The Politics and Psychology of a New World Order
Tuesday 20. January 2004, 14.15 - 15.30, Auditorium 7, Eilert Sundts hus, Blindern
The lecture will start from the two attempts to justify the Iraq war (the
supposed threat from weapons of mass destruction and the evil nature of
Saddam Hussein's regime). The argument elaborated will be that (whatever
the actual fats of the case of Iraq) these two kinds of issues are possible
justifications for intervention in a country. But that "Hobbesian"
intervention by the strongest country or group of countries does not eradicate
the deep problems and may even exacerbate them, and that the psychology
of defeat and humiliation is an important part here. Thus, we need a properly
funded and international force to police the world, with clear criteria
of intervention and a world court to adjudicate on whether the criteria
are satisfied. A defense for the "Kantian" type view against the
influential tradition of "realism" that stems from Machiavelli,
Hobbes and Clausewitz will be elaborated. And, tentatively, suggestions
will be made about ways in which we might start to dissolve some of the
tribal and ideological rigidities that are part of underlying psychology
of conflict.
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Jonathan Glover has written several books on ethics, including Humanity:
A Moral History of the Twentieth Century and Causing Death and Saving
Lives and other books on ethics. He chaired a European Commission Working
Party on Assisted Reproduction. He is interested in questions raised by
the Human Genome Project. He is currently working on ethical issues in psychiatry.
Jonathan Glover is currently the Professor of Ethics at King’s College, University of London, and the director of the Centre for Medical Law and Ethics. For many years, Jonathan was Fellow of New College, Oxford. During his years at Oxford, Jonathan Glover gained the reputation of being an outstanding lecturer and tutor.