Discrepancy between principles and practice

The development principles and policies espoused by industrialized countries have seldom promised so much, whether through the Earth Summit or the World Bank's "sustained assault on world poverty". Such promises only serve to highlight the widening gap between principles and practice. Despite declared concern for some new world order, the financial policies of industrialized countries continue to increase the gap between the richer and poorer countries, deepening the already abject poverty and environmental degradation in which more than a billion people live.

The main theme of American foreign policy since the time of President Truman has been that if aggression is allowed to stand, the practice would spread until it threatens the general peace; and, therefore, that the world community must enforce the rule even against relatively small violations. How can this sit with America's passivity in the face of Serbian aggression? Is it just that a wider Balkan war does not threaten America's oil supply, as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait did?

"It is acting ‘on principle’ which does away with the vital distinction which constitutes decency. For decency is immediate (whether the immediate is original or acquired). It has its seat in feeling and in the impulse and consistency of an inner enthusiasm.

"‘In this way everything becomes permissible if done ‘on principle’. The police can go to certain places on ‘official duty’ to which no one else can go, but as a result one cannot deduce anything from their presence. In the same way one can do anything ‘on principle’ and avoid all personal responsibility. People pull to pieces ‘on principle’ what they admire personally, which is nonsensical, for while it is true that everything creative is latently polemical, since it has to make room for the new which it is bringing into the world, a purely destructive process is nothing and its principle is emptiness -- so what does it need space for? But modesty, repentance and responsibility cannot easily strike root in ground where everything is done ‘on principle’." (Soren Kierkegaard, The Present Age", 1846)

Our means should be consistent with the ends, and if our ends are honorable then so too should be our means.