the arms trade and the slave trade

The Arms Trade and the Slave Trade

LESLIE STEVENSON

abstract We have abandoned the slave trade, and come to abhor it. Could the same happenwith the arms trade? Even if we are not pacifists, and allow some use of force in self-defence, wemust have serious ethical questions to ask about the trade in weaponry on which our economies arenow so dependent. I distinguish the various forms these questions take for governments andindividuals, and argue for some answers.

Is the arms trade any less immoral than the slave trade? It is no less important to us

economically. Britain and other advanced industrialised nations may well be as

dependent now on the manufacture and selling of weaponry as they were on the buying,

transhipment, sale and use of slaves two or three centuries ago. Exact quantification of

such huge historical and economic processes is impossible, of course. But it is clear

beyond all doubt that we profited from the slave trade then, and are greatly benefiting

from the arms trade now. The end of the cold war has left the armaments industries

under-utilised, and eagerly seeking new customers. Hundreds of thousands of jobs, in

companies large and small, may depend on the arms trade. And the knock-on effects on

the rest of the economy mean that everyone has an indirect stake in it. Social benefits, the

public services, even the salaries of university philosophers like me, presumably depend in

significant part on the success of British firms in selling weapons around the world.

Yet many of us, not just supposedly pure-minded academics, but some politicians, civil

servants and industrialists, have uneasy consciences about this trade. The foreign policy

of the government involves banning weapons exports to certain countries. But the

Department of Trade and Industry exists to promote national wealth, especially through

exports: so it is not surprising that one part of government sometimes acts against

another, that there is evasion of official regultions, and some connivance in doing so.

Thus we may end up confronting or fighting armies which we have ourselves helped to

arm. Pay-cheques, company profits, personal ambitions, and security of employment

tend to stifle the consciences of those immediately involved; and the thought that we have

to survive in the real world is a great quietener of ethical criticism in politics and the

media. If the debate gets at all intellectual, an appeal to the hypothetical results of some

large-scale utilitarian calculus may suggest that some sort of justification can be

constructed for engaging in the arms trade.

I

I propose to use the freedom I enjoy as an academic philosopher Ð and such expertise as I

am supposed to have Ð to pursue in a systematic way the question of how far the arms

Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1999

# Society for Applied Philosophy, 1999, Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 MainStreet, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

86 L. Stevenson

trade is any better than the slave trade. There is an obvious initial difference in that we

now regard slave-owning as wrong regardless of its utility, whereas we do not Ð unless we

are very consistent pacifists Ð regard the possession of weapons as immoral in itself. But

that should be only the beginning of thought about this matter, not the end of it. How

much of a difference this consideration should make to our overall ethical judgment, we

shall have to see. In a properly philosophical inquiry, conducted in an open-minded spirit

of love of wisdom, we should not assume that the common moral beliefs of the day are

correct (they may be in conflict with each other, anyway).

To help gain some critical distance from the contemporary and the familiar, I will

quote some passages from the writings of the eighteenth-century American Quaker John

Woolman. (Page references are to Reginald Reynolds, The Wisdom of John Woolman,

London: Friends Home Service Committee 1972.) Woolman lived in a pre-industrial,

religiously-influenced, but slave-owning society, before the American revolution. He was

one of the first to protest against slavery, which was practised even by some members of

his own Society of Friends in that period. His journals show him reflecting deeply Ð and

very originally for his time Ð on how the use of slaves is inconsistent with his belief in the

fundamental equality of all human beings before their Creator.

Woolman was also a pacifist, who refused to bear arms or pay taxation for them. He

criticised gross inequalities of wealth and power, and was severe in his condemnation of

`superfluities', by which he meant unnecessary luxuries. He was one of the first to offer a

`testimony' (in the Quaker sense of the word) against the sufferings inflicted on the

American Indians and on animals. I am not committed to endorsing everything Woolman

said, whether on morals or on religion (a philosopher must always think for himself, or

herself), but I suggest that his thought will be a useful stimulus from a minority religious

tradition from the past to bring to bear on our present situation. Much of his social

ethics, briefly adverted to above, may sound very congenial to `liberal' (`progressive' or

`enlightened') views of the present day, but he takes his insights rather further than is now

the conventional wisdom. He challenges us to think more deeply, and perhaps to come to

more radical conclusions.

Woolman died on a visit to Britain in 1772. One of the relevant entries in his Journal

reads:

I have felt great distress of mind, since I came on this island, on account of the

members of our Society being mixed with the world in various sorts of business

and traffic, carried on in impure channels. Great is the trade to Africa for slaves;

and in loading these ships abundance of people are employed in the factories,

amongst whom are many of our Society. Friends, in early times, refused on a

religious principle to make or trade in superfluities; of which we have many large

testimonies on record. But for want of faithfulness some gave way Ð even some

whose examples were of note in Society; and from thence others took more

liberty. Members of our Society worked in superfluities, and bought and sold

them; and thus dimness of sight came over many. At length, Friends got into the

use of some superfluities in dress, and in the furniture of their houses, and this

hath spread from less to more, till superfluity of some kinds is common amongst

us.

