Virtue ethics

At its broadest, the study of ethics is the study of how we should live. In respect of this, the virtues can be defined as those character traits which will be conducive to our making the right decisions to allow us to live a good life. As John McDowell understands it: ‘Virtue is a disposition (perhaps of a specially rational and self-conscious kind) to behave rightly’.Footnote ²⁸ The main focus of analysis here will be the agent rather than their acts or consequences. It is the dispositions of the individual that are paramount. That said, the virtues are directly linked with behaviour. They are expected to lead to actions that are likely to have beneficial effects. What kinds of effects? The Aristotelian conception of virtues was that they should be geared towards eudaimonia, which MacIntyre translates as: ‘blessedness, happiness, posterity. It is the state of being well and doing well in being well’.Footnote ²⁹ It has more generally been described as ‘human flourishing’.Footnote ³⁰ There has been some debate about what constitutes human flourishing, with most theorists conceiving that to be a fully rounded individual we need to consider the good both for us as individuals and wider society. Thus, Julia Driver sees a virtue as ‘a character trait […] which, generally speaking, produces good consequences for others’.Footnote ³¹ Such virtues might include empathy, generosity, or tact. On the other hand, an individual does not have to always put the needs of others first. Otherwise, important virtues such as self-respect, creativity and personal development would be hampered.Footnote ³²

What this highlights is the range of characteristics that can be considered virtues and the need for judgment in which virtues are encouraged and how they are applied. For this reason, many theorists of virtue ethics emphasise practical wisdom, or phronesis, as the key to the operation of virtue.Footnote ³³ It is this grounding in the practice of decisionmaking which is often seen as the strongest aspect of virtue ethics. MacIntyre notes that: ‘judgment has an indispensable role in the life of the virtuous man which it does not and could not have in, for example, the life of the merely law-abiding or rule-abiding man’.Footnote ³⁴ Instead of viewing policymakers as automatons reacting passively to external structures, this approach puts individual choice and agency centre stage.Footnote ³⁵ It is concerned with the actual experience of decisionmaking, the virtues which are exercised and privileged by the powerful and conversely the vices displayed where virtues are absent or misapplied. In this sense, virtue ethics arguably offers a real opportunity to engage with the individuals responsible for decisions. Not only to look over the shoulder of statesmen and women, as Morgenthau desired, but to inquire into the ethical psychology of leaders and the constituent aspects of their character – their virtues and vices.

Since virtues are grounded in practice, it follows that they are also context-specific. For instance, Christine Swanton defines a virtue as ‘a disposition to respond to […] items within its field or fields in an excellent or good enough way’.Footnote ³⁶ In other words, virtues are the kinds of characteristics that will enable us to flourish in particular fields – patience and emotional detachment for a surgeon, enthusiasm and warmth for a game show host, perhaps. MacIntyre sees a level of socialisation in this ascription of virtues to particular social contexts – what he terms ‘practices’. He states that weighing virtues means subjecting ‘our own attitudes, choices, preferences and tastes to the standards which currently and partially define the practice’.Footnote ³⁷ To understand whether a surgeon is virtuous we need to understand what expectations predominate within this practice and how closely the surgeon's character fits with the ethical ideal in this field. But, this does not mean that individuals forfeit their moral autonomy. MacIntyre argues: ‘the essential function of virtues is clear. Without them, without justice, courage and truthfulness, practices could not resist the corrupting power of institutions’.Footnote ³⁸ On this basis, thinking about virtues encourages us to question and renew our commitment to the ideals inherent in our social worlds.

However, it is also important to note that our appreciation of what aspects of character are viewed as virtuous – indeed, what the ‘good life’ is – has changed over time. MacIntyre notes that, in heroic societies, character was very much seen as a product of one's social role and the virtues were those qualities which allowed one to discharge this role.Footnote ³⁹ Later, Christian societies conceived of virtues such as humility and penitence as important to achieving a greater closeness to God. Victorians stressed emotional restraint and circumspection. By contrast, expressing one's emotions is now broadly viewed as positive to personal growth. Even recycling has recently been portrayed as a virtue.Footnote ⁴⁰ Therefore, our understanding of the order of virtues within a particular social practice needs at some point to take into account contemporary ethical attitudes. We can then analyse how individuals interact with and help to construct the ethics of each social sphere – how they are challenging or reinforcing existing assumptions.Footnote ⁴¹

In outlining how virtues help to sustain practices, MacIntyre draws a distinction between the external and internal goods that result from individuals' actions. External goods such as fame, power and money may be the rewards for those participating in the practice of foreign policy but these do not ultimately support the practice itself and benefit the individual rather than others. Instead, the virtues are intelligible and of practical importance where they support the internal goods of the relevant practice. Thus, in the case of foreign policy, the internal goods might include the security, prosperity and happiness of the community the leader represents as well as mediation between different actors in world politics such that peaceful and mutually beneficial relations are possible. The virtues applicable to this practice are those that further these internal goods (for example, courage in defending the community's values, justice in interacting with other actors fairly and honestly).

