strength alone will not ensure national security. In the case of near equality of vulnerability for individuals, Hobbes maintains that the resulting predicament calls for a central authority with

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sufficient power to redress or prevent attacks on individuals. In fact he goes further than this, arguing for a central authority with absolute power and favoring, among the forms it might take, monarchy with its trappings and hereditary succession. That goes well beyond what is needed. But the basic inference is sound: a central authority with sufficient power to effectively address aggressive actions against individuals is needed to gain personal security under conditions of near equality of vulnerability. The parallel for nation states in a world where the technological threshold of risk has been crossed is plain. Faced with conditions of near equality of vulnerability, the predicament of nation states calls for a global authority with sufficient power to redress or prevent attacks on themselves. This requires a transfer of power and a relinquishment of significant elements of sovereignty. Such a radical change in the nature of nation states is sure to arouse strong opposition. It is not hard to find reasons to fear the requisite subordination. Aspects of pride, ideology, religion, prosperity, and self-aggrandizement can be expected to provoke strong sentiments against restraints on sovereignty. In addition, concerns over loss of liberty would be in order. Perhaps most obvious would be considerations advanced in the name of national security, and understandably so. In a world not up to the technological threshold of risk, considerations in the name of national security might provide reason enough to dismiss any call for subordinating elements of sovereignty to a global authority. But once the threshold has been crossed, no less is needed as a matter of national security. Calls for the establishment of a global authority are not new. The call here, however, is different due to the evaluative structure of the predicament for nations under conditions of near equality of vulnerability. If the ability to fend off attacks is a precondition of the existence of a nation state, then national security will have unmatched prudential value, which, among the values that are drawn on the government and likely to be endorsed by the citizens, will also place it among the highest ranks of values actually held. Calls for the establishment of a global authority in the past have been based on pacifistic and cosmopolitan ideals – high values, often well motivated and sincerely promoted, but for the most part values perceived to be different in kind and less compelling than the prudential value of national security. For better or for worse, that has ample empirical confirmation. The perceived difference in the values has left no purchase for the idealistic calls. To some extent, this has been true even for people who have favored a cosmopolitan end-state over a nationalistic end-state. The reason for this is that the compellingness of the prudential value has placed the value of national security at a local maximum of value among values actually held. As a result, anything that would adversely affect national security has had actual disvalue, whatever the value of the idealistic call or even of the end-state in the abstract. A judgment to the contrary would require heterogeneous comparisons of value

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belonging to interdisciplinary value inquiry. Such comparisons are typically more difficult to make than homogeneous comparisons of value belonging to disciplinary value inquiry. The ideals of some thinkers notwithstanding, practical reasoning has kept people from moving away from a local maximum of value. Under conditions of near equality of vulnerability, a call for the establishment of a global authority itself gains prudential value. When the technological threshold of risk has been crossed and powerful weapons are relatively cheap, no nation can go it alone: not large nations, which become targets of opportunity, and not small nations, which are not free from the fallout. Whatever the idealistic proclivities, the prudential value of national security gives the call traction. Actual instances of the same kind of value come to weigh in and require only the typically easier to make homogeneous comparisons of value. Reasons of national security become grounds to move away from the local maximum of value maintained by nation states to a higher maximum realized through a global authority. Nation states are altered by the transfer of power and the restrictions on sovereignty. While the transfer must create a global authority with sufficient power to be effective, the smaller the transfer, the more realizable the move from a local to a higher maximum of value. The smallest transfer, then, is most likely to win assent. This can be had with a federal model, creating a global authority for a federation of nations retaining authority over all affairs not directly connected with matters of security for the federation. Mention of a global federation of nations provokes two reactions, often in the same people: it is not possible and it is too dangerous to bring about. If the inconsistency goes unnoticed, the reactions are little more than stock responses. The diversity of nations in size and wealth with different religions and cultural practices is commonly offered as a conclusive reason to think that a global federation of nations is impossible. But the success of the United States is itself suggestive as an exemplar of why it would be right to think otherwise. After a weak attempt at confederation, thirteen sovereign states united in a federation that became the United States. Some were large, with cities of note. Others were small, with only the makings of urban centers. Religious differences were great, being on a par with differences that had spurred wars in other nations and that continued to cause people to fight in other parts of the world. The cultural differences ran as deep as the peculiah instatooshion of slavery. Despite all this, and a war between the states over maintaining the federation, with the admission of additional states on a fully equal basis, these united states, as is occasionally still said, grew to span a continent with a population more than one third the size of the estimated population for the entire world in 1776. Whatever disputes the fifty states may engage in today, no citizen has reason to fear military aggression by citizens of another state, not even Vermonters from New Yorkers.

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Envisioning a global federation of nations is not difficult. That there are dangers cannot be denied. With power to address large matters of security, the potential for loss of liberty is easily the greatest danger. The power of the global authority, as great as it would be, would have to be strictly limited to the large matters of security, leaving everything else to the subordinated nations. This would be complicated by ongoing border disputes, as well as cultural, religious, and regional aspirations. No doubt to say that such issue would be hard to settle is an understatement. But whatever means were devised to address them, a greater problem in the long run would be the temptation to have power accrue to the global authority to advance some ideal. All too often, people have been ready to relinquish freedom for a favored ideal and ended up diminishing many lives. This has been no less true of intellectuals who have worn compassion on fashionable sleeves of socialism. The problem is that immediate gains to welfare can often be bought at incremental costs to freedom. Often the gains to welfare do not persist. The mounting losses of freedom do. Here too the United States offers a partial answer to the problem by combining broad respect for the rule of law with a constitution that includes as its Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” However popular it has become to give it short shrift, the amendment remains an explicit check for review on centralized power. Perhaps it will again come to be appreciated as the capstone of the Bill of Rights that it was intended to be. In the meantime, people who are not ready to acknowledge its importance might find it instructive to consider the course that the United States might have taken without it. The requirement to have the smallest transfer from nation states to the global authority sufficient for its effectiveness makes it advantageous to include something like the Tenth Amendment together with a broad respect for the rule of law. It is so clearly in the interests of nation states that it might even be regarded as a precondition for creating a global federation. This would help to give it a good start. After the technological threshold of risk is crossed, the alternatives to a carefully thought out global federation are either a world where no one is secure or a world where one nation state has taken on the functions of a global authority. A world where no one is secure is not likely to be stable. The prospects for a world where one nation state has taken on the functions of a global authority might be a little better, but not much. The domineering nation state would face inevitable conflicts of what would remain domestic and foreign interests. The resentment that would go to it for actual and perceived slights would be enormous. It would face the prospect of repeated attacks that would test its vulnerability. The costs of attempted defense would also create an ultimate free-rider situation for the rest of the world until the one nation found a way to spread out the costs. But that would foster additional resentments, making the overall situation even more bleak. This gives all the

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more reason to try to work out in full the structure of a global federation of nations that would have sufficient power to be effective while having effective constraints for sufficient freedom.