CUBA, SI O NO

This new development with Cuba has led me to consider some thoughts about moral thinking.  Those who are opposing the establishment of diplomatic relations with the island nation cite the human rights abuses the Castro government has been guilty of for so many years.  These have included, according to our government, the killing of dissidents, the intolerance of dissent, the expropriation of private property, the jailing of those who have acted against the regime, and the list goes on.  Whether the extent of these abuses is as draconian as those opposing the Castro government would have us believe is open for debate.  I am sure that a great deal of it is true.  The opponents of recognizing the Cuban government couch their opposition in moral terms – good enough. 

Those who have argued in favor of reestablishing relations seem to base their position on several factors, not the least being that relations were suspended back in January, 1961, fifty-four years ago.  A lot has happened in those years.  We have established relations with other “sinful” regimes; China and Vietnam come to mind.  And yet the policy toward Cuba has remained and has included a strict embargo against trading with that communist nation.  The goal, ostensibly, has been to cause enough pain and weakness in Cuba so that the Castro brothers would be forced to change their policies or be overthrown.  It has not worked.  Even the opponents of the new policy argue that that regime is as oppressive as ever.  So the Obama administration says:  let’s try a new way; let’s establish relations; trade with them and try to influence them into making the desired changes.  That’s their argument.  So I ask:  is it immoral to deal with such a regime?  For conservatives, this is quite a difficult question.

Earlier in this blog, I reviewed the difference between thinking about moral questions from a categorical approach versus a utilitarian approach.  To quickly review that difference:  categorical approaches see moral positions as fairly uncompromising.  Acts are either moral or immoral by the mere fact that they abide by a moral value or they transgress a moral value.  In order to determine the morality of a value, a question is asked of it:  what would happen if everyone behaved in accordance with the value; could a society sustain such behavior?  For example, what if you valued lying?  If everyone lied, there would be no trust and a society would not be sustainable.  Therefore, lying is immoral and any value that supported it would be immoral.  On the other hand, truth telling, as a value or a behavior, does not threaten a society and, therefore, is moral.  Once this type of review is made of any value and its resulting behavior, one can determine which values and behaviors are moral.

Utilitarian reasoning is quite different.  With this approach, the question is one in which a person calculates how many people find a behavior and its corresponding value useful.  That is, does the behavior accrue some result which a person wants?  A moral choice is one that provides more usefulness than what’s otherwise available.  For example, if choice X satisfies 51% of the population and choice Y satisfies 49%, then choice X is the moral choice.  Each person is free to determine what constitutes usefulness or satisfaction for him or herself.  As can be seen, this approach is significantly different from the categorical approach.

Now let’s apply this to Cuba.  I believe the Cuban situation provides us with an interesting dilemma.  Categorically, a believer in democratic values would tend to see any relations with a dictatorial regime as immoral.  The policies of the Castro government have been immoral by the standards democrats hold.  Now, of course, this becomes a bit complex; one needs to justify democratic values, but that’s not my aim in this posting.  Let us just accept the morality of democratic values.  Conservatives, those who might oppose opening relations with Cuba, might take the posture, and many do, that this change in US policy is immoral.  But a central problem with categorical thinking is its tendency to not compromise.  There are times, though, when moral values come into conflict.  While conservatives might hold uncompromising democratic values, they also might very well value profits.  After all, profits provide the necessary motivation for us to engage in entrepreneurial activities.  Without those activities, democratic societies cannot function, since they count on individuals to freely decide to engage in economic activities.  By doing so, they create the goods and services people need and want and also the employment that provides the wages used to buy those goods and services.  The only other option is to abandon democratic values and structures and force people to engage in economic activity – the very type of policy many conservatives accuse the Castro government of enforcing.

With opening relations with China and Vietnam, we opened markets.  Conservatives of the more libertarian persuasion might see such actions as providing more usefulness than a categorical posture that would disallow such relations.  With more markets, business activity increases and more people will benefit and that goes for people in all of the countries involved.  Conservatives who rely on a more utilitarian moral view will tend to favor opening relations and would probably extend such reasoning to Cuban relations.  As I said above, this turn in Cuban relations provide us with an interesting dilemma for many, but especially for conservatives.