What sets virtue ethics apart from the rules/consequences dichotomy is the central role afforded to the individual as an ethical agent. Discussion of virtue implies an awareness of the rules and norms that pertain within social practices. But, these are seen as underpinned by certain character traits that individuals interacting within these social spheres must display to sustain the values of those practices. Nor can virtue ethics be seen as a subtle form of consequentialism. All human action, if it is to be meaningful, is designed to achieve some beneficial consequences and pursuance of the internal goods of the practice of foreign policy is no exception – the aim is to further the interests of the community the individual represents. Yet, virtue ethics is not a matter of an actor instrumentally calculating the consequences of applying different virtues. Rather it is that where an actor has a full awareness of the internal goods of a practice – and has developed the capacity to exercise the appropriate practical judgment on which virtues are required in achieving those goods – they can truly be viewed as an ethical agent.

To summarise, virtues are characteristics that allow individuals to excel within particular social practices. Consideration of virtues involves practical judgments as to which virtues pertain and what actions would best fit with these virtues and be beneficial for the decisionmaker and the wider community. The emphasis that virtue ethics places on individual ethical cognition seems to accord with the greater level of individual agency apparent in foreign policymaking and the increasing personalisation of the political sphere. Moreover, by locating virtue in specific social contexts we can understand and appraise the ethics of decisions by how closely they follow the expectations of behaviour in those fields.

In this sense, virtue ethics offers the prospect of holding individuals accountable – either for failing to live up to the virtues implied in a particular social practice (a soldier not being courageous enough, for instance) or for incorrectly judging the virtues which are required to further the internal goods of that practice (a stateswoman valuing decisiveness over caution). Before seeking to identify the kinds of virtues privileged in foreign policymaking and applying them to the case of Blair, it is important to acknowledge some of the criticisms to which this approach has recently been subject.

Criticisms of virtue ethics

A serious challenge to the idea of individualised moral traits has been offered by psychologists looking at the influence of situations on behaviour. In a famous experiment, Stanley Milgram established a scenario whereby a ‘scientist’ encouraged participants to ask an unseen interviewee questions and administer (what they believed were) increasingly powerful electric shocks when the interviewee failed to answer questions correctly. It was advertised as an experiment on learning but was really designed to see whether people would resist the pressure of this social setting, and the instructions of an authority figure, in favour of their own moral sensibility. The startling results were that the majority of people who took part continued to administer shocks despite the apparent pain it was causing the other participant. Indeed, a sizeable majority persisted in giving electric shocks even though the dose was apparently fatal.Footnote ⁴²

What many situational psychologists concluded from this was that our individual virtues are surprisingly fragile. Placed in an environment that promotes and legitimises negative behaviour, most of us are capable of evil. Thus, the situation is more of an influence on our actions than individual character. A series of subsequent experiments have seemed to support this idea that our characters are extremely affected by situational variants.Footnote ⁴³

On the other hand, the fact that we are influenced by our surroundings need not be as catastrophic a blow to the idea of individual virtues as some situational psychologists believe.Footnote ⁴⁴ In the first place, it seems to conceive of virtues in zero-sum terms. Either we are born with the capacity to resist evil or we are entirely the product of our environment. Yet, the point of virtue ethics is to develop the practical wisdom to do what is right. I have already noted that what we consider to be virtues depends on the practice or field under scrutiny. Given this, it becomes less surprising that volunteers faced with the unfamiliar setting of the Milgram experiment failed to resist the pressure of the organisers to act in a certain manner. Rather than express the virtue of compassion, they chose the ‘wrong’ virtue of obedience. Scientists used to reasoning about the ethics of research, or individuals who cultivated their compassion and scepticism of authority, would perhaps be more likely to resist the pressures of Milgram's scenario.Footnote ⁴⁵

What is at issue here is the robustness of our individual virtues. Situationists perceive the social setting as key to good or bad behaviour. On a prescriptive level then, to reduce evil and encourage good behaviour we need to change situations. Alternatively, Maria Merritt identifies an Aristotelian idea of ‘motivational self-sufficiency of character’, seeing ‘the structure of virtue to be, in maturity and under normal circumstances, independent of […] particular social relationships and settings’.Footnote ⁴⁶ In practice, neither position offers a satisfactory account of why people lead good or bad lives. People in bad situations sometimes make good moral choices and people in good situations can sometimes be bad.

