We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
This chapter provides a theory of the ethics of revolution and the ethics of interventions in revolutions. It sets the stage for the ethical discussion by using the descriptive-explanatory theory of revolution laid out in Chapter 3 to identify the special ethical problems revolutionaries face and the consequences for intervention of the ways in which revolutionaries will typically address those problems. The chapter states and criticizes two widely accepted principles that are supposed to provide guidance to potential interveners in revolutions. The first is the principle that no intervention should be undertaken without the consent of the people in the country that is the target of the intervention. The second is the principle, advocated by John Stuart Mill, that widespread participation in a movement to overthrow the existing regime, understood as an indication of a pervading commitment to revolution, is a necessary condition for justified intervention. This chapter argues that neither principle provides useful guidance as to intervention because both ignore certain features of real-world revolutions. This conclusion confirms an important thesis of the book, namely, that normative inquiries about social change, including investigations to articulate the ethics of revolution and intervention in revolution, must be grounded in an accurate understanding of the morally relevant facts about the phenomena in question. This chapter also extends and deepens the discussions of the explanatory power of the concept of ideology first developed in Chapters 2 and 3, arguing that ideologies can serve to rationalize the use of coercion and violence that otherwise would be regarded as morally prohibited. Finally, this chapter explains how the choice is not between morality and self-interest as drives of social change but is rather a matter of understanding how self-interest can be served by the strategic employment of moral concepts and principles.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.