Friday, July 10, 2009

Is oil a good enough reason to start a war?

Is it morally acceptable to start a war in order to further one's country's economic instance. Whenever I ask "Why Iraq and not Darfur" the answer keeps coming up "Black Gold. Texas Tea." I'm starting to hear commentators defend this motivation, as opposed to denying it.

6 comments:

unkleE said...

Would it be "acceptable" if Al Quaeda bombed the US to further Arabic "economic instance"??????

One country's "acceptable" is another country's justification for war. Defending that motivation only looks attractive if you have the biggest WMDs!

Ilíon said...

VR: "Whenever I ask "Why Iraq and not Darfur" the answer keeps coming up "Black Gold. Texas Tea.""

On the other hand, you're clearly hard of hearing.

Victor Reppert said...

That doesn't really address the question I was asking.

Maddison Grey said...

It might be if your country's economic instance supplies the world at large with a great deal of stability. Have you ever seen Kingdom of Heaven? I always laugh when the Queen says something to this effect- one day you will regret doing little evil for greater good. It doesn't mean that I personally believe this, but morality can be argued and almost anything can be justified.

Ilíon said...

"That doesn't really address the question I was asking."

Oddly enough, I thought something similar.

Also, since what you're asking in this OP is so nothing but vacuous left-wing talking-points, why would I imagine I have a need to answer it?

Victor Reppert said...

Left-wing talking points?? No, I noticed that some right-wing commentators were starting to assert that we should accept the idea that sustaining oil resources was a good enough reason to start the war, and that conservatives should embrace this rather than apologizing for it.

So I wanted to reflect a little on the ethics of this position.