Influenced by the writings of David Hume, Merritt attempts to steer a middle course through these two extremes by stressing more modest conceptions of the virtues – viewing them as traits that we can aspire to hold and may seek to emulate through reflection on how closely our own behaviour is able to live up to that ideal standard.Footnote ⁴⁷ In other words, as individuals we need to develop and foster critical moral faculties to help us resist situational pressures and retain a degree of independence in our moral judgment. The cultivation of virtues here is important as it builds a level of stability of character over time.Footnote ⁴⁸

In the process, we need to acknowledge that our social interactions are a fundamental part of the construction of our identity and our moral outlook – what Merritt identifies as the ‘sustaining social contribution to character’.Footnote ⁴⁹ At its most positive, this could mean that social support and reinforcement of some virtues in our past could protect us from the negative influence of current or future morally challenging situations.Footnote ⁵⁰ From a more negative perspective, a morally contaminating environment is, over time, likely to diminish our moral sensibilities. What does this mean for virtue ethics? As noted above, the virtues make sense in relation to social practices; but, these practices may be corrupted by institutions. Therefore, it is important for individuals to reflect on how their behaviour accords with the virtues inherent in their particular social sphere – and more widely in society at large.

Two other common criticisms of virtue ethics are propounded and each can be seen to link with this emphasis on situation rather than individual character. In the first place, virtues are sometimes represented in idealised terms and the concept of the virtuous person conveyed as a philosophical construct rather than a practical possibility. Thus, the inevitability of a functioning human being acting unvirtuously at times is seen as a major problem. A virtuous person would by definition only act virtuously so any action of theirs that was contrary to a virtue would automatically exclude that individual from being seen as virtuous. Such a view presents a fundamental difficulty for applying virtue ethics to the sphere of foreign policy since many situations faced by foreign policymakers require taking decisions that go against one or more conceptions of virtue. In this arena, immorality is often seen as an inevitable part of statesmanship – as embodied in the concept that anyone acting in high office will end up with ‘dirty hands’ – and policymakers are represented as compelled by circumstances rather than being creatures of free choice.Footnote ⁵¹

Yet, this argument is flawed for the simple reason that no individual can be expected to display all the virtues simultaneously. Some virtues conflict and the practical judgment as to which to favour is dependent upon the context in which it is being deployed. Thus, Robert Jackson cites Churchill's maxim: ‘in war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity’.Footnote ⁵² A number of different virtues can be favoured in foreign policy at different times and awareness of this allows us to appraise the rightness or wrongness of how policymakers make and defend their choices. The fact that foreign policymakers are not moral saints does not exclude them from virtue theory. Moreover, the increasing evidence of individual agency noted above makes many of the arguments of policymakers that they are acting out of necessity instead of choice rather hollow.

A further criticism of virtue ethics can be found in the aristocratic origins of this line of philosophical inquiry. Aristotle is said to have conceived of individuals at the highest level of society as having a greater capacity for virtue as they had more scope for expressing virtuous behaviour.Footnote ⁵³ According to this view, some virtues are unattainable by those who do not have wealth and do not take part in public office. As Susan Collins notes: ‘the clearest constraint on a virtuous person who loves noble giving and yet has limited means is that obtaining the resources for giving on a grand scale would entail actions that are ‘wicked, impious, and unjust’.Footnote ⁵⁴ Following a similar line of argument, it might also be said that seeing virtues as understandable in relation to specific practices could mean that the virtue of an individual can only truly be weighed by others who have occupied a similar position within the same field.

Such a conclusion would seem to run counter to the democratic ethos. Although it no doubt suits the interests of the powerful to suggest that foreign policy is a separate and specialised sphere which is understandable only to a privileged elite, we do not have to follow this path of logic. Justifying the role of the critic, Dr Johnson once opined: ‘You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables’.Footnote ⁵⁵ In a similar vein, for most spheres of social life, it is not necessary to have an absolute mastery of the technical detail of the practice to form an ethical judgment. We can appraise the morality of foreign policy decisions because this social world is inextricably linked with our own lives. Moreover, having the capacity for greater virtue does not automatically mean that an agent will manifest it. As virtue is measured relative to the individual, Aristotle notes that a poor man may be more generous than a rich one, though the amount he gives is less.Footnote ⁵⁶

Emphasising individual character might at first seem to stop us from holding individuals to account publicly since it involves consideration of the internal world of the self.Footnote ⁵⁷ For instance, because we cannot know whether a policymaker genuinely believes their pronouncements, it is difficult to contradict a politician defending their policy via an assertion of good faith.Footnote ⁵⁸ However, we are still able to assert the irrelevance of a particular virtue to the case in hand. If a policy is decided too quickly or involves too great a cost, whether it is sincerely meant is perhaps less significant than whether it accords with the virtues of prudence or foresight.

