Would It Have Been Better for France to Make a Deal to End WWI?
This blog explores the idea of whether it would have been better for France to make a deal to end WWI, rather than continuing the carnage for another 3-4 years. It also looks at the consequences of such a decision, such as the rise to power of the Bolsheviks in Russia.
Philippe Lemoine
I'm a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell. I'm also a research fellow at @CSPICenterOrg. I write about stuff. "At least he's pretty smart." (@bechhof)
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People often ask me this question, apparently thinking it should put me in a bind, so let me say that not only do I think that making such a deal would have been preferable to continuing the carnage for another 3-4 years, but that it strikes me as totally obvious. https://t.co/vX2utrRQnm
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023 -
"Do you think that it would have been better for France to permanently give up any claim on Alsace-Moselle to prevent one of the worst carnages in history, the rise to power of the Bolsheviks in Russia, that of the Nazis in Germany and ultimately the destruction of Europe?"
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023
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To be clear, I think the comparison is specious because the circumstances are totally different, but people who ask that question evidently don't realize that and the fact that they assume my answer would be "no" speaks volumes about how warped our priorities are in this debate.
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023 -
Exactly, there is a good argument for insisting on the integrity of borders, but it's a consequentialist argument and precisely for that reason it can in principle be overridden by other considerations in specific cases. https://t.co/jCrTZYwLpv
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023 -
One of the points I make in this essay is that while people think that any settlement that sanctions a violation of international law would be immoral, this view rests on a simplistic conception of the connection between morality and foreign policy. https://t.co/zX1LtDfbIu
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023 -
As I also say in the essay, while people who make that sort of point are generally portrayed as cynics, this is a misinterpretation. The kind of realism I advocate, which I defended at length in my essay on liberal imperialism, is a *moral* position. https://t.co/E6lSdyaSq3
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023 -
That is not to say that it's correct, although I obviously think it is, but that it's not the kind of amoral philosophy of foreign policy that people generally portray it as and that on the contrary it's a position that ultimately is based on moral considerations.
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) April 14, 2023