Ruling New Democracy lawmakers are seen during an April 22 vote in Parliament to lift the immunity from prosecution of 13 MPs within their ranks who are alleged to have been involved in the OPEKEPE farm subsidies scandal. [Alexandros Beltes/AMNA]
There is a view that morality has no place in politics. Politics is about who can do what to whom, and therefore it is about power and power struggles. It is a view that is particularly supported by economists and political scientists who deal with international relations. At the same time, it is a wrong view that leads to many negative results.
I offer three sentences: 1) In Gaza, 70,000 people died. 2) Israelis have murdered 70,000 people in Gaza. 3) Israelis have murdered 70,000 people in Gaza in a barbaric way.
The first sentence is purely descriptive and can be confirmed or refuted empirically. According to one view of epistemology (empiricism), it is the most scientific, precisely because it can be subjected to empirical control. The second has a greater moral load. The word “murder” is one of those that the American philosopher Hilary Putnam claimed contains interconnected concepts. In these concepts, it is difficult to separate the factual element from the evaluative – murder is usually associated with a negative moral evaluation of things. These are concepts that everyone (even those who deny that they do it) use every day and which are not only descriptive, but also make value judgments. The third sentence obviously increases the negative evaluation further.
The first sentence is seemingly presented as the most “scientific,” precisely because it avoids any moral judgment. But it is completely misleading – because after it what usually follows is the question, “but why did they die, from what?” The second and third provide some explanations and are more faithful to the truth, not despite their moral burden, but because of it. And in this sense, sticking to the first sentence is misleading. Denying morality – denying the role of morality in politics – is in itself a morally charged position. This denial has adverse and increasing effects – from denying the fact that the Israelis have committed a genocide in Gaza, to US President Donald Trump threatening war crimes in the war with Iran. If you don’t resist the first crime, it makes it easier not to resist the second.
Thus, the Greek prime minister has rejected the word genocide and now does not seem to be concerned with the illegal war that the United States and Israel have launched against Iran. Between these two crimes, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said that it is too early to judge whether the kidnapping of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife is legal, as if the word “kidnapping” is not enough by itself to speak about the morality of this specific act. In other words, we see how power relations are conveyed through language: Hamas killed 10 Israeli soldiers, but 10 Hamas terrorists were killed.
There is a view that international law has always been an illusion. The powerful countries in the postwar period constantly violated international law either through direct interventions – the Soviets in Hungary and Afghanistan, the US and Britain in Iraq and Libya – or through more indirect interventions such as the organization of various coups in Iran, Guatemala, Chile and elsewhere. But there is a fundamental difference between recognizing international law – and discussing violations – and not recognizing it at all. When Trump, before the ceasefire in Iran, announces that he may bomb the country, send it back to the Stone Age and destroy an entire civilization; or the Greek prime minister, after the ceasefire, who said he considered the continued bombing of Lebanon by Israel simply “counterproductive,” then I think we understand this difference.
And the adverse effects are not limited to international relations. If there is no morality in one area, this is transferred to others. For example, it is easier to hide pushbacks in the Aegean Sea, not to recognize the rights of refugees, but also to consider direct concessions of public contracts or turning clientelism into an art form as something normal.
People constantly use the interrelated terms that Putnam analyzed about their lives, the lives of others, the situation they and those around them are currently facing. Politicians are often deaf to this language – we do not recognize it or do not understand it. The rising number of apolitical citizens – who believe that everyone is the same – stems from the material conditions that a large part of the population faces. But it also stems from a sterile language that pretends to be scientific and technocratic at the expense, not only of morality, but also of empathy.
Euclid Tsakalotos is a lawmaker with the New Left and former finance minister.