To summarise, I have so far suggested that virtue theory has been largely ignored in recent discussion of the ethics of foreign policy. However, its emphasis on the constitutive aspects of the moral psychology of leaders arguably offers a means of evaluating the attitudes and decisions of foreign policymakers. I have identified criticisms of virtue ethics as merely a product of situations, hopelessly idealistic, or a product of an aristocratic age. But, to talk of virtues is in reality to consider how practical judgments can be made about how to lead a good life.

For foreign policy analysts, virtue ethics offer numerous new modes of understanding and critiquing the ethics of decision in this sphere. It is not possible to identify or explore these in any depth here for reasons of space. However, it is perhaps worth noting that, in other disciplines, virtue ethics have been deployed by feminists to analyse moral problems without reference to masculine norms and rules.Footnote ⁵⁹ They also offer the tantalising prospect of incorporating apparently ‘irrational’ or ‘emotional’ inputs into foreign policy.Footnote ⁶⁰ Moreover, given the diversity of moral challenges facing statesmen and women in international relations, it is arguable that developing (or critiquing) moral character traits is a more effective mode of promoting ethics in this sphere than the observance of abstract rules or the loose estimation of consequences.

For the purpose of this article, virtue ethics are seen as a way of engaging in reasoning about how statespeople position themselves as moral agents reacting to their surroundings. In this sense, my use of virtue ethics is more conscious of the dialectic between the individual and their social environment than some forms of virtue ethics focussing solely on the internal moral self. Given the way MacIntyre and others locate virtues within particular social contexts, I see the study of virtue ethics as offering the prospect of analysing how policymakers represent their decisions in terms of certain virtues and seeing how these accord with the virtues inherent in the practice of foreign policy. We might then assess whether the ordering of these virtues is appropriate to the practical situation the statesperson is confronting. What follows is an attempt to synergise the notion of virtue ethics with an analysis of the language used by a foreign policymaker to defend their choices. In doing so, I hope to show that a focus on the individual need not mean that we either are overindulgent to the statesperson's errors or recklessly ignorant of the fact that this is a human being trying to make difficult decisions in a highly complex moral environment.

Blair's virtues

No British Prime Minister since Gladstone has placed as much emphasis on the moral basis of their foreign policy as Tony Blair.Footnote ⁶¹ His speeches represent a significant resource for analysts wishing to understand which virtues it is possible to advance within this social practice. The Downing Street website has an archive of all the Prime Ministerial speeches deemed important between 1997 and 2007 and it is this collection which I have used to get a sense of the virtues Blair privileged in his rhetoric.Footnote ⁶² What I seek to argue in the rest of this article is that Tony Blair emphasised a rather idiosyncratic set of virtues in relation to foreign policy; that these perhaps contributed to the policy misjudgment he made with regard to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities; that alternative virtues might have enabled him to avoid this mistake; that the virtues he privileged were a function of his wider goals for international society.

Although Blair does not explicitly use the term virtues in these texts, he clearly promotes certain characteristics as contributing positively to the functioning of this field and so we can understand them as virtues from our earlier definition. A number of virtues are advanced by Blair during his terms of office as crucial to effective leadership. These include: belief or conviction, responsibility, decisiveness or courage, an empathy with the values of the community, honesty, awareness of consequences and foresight. However, one virtue is paramount above all others in Blair's rhetoric: political will. This was arguably not as prominent before the issue of Iraq came to a head in 2002. In the early part of his Premiership, Blair does use language implying a willingness to act – as when he declares in his Chicago speech that: ‘we cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand’.Footnote ⁶³ But the major focus of his moral rhetoric is on values and constructing some sense of community in the international realm.Footnote ⁶⁴

There is a noticeable shift in the way leadership is framed by Blair after 9/11, particularly in relation to the issue of Iraq. From this period on, the virtue of political will becomes increasingly prominent. For instance, in his declaration in November 2002 he asserts: ‘the international community must act to enforce its will. Failure to do so would mean, having stated our clear demand, we lacked the will to enforce it’.Footnote ⁶⁵ Later that month, he describes the UN Security Council Resolution 1441 as evidence of ‘a willingness to act matched by a willingness to act together’.Footnote ⁶⁶ On 3 February 2003, he urges the international community to ‘take a decisive stand now’Footnote ⁶⁷ and on 15 February he argues: ‘let the UN mean what it says, and do what it means’.Footnote ⁶⁸ Here, political will is conveyed as a virtue and one that demonstrates the meaningfulness of the international community.

