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Foreign Policy, Rationality and Morality
Author(s) -
Oppenheim Felix E.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9337.00193
Subject(s) - rationality , morality , relevance (law) , national interest , foreign policy , government (linguistics) , value (mathematics) , law and economics , political science , positive economics , economics , epistemology , sociology , law , philosophy , politics , computer science , linguistics , machine learning
To determine the relevance of judgments of rationality and of morality in foreign policy decisions, it is necessary to provide a value‐neutral definition of “the national interest.” This makes it possible to ascertain, in principle, whether a given governmental foreign policy decision is rational with respect to this goal, in turn a necessary means to any government’s ultimate purposes. While it is pointless to judge the pursuit of the national interest itself morally right or wrong, moral judgments are relevant to policies and goals compatible with the national interest. However, moral principles are often invoked to justify the pursuit of this intermediate goal.