While reviewing chapter 11, “The Kantian perspective” in
Russ Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of
Ethics, I was reminded of the recent threats to the international community
and the United States in particular by Kim Jong Un and North Korea.
A yahoo
news article by Foster Klug of the Associated Press describes Kim Jong Un’s
‘against the grain’ behavior in his title, “Pivotal NKorea Question: What is
Kim Thinking?” Recently, under Kim’s heavy hand, the United States has faced
threats from North Korea of nuclear holocaust with the potential for another
Korean War. David Shlapak notes that this particular crisis is different than
most because of “our lack of insight…
into Kim’s mind”. If he were to follow in his father’s footsteps, he’d try to push
negotiations just as far as he could to receive the maximum amount of foreign
aid. Most do believe, however, that Kim’s methods are more closely related to
scare tactics but it is hard to be sure as he is such a young leader.
In the
international community, it seems obvious that the impeding treat of nuclear
war would be immoral. This is certainly one of those cases that Shafer-Landau
illustrates “of [someone] playing by one set of rules while insisting that
others obey a different set”. Even when addressing the golden rule, one can
pretty safely assume that Kim Jong Un would also be unhappy if the United
States (or any other country for that matter) tried to assert dominance over
North Korea even if it was just for psychological damage as an empty threat. Even
if Kim Jong Un could comfortable assert that he was comfortable facing such a
threat, we can be fairly certain that the threatening nuclear holocaust is
still immoral.
To prove
the immorality of Kim Jong Un’s actions, we can also follow Kant’s test for
determining whether a maxim is universalizable.
1.
Threatening the United States with a nuclear
holocaust (let’s say- to scare them into cooperating)
2.
The world we live in supports the idea of
nuclear warfare and its usage
3.
Can the goal of this action be achieved in such
a world? - No because people are desensitized to the gravity of nuclear warfare
and you run the risk of obliterating the entire planet.
Therefore, Kim Jong Un’s maxim is not universalizable and is
not morally acceptable.
The article can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/pivotal-nkorea-kim-thinking-101453982.html
Works Cited
-KLUG, FOSTER. "Pivotal NKorea Question: What Is Kim Thinking?" Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 29 Nov. 0000. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
-Shafer-Landau, Russ. The Fundamentals of Ethics. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Kacy has a valid point here, and I think we can all agree that Kim Jong Un is being immoral with his nuclear threats. To go along with Kacy's point of Kim Jong Un not passing the test of his maxim being universalizable, we can conclude that he is indeed being irrational from Kant's Argument for the Irrationality of Immorality. Kim Jong Un is not consistent and his principles are not universally accepted to be rational to support, leaving him to be irrational. This is why Kim Jong Un is an uncomfortable dictator for the world at large. His irrational thinking goes against social norm, and is leaving him unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteIf Kim Jong Un's main purpose is to receive more aid to help his people, his actions can still be seen as immoral through the scope of his maxim not being universalizable, due to his goal not being reached if all countries acted the same way he did. If the United States were to match him and also threaten with nuclear war, Kim Jong Un would be putting his people's lives in jeopardy, going against his main purpose.
Either way you look at it, Kim Jong Un's actions are immoral and he is irrational.