History Study Group (HSG)

  • BLOG
  • SUGGESTED READING

Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

5/25/2020

0 Comments

 

September 17, 2020

Discussion led by Alan Metzger

Americans constantly make moral judgments about presidents and foreign policy. Unfortunately, many of these assessments are poorly thought through. A president is either praised for the moral clarity of his statements or judged solely on the results of their actions.

In Do Morals Matter?, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., one of the world's leading scholars of international relations, provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of the role of ethics in US foreign policy during the American era after 1945. Nye works through each presidency from FDR to Trump and scores their foreign policy on three ethical dimensions of their intentions, the means they used, and the consequences of their decisions. Alongside this, he also evaluates their leadership qualities, elaborating on which approaches work and which ones do not. Regardless of a president's policy preference, Nye shows that each one was not fully constrained by the structure of the system and actually had choices. He further notes the important ethical consequences of non-actions, such as Truman's willingness to accept stalemate in Korea rather than use nuclear weapons.

Since we so often apply moral reasoning to foreign policy, Nye suggests how to do it better. Most importantly, presidents need to factor in both the political context and the availability of resources when deciding how to implement an ethical policy-especially in a future international system that presents not only great power competition from China and Russia, but a host of transnational threats: the illegal drug trade, infectious diseases, terrorism, cybercrime, and climate change.

https://time.com/5771368/morals-american-foreign-policy/

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Group Leader: Alan Rubin

    Archives

    January 2023
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    1491: Americas Before Columbus
    1493 America After Columbus
    1919 Boston Molasses Tank Failure
    A Biography
    A Distant Mirror
    Albert Einstein
    American Creration
    A Woman Of No Importance
    Bible Myths
    Blood
    Candy Bombers
    Carnegie
    Caste
    China's Grand Strategy
    China Today
    Cia
    Citizens Of London
    Cuba
    Devil In The Grove
    Do Morals Matter?
    Energy: A Human History
    Everything In Its Path
    Facing The Mountain
    Fear City
    Fields Of Blood
    Forgotten 500
    Forgotten-Trump Voters In PA
    God's Shadow
    Greek Revolution
    Heart Of Atlanta
    Henrietta Lacks
    History Shock
    Hitler
    Hitler: A Biography
    How Democracies Die
    How To Hide An Empire
    HSG Blog
    Indian World Of George Washington
    Jane Crow
    Korean War
    Madame Forcade
    Map That Changed The World
    Marshall Plan
    McNamara's Folly
    Mexican War
    Middle East
    Money Changes Everything
    One Hot Summer
    On Her Own Ground
    Polly Adler
    Powder And Residue
    Presidents Of War
    River Of The Gods
    Rough Crossings
    Samuel Adams
    Sapiens
    Second Coming Of The KKK
    Shattered Sword
    Stalin: Waiting For Hitler
    Strangers In Their Own Land
    Thank You For Being Late
    The Back Channel
    The Code
    The French Blue
    The Great Flu Influenza
    The Half Has Never Been Told
    The Howe Dynasty
    The Kerner Report
    The Lives Of The Constitution
    The Moralist
    Theodore Roosevelt For The Defense
    The President Is Dead
    There Is Nothing For You Here
    The Rothchild's
    The Sediments Of Time
    The Seventies
    The Woman Who Smashed The Codes
    The Women's Hour
    The Wright Brothers
    Walking With Destiny
    War Is A Racket
    Warriors Dont Cry
    What Has God Wrought?

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.