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The torture convention, rendition and Kant's critique of ‘pseudo-politics’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2010

HOWARD WILLIAMS
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Abstract

By what standards ought we to judge politicians? The article addresses the question in the light of the treatment of two controversial issues in contemporary world politics: the implementation of the 1984 UN Convention against Torture; and the post 9/11 rendition of terrorist suspects to US authorities by European governments. Their treatment brings out the way in which the role of political leaders is popularly conceived and understood. This conventional understanding is contrasted with the role recommended by Kant's political philosophy. An answer to the question depends on how we conceive politics in the first place. If politics is seen as a ‘free for all’ where all strategies can be canvassed then the response will be entirely different from a situation where we consider ourselves bound by rules of legitimacy and its attendant problems of morality and law. The article represents a rejection of certain received accounts of politics and approval of a Kantian view. The account of politics which in one respect or another tries to drive a wedge between politics and ordinary morality is seen as inferior to a Kantian concept of politics which is always conditioned by morality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 195 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

1 Cf. Elisabeth Ellis, Kant's Politics: Provisional Theory for an uncertain world (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 100–11.

2 See {http://www.newstatesman.com/rendition}.

3 Carl Schmitt, Concept of the Political (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996), p. 29.

4 N. Machiavelli, The Prince, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 99.

5 Ibid., pp. 99–100.

6 Ibid., p. 99.

7 Antonio Cassese, International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 254.

8 A. Cassese, International Law, p. 255.

9 See Alex J. Bellamy, ‘No pain, no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror’, International Affairs, 82:1 (2006), p. 136. Bellamy cites (pp. 136–7) Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) as an advocate of the legalisation of torture under certain extreme circumstances. For a response see Robert Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). For a legal analysis see Margaret L. Satterthwaite, ‘Rendered Meaningless: Extraordinary Rendition and the Rule of Law’, George Washington Law Review, 75 (2007), pp. 1333–1420.

10 For a Kantian critique of torture see David Sussman, ‘What's Wrong with Torture?, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 33: (2005), pp. 1–33.

11 References are to the Akademieausgabe (Berlin: Prussian Academy Edition, 1902-). Unless stated translations are taken from Kant's Practical Philosophy by Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

12 Cf. Alex Bellamy, ‘No pain, no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror’, p. 125.

13 Stuart Hampshire, Foreword, Public and Private Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. ix.

14 Max Weber, Political Writings, 1994, p. 311. (emphasis added).

15 Cf. Wolfgang Kersting, Wohlgeordnete Freiheit. Immanuel Kants Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 2nd edn (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1993).

16 For the systematic standing of Kant's philosophy of right in relation to his practical philosophy see Wolfgang Kersting, Kant ueber Recht (Padeborn: Mentis, 2004), pp. 21–30; 97–148 and Robert Pippin ‘Mine and Thine? The Kantian State’ in Paul Guyer (ed.), Kant and Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 416–47.

17 Max Weber, Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 365.

18 A 316/ B373.

19 A 316/ B373.

20 The political leader can learn from the inquiries of the philosopher even though he is generally at one with the ‘man of affairs and the ‘man of the world’ in ‘attacking the academic, who works on theory on behalf of them all’ (8: 277; 281).

21 Cf. H. Williams, ‘Liberty, Equality and Independece’, in G. Bird (ed.), A Companion to Kant (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p. 381.

22 Cf. New York Times (16 November 2007), ‘McCain's Stance on Torture Becomes Riveting Issue in Campaign’.

23 M. Weber, Political Writings, pp. 359–60.

24 Ibid., Political Writings, p. 360.

25 I am not suggesting here that integrity is all that we require in political leaders. As John Rawls has pointed out, a ‘tyrant’ might display the ‘attributes of integrity to a high degree’. However, when it is taken together with other key moral and political attributes integrity plays a vital part in our judgement of political leaders. We are better able to appreciate the qualities a politician brings to the job if we can rely on their integrity. A term that Rawls deploys to depict such integrity is ‘authenticity’ and for him it conveys ‘truthfulness and sincerity, lucidity and commitment’. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 519.

26 Cf. E. Ellis, Kant’s Politics, p. 101.

27 M. Weber, Political Writings, pp. 352–3.

28 Cf. Otfried Hoeffe, Kant’s Theory of Cosmopolitan Law and Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 205.

29 Cf. Fred Rauscher, ‘The Institutionalization of Reason’, Kantian Review, 9 (2005), p. 95.

30 ‘Das Recht dem Menschen muss heilig gehalten werden, der hersschenden Gewalt mag es auch noch so grosse Aufopferung kosten.’, Kant’s Practical Philosophy, 347 (8: 380).

31 Weber, Political Writings, p. 367.

32 ‘Alle Politik muss ihre Knie vor dem ersten beugen, kann aber dafuer hoffen, ob zwar langsam, zu der Stufe zu gelangen, wo sie beharrlich glaenzen wird’, Kant's Practical Philosophy, 347 (8: 380).

33 Weber, Political Writings, p. 360.

34 Critique of Pure Reason, A318–9/B375.

35 Glenn Kessler, ‘Rice Defends Tactics Used against Suspects’, Washington Post (6 December 2005).

36 Abhandlung Ueber die Verbindung der Moral mit der Politik (Breslau: Wilhelm Korn, 1788). Kant refers to this book in a footnote in Perpetual Peace.

37 Weber, Political Writings, p. 369.