POLSC401: Ethics and Public Policy

8a. Identify ethical dilemmas that policymakers may face in dealing with issues of foreign relations, foreign aid, foreign trade, and foreign intervention

• What is the role of hegemony in the formation of U.S. foreign policy?
• What are some impacts of free trade agreements on the ethical content of foreign policy?
• What are some considerations policymakers should keep in mind when weighing an intervention for humanitarian reasons? 
• Describe the ethical conundrum of loyalty to one's state in foreign policy. 

Foreign policy decision making is complicated because it involves the citizens and resources of your own country in addition to those who live in foreign states. For example, deciding whether to launch a humanitarian intervention on ethical grounds is complex: What problem will the intervention solve, what new problems will result, and how do the relevant stakeholders feel about the intervention? How do the citizens in your country feel about expending resources on people who live outside their borders?

Review these questions from the framework of someone who supports 1. virtue ethics (Aristotle), 2. deontology (Kant), 3. utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill), 4. the common good and 5. a fairness approach (Rawls).

Review the lecture The Claims of Community/Where Our Loyalty Lies by Michael Sandel; Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs and Policy by Curt Tarnoff and Marian Leonardo Lawson; and The Millenium Development Goals by Luisa Blanchfield and Marian Leonardo Lawson.

8b. Analyze ethical dilemmas involving issues of foreign relations, foreign aid, foreign trade, and foreign intervention

• What are some ways that public diplomacy can be used ethically or unethically?
• Describe some of the main ethical concerns policymakers have with administering a foreign aid program fairly.
• What is one way that John Rawls would approach the question of how to structure global trade fairly?
• Describe the ethical concern at the heart of the debate about Chinese currency manipulation.

Some of the most complicated analysis in this course comes in this unit. It is not easy to determine what is fair in foreign aid programs since policymakers need to balance the needs of citizens at home versus the plight of those abroad, prioritize the types of aid needed, and calculate how much will be most effective.

For example, should Americans view themselves as global citizens which implies they have responsibilities to the people who are part of the global community, such as to promote human rights, provide humanitarian assistance, protect the global environment, preserve cultural diversity, support gender equality, reduce warfare, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction?

Trade is another area where ethical concerns can be confusing. Should we promote free trade because it increases the wealth of the most successful companies and individuals, or should we support other economic systems that distribute wealth in a more just fashion, so the more people benefit, but the richest citizens may not earn quite as much?

Countries often manipulate the foreign currency exchange market: they devalue the value of their currency to boost their exports. Policymakers who support free trade claim this practice is unethical because it undercuts their sales while the goods of their competitors become cheaper for foreign countries to buy according to the exchange rate. Nevertheless, many countries are guilty of this practice. They would ask whether it is wrong to take steps to support the businesses and workers who reside in your own country.

Review these questions from the framework of someone who supports 1. virtue ethics (Aristotle), 2. deontology (Kant), 3. utilitarianism (Bentham and Mill), 4. the common good and 5. a fairness approach (Rawls).

Review the brief video Moral Questions and the Libya Intervention; the article No Good Comes from Not Intervening by Nicholas Fotion; international human rights issues in Ethical Problems in Globalization with Wilhelm Vossenkuhl; and Chinese Currency and Ethics from the Carnegie Council.

Unit 8 Vocabulary

• Currency manipulation
• Foreign aid program
• Free trade agreements
• Global citizens
• Global trade
• Hegemony
• Humanitarian intervention
• Intervention
• loyalty state
• John Rawls
• Public diplomacy