Bush, Freedom, Responsibility

By David DeCosse

Al Qaeda and its legion may hate the United States because of American freedoms. But for the good-willed rest of the world — including vast stretches of the American public — the problem with the United States may be the Bush Administration's detachment of freedom from responsibility. The president's Second Inaugural Address is a case in point.

In a speech devoted to the American role in promoting freedom throughout the world, there are dozens of uses of the words "freedom" and "liberty" but not one use of the word "responsibility." To be sure, Bush alludes to the fact that freedom is oriented to some kind of responsibility. For instance, the entire speech is hinged on the "cause" or "mission" or "call" or "duty" or "task" — he uses all of these words but not the word "responsibility" — to end "tyranny in the world." He says that freedom is fulfilled in "service and mercy." And he speaks of the freedom to shape the morality of the American character.

But the rhetorical absence of the word "responsibility" in the speech signals a conceptual deficit in the president's ideal of freedom. Indeed, at the heart of the deficit is the overly idealized nature of freedom. For however much Bush says that freedom is not an inevitable thing, in the speech he reifies freedom and in effect makes it into an inexorable force unto itself. Moreover, freedom becomes a divine attribute of humans that is oddly shorn of its humanity. There is little sense in the speech of people who are free — of men and women in specific contexts who struggle to exercise their freedom. There is little sense, too, of the complexity of moral values amid which the responsibility of choosing freely is exercised.

Like "war" and "terror," "freedom" in the Bush lexicon has an abstract and self-evident appeal. Invoke any one of these words and attendant questions of responsibility are set aside. But this is not a world of abstractions. What the moral philosopher Michael Walzer says of the extreme situation of war applies as well to all of life: "The moral theorist...must come to grips with the fact that his rules are often violated or ignored — and with the deeper realization that, to men at war, the rules often don't seem relevant to the extremity of their situation. But however he does this, he does not surrender his sense of war as a human action, purposive and premeditated, for whose effects someone is responsible."

But responsibility is a many-splendored concept. How, specifically, could the concept be better used in presidential rhetoric? And what might some effects on policy be from such better usage? Five ideas come to mind. The first three stem from general observations on the nature of responsibility. The last two draw on claims made by political theorist Michael Ignatieff in his recent book, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror.

First, Bush should no longer invoke freedom without invoking responsibility. In the philosophy and theology of the Christian tradition in which he stands, these concepts are always linked.

Second, the increased use of the word "responsibility" would be a constant reminder of its companion concept — accountability. In a world where top administration officials like former CIA Director George Tenet have been lauded for their service to freedom without being held accountable for their failures in office, the increased use of the word "responsibility" could restore some much-needed moral clarity.

Third, the increased use of the word "responsibility" could also invite greater scrutiny of the specific contexts in which freedom is always exercised. To assess how responsibly someone exercises their freedom, it is always necessary to assess the concrete factors that influence the actual choices that men and women make. Imagine if the entire Iraq "regime change" project had begun not with a dreamy belief in liberty but with a hard look toward what it takes responsibly to exercise political freedom in a nascent democracy. That hard look would surely have paid a great deal more attention to such issues as the specific cultural and historical contexts of Shiite and Sunni communities in Iraq and to the specific institutional requirements necessary to maintain security in the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow. The road to the January 30 vote in Iraq did not have to be marked by the murderous consequences of a failed idealism.

Fourth, in another way responsibility also suggests the notion that we are "responsive" — i.e., that there is a pre-existing moral order to which men and women are responding in seeking to be responsible. One such obligation of this moral order is to be truthful — to name things as they are. Ignatieff underscores this point by saying that at times in the American conflict with terrorism, to prevent the "greater evil" of a terrorist victory, the U.S. government may need to do a "lesser evil" like the suspension of civil liberties. Whenever such an action is taken, however, the truth should still be told: That whatever good they may serve, such actions nevertheless retain a measure of evil.

Fifth, responsibility should be appealed to as an ethical concept that requires the exercise of prudence amid moral complexity. Ignatieff rightly argues in the face of terrorism: "Neither a morality of consequences nor a morality of dignity can be allowed exclusive domain in public policy decisions." Rights are not trumps, Ignatieff says. But, then again, neither is security. The responsibility to be prudent should steer the American government away from the self-deluding grandiosity that often attends grand causes like ending tyranny in the world.

The world has long known of the American commitment to freedom. Bush's inaugural speech stands in the line of great public articulations of that commitment. He deserves credit for his heartfelt commitment to freedom and for the successes he has seen on his watch in service to this ideal — the January 30 elections in Iraq perhaps the best case in point. But Bush's freedom is a glorious, inexorable, and idealized freedom — abstracted from the realities of freedom's responsible exercise and unpersuasive to many in the world because of this abstraction. By re-linking freedom and responsibility, the Bush Administration would appeal to the global conviction that these two ethical concepts are inseparable moral realities, two aspects of one whole. The Administration would also invite some sorely needed self-scrutiny and along the way re-establish credibility at home and abroad.