This emphasis on political will becomes more frequent in the run up to war. Thus, in January 2003, Blair's New Year message to the country states: ‘we must push on […] we must continue to take a leading role […] we must continue to play our full part […] we must hold firm’.Footnote ⁶⁹ In addition, his personal position as the leader attempting to enforce his political will is increasingly to the fore. In the same month he admits in a press conference: ‘I tell you honestly what my fear is, my fear is […] these weapons […] fall into the hands of these terrorist groups […] Now that is what I have to worry about […] it is a matter of time unless we act’.Footnote ⁷⁰ In February 2003 he suggests that: ‘Every time I have asked us to go to war, I have hated it’ and that ‘I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour’.Footnote ⁷¹ Implicit in this rhetorical shift is that the political will is not simply that of the international community but also of him as an individual responding to a political problem. This was solidified in Blair's speech in the House of Commons moving the motion for war. In it he says: ‘Let me tell the house what I know’ and then repeats the refrain that he knows proliferation is occurring and a network exists that is increasing its activity.Footnote ⁷² He then appears to threaten to resign, as in his declaration that: ‘Tell our allies, at the very moment of action, at the very moment when they need our determination that Britain faltered? I will not be party to such a course’.Footnote ⁷³

This seems to me to be a different tone to the one he adopted towards the action in Kosovo, for example. His Chicago speech in 1999 offers no sense of any individual motivations for action and does not privilege action over reflection. Indeed, its framework for decisionmaking suggests that reflection is favoured over any immediate response. In contrast, in July 2003 he posits that: ‘if […] we do not act […] we will have hesitated. […] when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive’.Footnote ⁷⁴ Blair himself has attributed this change of tone to the events of 9/11: ‘The moment I saw what was unfolding and realised the scale of it and realised the likely cause of it I did feel a really deep sense of mission’.Footnote ⁷⁵ Certainly, a review of his speeches prior to, and after, this event indicates a significant rhetorical move towards accentuating characteristics that may be seen as virtues.

Regarding the weight which Blair places on political will, this is interesting for the way it may have contributed to political outcomes. Firstly, its repetition clearly suggests that Blair views this as the primary virtue in this period. No other individual character trait is cited as often as this one throughout his Premiership.Footnote ⁷⁶ Moreover, this virtuous political will is directed towards confrontation with Saddam Hussein. When combined with his increasing personalisation of this virtue, as something he cannot be separated from, it is possible to see an emerging conflict between his own political stake in arguing that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and the suggestion that Iraq may not have the capabilities which policymakers previously believed. In peace studies, theorists often argue in favour of depersonalising conflicts and attempting to focus on the issues.Footnote ⁷⁷ That Blair increasingly places his personal will at stake in this case arguably made conciliation less likely.

A second and obviously linked virtue observable in Blair's speeches is belief. Prior to 2001, belief is referred to in abstract terms – as in his description of the ‘equal worth of all’ as ‘the central belief that drives my politics’ and his assertion that: ‘we are better out in the world, fighting for what we believe in’.Footnote ⁷⁸ Post 9/11, Blair's belief becomes far more focused around the specific policies of confronting terrorism and preventing the proliferation of WMD. Thus, in November 2002 he argues: ‘I believe that we are absolutely right to tackle terrorism’.Footnote ⁷⁹ In early 2003, he notes that he was aware of the problem of WMD before 9/11 but argues that this is now ‘the key issue facing the world community. I believe that even more today’.Footnote ⁸⁰ His justification for confronting Iraq is given as: ‘the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction and its link with terrorism. And I believe it’.Footnote ⁸¹

Blair's rhetoric implies that belief is a virtue in two ways. Emphasising his personal belief suggests that this will resonate with his audience as conveying the integrity with which he is advancing these policy objectives. This sense is reinforced in a recent retrospective TV interview in which Blair identifies ‘a view which is that I did not really believe in this action’. In contrast, he stresses that: ‘It was what I believed. And I still do believe it. The trouble is, and I can't answer this, maybe some others didn't believe in it. I believed in it […] I believed in it. I believed in it then. I believe in it now.’Footnote ⁸² The continual reference to the sincerity of his belief in this interview is striking and gives an indication of the extent to which he perceives this as a fundamental aspect of his leadership.

