President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech: Embracing the Ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr

AFTER PRESIDENT OBAMA CITED CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIAN AND ETHICIST REINHOLD Niebuhr (1892-1971) as one of his philosophers, blogosphere erupted with commentary on what this might portend for foreign policy of new administration. Niebuhr had been known as pastor to Presidents, with many, including Jimmy Carter, mentioning his influence on their moral reasoning. In recognition of his lasting impact on Presidency, Lyndon Johnson awarded Niebuhr Medal of Freedom in 1964. Pundits have had a field day speculating on possible implications of Obama's self-defined connection to ethics of Niebuhr. Will foreign policy decision-making of Obama administration thus mirror that of Carter, or that of other past presidents influenced by Niebuhr? Mark Tooley describes Niebuhr as probably 20th century's finest ethicist in liberal Protestant tradition, representing school of realism. The rise of Nazism led Niebuhr to believe in a transcendent and he supported war against Hitler. He criticized pacifists and Christian idealists who thought that force could never be justified (Tooley, 2009). Instead, Niebuhr argued: Since reason is always, to some degree, servant of interest in a social situation, social injustice cannot be resolved by moral and rational suasion alone, as educator and social scientist usually believes. Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict must be challenged by power (Niebuhr, 1932: xiv-xv). But even when force is justified, as in World War II (which he believed was a just war), he maintained that there were moral limits to use of military power. Niebuhr, for example, criticized Allied bombing of cities and questioned use of nuclear weapons by United States in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After World War II, he supported efforts to contain Communism, but he strongly opposed Vietnam War, and in general thought that U.S. involvement in unwinnable land wars in Asia was unwise (Tooley, 2009). Niebuhr explained his views of human nature and politics in his influential book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, which was later cited by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail. In this work, Niebuhr asserts that people are capable of doing good, but groups are driven by predatory self-interest. Niebuhr explains: Individuals have a moral code which makes actions of collective man an outrage to their conscience.... [This] symbolizes one of tragedies of human spirit: its inability to conform its collective life to its individual ideals. As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic, and national groups, they take for themselves whatever their can command (Niebuhr, 1932: 9). During a 2007 interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks, Obama explained what he learned from Niebuhr and why he called Niebuhr his favorite philosopher. take away, Brooks quoted Obama as saying, the compelling idea that there's serious evil in world and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief that we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ... sense that we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naive idealism to bitter realism (Brooks, 2007). Great-nephew Gustav Niebuhr points out that Obama's political rhetoric often reflects Niebuhr's worldview. He notes, for example, that both Obama and his great-uncle avoid moral absolutes (i.e., good versus evil; you're with us or you're against us) and realize that the U.S. is not always right and its enemies not always evil. Gustav Niebuhr pointed to Obama's Cairo speech to Arab world, in which president acknowledged U.S. role in undermining and helping to overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran in 1950s and avoided a clash of civilizations framework that can imply that United States is free of moral stain. …