Secondly, his framing of belief as contributing to the effective functioning of foreign policy firmly identifies it as a virtue. With regard to the divisions over his Iraq policy, he posits that: ‘We will come through by holding firm to what we believe in. One such belief is in the UN’.Footnote ⁸³ In other words, the fractures created by his policy stance will be ameliorated by their shared belief in the UN. Once this institution is engaged, foreign policy as a practice will be able to continue and flourish. The importance of a slightly different form of belief – in terms of the credibility of UN resolutions is also a significant part of Blair's argument for war. In his speech to Parliament on the eve of war he asks what will happen if they fail to act: ‘when the threat returns from Iraq or elsewhere, who will believe us?’Footnote ⁸⁴ The effectiveness of the UN is hereby associated with belief in its willingness to carry out its resolutions.

So far, I have suggested that political will and belief are the main virtues which Blair cites in his rhetoric and that these are promoted in more explicit terms post-9/11 and, specifically, in relation to Iraq. To privilege belief as a virtue goes against the empirical bias of most foreign policymakers.Footnote ⁸⁵ In the dominant realist imagining of world politics it is the material world and the brute realities of power that are the primary foundation of policy. In contrast, Blair appears to be advancing belief as a legitimising factor in policymaking and as a virtue guiding policy construction. Once Blair had come to believe something, this became an integral part of his moral understanding on which future policies would be predicated. The problem inherent in this focus on belief is that if it turns out it there is a disconnect between the belief and reality, the entire structure of the foreign policy is in danger of crumbling.

A third virtue highlighted by Blair – albeit obliquely – is that of foresight; specifically, the ability of statespeople to foresee the possible negative consequences of a failure to act. Again, it is a virtue that is more prominent after 9/11. On 10 September 2002, he draws parallels between Afghanistan and Iraq, and suggests that if he had warned about the danger Al-Qaeda had represented and urged intervention before they attacked the World Trade Centre: ‘Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday on Iraq’ – that is, a reluctance to act.Footnote ⁸⁶ On that logical premise, Blair constructs a sense of the virtue of foresight as being about seeing future dangers and pre-empting them. Thus, he argues later that same month: ‘would the world be wise to leave the present situation undisturbed?’ and conveys the negative possible outcomes of Iraq using WMD by stating: ‘there is no way that this man […] could begin a conflict using such weapons and the consequences not engulf the world’.Footnote ⁸⁷ Not acting in the face of this possibility is described by Blair as ‘failing in our duty’.Footnote ⁸⁸

Thus, foresight is depicted as a virtue by Blair through its association with other positive character traits such as a sense of duty and wisdom. It is also notable that it is the ability to foresee a wholly negative possible consequence to failing to act which sets the statesperson out as virtuous – according to this argument. Accepting more cautious assessments of the threat would by extension leave the statesperson open to charges of being unwise and failing in their duty.

What is curious about this perception of the virtue of foresight is how loosely Blair applies it to the consequences of his own actions. Before the invasion of Iraq, Blair asserted that: ‘we should be as committed to the humanitarian task of rebuilding Iraq for the Iraqi people as we have been to removing Saddam’.Footnote ⁸⁹ Yet, this is not elaborated. Later, in advocating war, he offers a brief outline of his post-invasion plans – including the need to lift sanctions, provide for democracy and gain UN authorisation for a relief effort and to redistribute oil revenues.Footnote ⁹⁰ Yet, he displays no appreciation of the possible difficulties of his own policy. Whilst he does state that: ‘We must face the consequences of the actions we advocate’, this is only in relation to ‘the dangers of war’ and not the massive challenge of taking on the administration of an entire country against the will of its elite.Footnote ⁹¹

In this regard we can suggest that Blair contravenes his own perception of the virtue of foresight. It remains astonishing that in his motion for war he dedicates almost the entire speech to a historical account of Iraq's relations with the UN, and an explanation of the current threat it constitutes, but expends only a few short sentences on what his future plans for Iraq would be. There is no acknowledgement of the problems he may encounter and how he intends to overcome them. Having gone to war on the basis of a worst-case scenario reading of the future, he suddenly shifts to assuming that the post-conflict environment will be uniquely benign.Footnote ⁹² Furthermore, the Iraq Inquiry has revealed that Blair was informed of serious weaknesses in the planning for the post-war environment before the invasion. Damningly, Maj Gen Tim Cross notes that he warned the Prime Minister that: ‘I do not believe that we are ready for post-war Iraq’,Footnote ⁹³ and when asked by the Inquiry if any actions flowed from these warnings to the Government noted: ‘the simple answer is no’.Footnote ⁹⁴

Before going on to discuss alternative virtues Blair might have prioritised – either in justifying his policy or reaching a different one – it is worth noting how often weakness recurs as a paramount vice in foreign policy for Blair. In September 2002 he cautions against displaying a ‘weakening will’.Footnote ⁹⁵ This becomes almost a mantra in his arguments for action the following year: ‘unless the world takes a stand on this issue of WMD […] we will rue the consequences of our weakness’;Footnote ⁹⁶ ‘show weakness now and no-one will ever believe us when we try to show strength in the future’;Footnote ⁹⁷ ‘if we show weakness now, if we allow the plea for more time to become just an excuse […] The menace […] will grow’.Footnote ⁹⁸ Thus, to allow oneself to appear weak is portrayed as eroding the virtue of belief, exposing one's community to greater danger and preventing the future enforcement of threats.

Alternative virtues?

As an analyst of foreign policy, it is easy to fall into the trap of assuming a greater wisdom than the statesperson under scrutiny and pointing out seemingly obvious errors that only really can be seen as a problem in hindsight. Thus, Blair's emphasis on the virtues of political will, belief and foresight could well be viewed as inspiring leadership and in some circles, particularly the US, it appears Blair is still viewed in this way. On the other hand, the invasion of Iraq was clearly based on a false premise – the supposed existence of weapons of mass destruction. Thus we can see this as a policy error – whatever the positive or negative outcomes may be. With this knowledge, it is possible to criticise the prioritisation Blair gave to certain virtues and suggest that the cultivation of alternatives might have prevented this misjudgment.

Favouring will power, belief and imagination can regularly be seen to override the mastery of technical detail and factual accuracy in Blair's arguments for war. A number of examples stand out which perhaps demonstrate this, the most public was his assertion in the September dossier of Iraq's ability to mobilise its ballistic missile capability in 45 minutes. In reality, this related to battlefield weapons – something Blair conceded he did not know at the time.Footnote ⁹⁹ Similarly, in an interview with the BBC's Newsnight programme, Blair asserts that ‘the truth is the [weapons] inspectors were put out of Iraq’ in 1998.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ When he is challenged by the interviewer on this point of detail with the fact that they actually withdrew, he argues: ‘They were effectively thrown out’.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Yet, these are rather different claims and to say, as Blair does, that it is ‘ridiculous’ to acknowledge this is arguably disingenuous. In his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot, Blair asks the panel to look back at Resolution 1441 but ‘leave aside there are issues to do with the precise interpretation of some of the provisions’ – in other words, requesting that the committee overlook important details such as whether the wording of the resolution allowed for military action to follow non-compliance.Footnote ¹⁰² Since Blair's conception of leadership appears founded on believing something and having the will to act accordingly, qualifications and contradictory evidence only stand in the way of virtuous behaviour.Footnote ¹⁰³

The larger point here is the lack of self-reflection and self-correction in Blair's political outlook.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ A prominent aspect of virtue ethics is the notion of self-mastery, whereby: ‘People in positions of responsibility have an obligation to control their passions and overcome temptations’.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ For instance, J. Patrick Dobel asserts that the virtue of prudence means: ‘a person's emotions and perceptions are trained and aligned with moral purposes so that they support rather than subvert responsible judgment.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ In Blair's case, the virtues he puts forward were only likely to reinforce his tendency to overlook the details and fail to reappraise prior assumptions in the light of new information. A practical example of this tendency is apparent in Blair's failure to convene the Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence Services for his first seven years of office – against the advice of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In other words, despite making the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003 on the basis of intelligence, he failed to convene ‘the most senior Whitehall committee dealing with intelligence matters’Footnote ¹⁰⁷ throughout this period. Indeed, Blair's approach to government was itself arguably not conducive to proper reasoned decisionmaking. There was no formal ministerial group responsible for Iraq policy, no papers were circulated beyond the members of various ad hoc meetings, and no Minister was appointed to oversee the UK’s Iraq policy and report its progress to the Prime Minister – either before or after the invasion.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

This can be justifiably criticised on an ethical basis since, as Coll notes: ‘Deliberation is intrinsic to moral reasoning’Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Moreover, Coll asserts that such deliberation has to be based on ‘gravity and modesty: enough gravity to recognize a moral dilemma, and enough modesty to realize one's limited capacities to deal with it’.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Blair appraised the implications of 9/11 very soon after the event.Footnote ¹¹¹ Although he has asserted that his response was formulated from earlier reflection on the nature of Islamic terrorism and the problem of WMD proliferation, it is clear he felt he had resolved any dilemmas that may have existed into a specific world view after 9/11. With regard to modesty, the emphasis on belief and political will arguably runs counter to this virtue.

It has already been noted above that Blair's appraisal of the consequences of his decision was partial at best. This in itself runs contrary to a genuinely consequentialist ethic, which should consider the effects of one's decision in the round. The consequences of a failure to act, for the world, were asserted in apocalyptic terms. In addition, he also emphasised the implications for the Iraqi people of a non-decision: ‘if the result of peace is Saddam staying in power, not disarmed, then I tell you that there are consequences paid in blood for that decision too.Footnote ¹¹² However, as David Mapel notes: ‘states have been inclined to calculate the costs of warfare almost exclusively in terms of the destruction of their own side. In major conflicts, they also tend to set the utility of their own victory at close to infinity’.Footnote ¹¹³ Blair is certainly guilty of that, with no substantial discussion of possible negative consequences for the Iraqi people – beyond a brief recognition that innocent people will be killed.Footnote ¹¹⁴ From this perspective, Blair arguably has shown a lack of foresight – a virtue highly prized by virtue theorists.Footnote ¹¹⁵

A further virtue which is perhaps downplayed as a result of Blair's focus on action is that of caution. According to Coll, this is advocated by Thomas Aquinas as a result of the imperfectability of human affairs and the fact that: ‘not all situations are clear-cut cases of good pitted against evil’.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Indeed, Aquinas asserts: ‘human deeds are multiform; rights are often entangled with wrongs, and wrongs wear the air of good’.Footnote ¹¹⁷ What this harks back to is the continuing need to check our emotional responses to situations and reappraise both our assumptions and our actions. Faced with complex problems, decisionmakers need to allow themselves time to understand the moral choices available and to critically assess the rightness or wrongness of each course of action. Acting on the basis of a belief in pressing danger, as Blair does, militates against the virtue of caution as to delay is to expose oneself to increasing peril. By contrast, exercising caution in this case might have allowed the weapons inspectors a greater period of time to report on Iraq's capabilities with greater accuracy than speculative intelligence. This would have avoided the error of seeing the danger as existent and substantial.

In sum, after 9/11 Blair privileged the virtues of political will, belief and foresight. Although these would seem to be admirable character traits, in the case of the decision to invade Iraq, they can be seen to have contributed to the resulting policy error. Within the literature on virtue, the alternative characteristics of self-mastery, reflection, foresight (to see the likely consequences of acting as opposed to not acting), and caution would arguably have made this mistake less likely. Thus, it might be possible to argue that Blair gave the wrong virtues priority – or, in the case of foresight, did not apply them properly.Footnote ¹¹⁸

It is at this point that the relevance of the internal goods of foreign policy comes to the fore. Many commentators have noted Blair's lack of awareness of, and respect for, the historical processes that shape the way we practice contemporary politics. Indeed, in his speech to Congress in 2003, he lamented that: ‘a study of history provides so little instruction for our present day.Footnote ¹¹⁹ In addition, bureaucracies, conventions and institutions often seem to be viewed by him as impediments to effective and innovative policymaking.Footnote ¹²⁰ This is perhaps understandable when we realise that such structures are designed to maintain and support the internal goods of the relevant practice whereas Blair sought to change these goods. From his speeches, it appears that what Blair desired for foreign policy were the goods of ‘progressive’ change and a new framework for international society and these were seen as requiring the virtues of political will, belief and optimistic foresight.Footnote ¹²¹ In contrast, the practice of foreign policy, arguably, usually seeks the internal goods of stability, order, acceptance of difference, mediation and compromise and these require the virtues of caution, prudence, foresight, and judgment.

For reasons of space, it is not possible to develop this point any further. To give a full account of how the virtues Blair privileged, his style of leadership, decisionmaking machinery and world view interrelate would require a much broader study. At this point, it is perhaps sufficient to suggest that Blair's character and his ethical goals for foreign policy are intimately connected and helped to shape the tone and content of his policy. Thus, a leader wishing to promote ethical awareness within a practice needs to acknowledge their own role as an individual moral agent and how their character is likely to affect their capacity to realise the goods they seek.