If gold is brought into our country through means which renders the condition

# Society for Applied Philosophy, 1999


The Arms Trade and the Slave Trade 87

of the poor more difficult, it appears evident that of that gold the country had

better be without. (Reynolds, p. 128)

Here is a very clear moral judgment that the traffic in slaves was ìmpure' Ð by which

Woolman surely meant wrong in itself, regardless of any calculation of its good and bad

consequences: wrong because it goes against an absolute moral rule that nobody has the

right to own another human being and use them merely as a means to his own ends.

`Forced subjection on innocent persons of full age is inconsistent with right reason', wrote

Woolman (p. 149). But he also recognised just how deeply involved in this impure trade

was the British and American economy of the late eighteenth century, and of how

attitudes, even amongst the religiously-minded, tended to adjust to those economic facts

and offer self-serving justifications of slavery. To the claim that the lives of the blacks were

so wretched in Africa that they were better off in America, Woolman replied that if

compassion were the real motive of purchasing and transporting them, we would be

treating them kindly, that às strangers brought out of affliction, their lives might be happy

amonst us' (p. 147).

Independently of the issue of slavery, Woolman rejected `superfluities' Ð the spending

of resources on comparative luxuries for some people, while others were in want of the

necessities of life. His judgment was that not just the gross forms of greed, but the

`comforts' of many people are bought at too high a price of suffering on the part of other

human beings (or animals). At the end of the passage quoted above he bites the

uncomfortable bullet, and declares not just that he himself would rather do without such

comforts (as he did), but that it would be better overall for the country to do without

them. `Better' here surely means morally better, but it can also imply ìn the long-term

interest of the country and its inhabitants', for radical injustice is likely to provoke

resistance, instability and conflict. After a tour of the slave-owning American states that

were to fight the Civil War in defence of slavery a century later, Woolman prophetically

wrote:

I saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by

this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me a dark gloominess hanging

over the land; and though many now willingly run into it, yet in future the

consequence will be grievous to posterity.

Such high-minded preaching may impress those who already have uneasy consciences,

but the more cynical may remark that it is unlikely to change the world. Yet within a

century of Woolman's death slavery was abandoned in western Europe and the USA. It is

of course very difficult to estimate causes of historical change Ð how much can be

attributed to the influence of moral reformers and political campaigning, and how much

to economic and sociological processes. But the fact is clear, whatever its causes: legally

and morally, slavery is now outlawed in our countries (though it tends to persist elsewhere

in the world in other forms).

II

Is the arms trade in any better moral standing? Could it too be outlawed? Our moral

judgment on the selling of weaponry must depend crucially, if not completely, on what we


88 L. Stevenson

decide about the issue of pacificism. This deserves at least an article to itself, but I cannot

avoid taking a view on it here. Woolman, like many Quakers, tended strongly towards

pacifism:

Where violent measures are pursued in opposing injustice, the passions and

resentments of the injured frequently operate in the prosecution of their

designs; and after conflicts productive of very great calamities the minds of

contending parties often remain as little acquainted with the pure principle of

Divine love as they were before. But where people walk in that pure light in

which all their `works are wrought in God' and under oppression persevere in

the meek spirit and abide firm in the cause of truth, without actively complying

with oppressive demands, through those the Lord hath often manifested his

power in opening the understandings of others, to the promoting righteousness

in the earth.

A time, I believe, is coming wherein this Divine work will so spread and prevail

that `Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor learn war any more'

(Isaiah ii, 4). (Reynolds, p. 157)

We will have to decide just how far we can follow the pacifist tendency so eloquently

and idealistically presented here. For an extreme and consistent pacifist, the use of force

to kill or injure other human beings Ð whether by an individual or by a state Ð would

always be wrong, even in self-defence. It would presumably follow that the manufacture

and sale of the wherewithal to use force Ð arms and weaponry of all kinds Ð is equally

wrong.

But can we, on reflection, endorse the view that the use of force to kill or injure other

human beings is always wrong, even in defence of innocent victims of aggression? If a

crazedly unhappy man walks into a schoolroom with an armful of guns and begins to

shoot, and if a police marksman is able to get the gunman in his sights in time, are we to

say that the children should die rather than the murderer? To be sure, we may say that if

he could be disarmed without injury, or disabled rather than killed, that would be

preferable Ð but shooting to kill may sometimes be the only practical means of

prevention. At the level of communities, are we to conclude that if one side in an ethnic

conflict is being burnt out of their homes, raped, tortured and murdered, that they have

no right to use whatever force is at their disposal to defend themselves? At the level of

states, are we to say that Poland, France and Russia were wrong to oppose the invasion of

their countries by Nazi Germany in 1939±41, or that Britain had no right to shoot down

Hitler's planes when they tried to enforce his will on us too?

I find I cannot endorse an absolute pacifist view, and I would challenge those who feel

inclined to such a position to think about cases like those above and ask themselves if they

would really condemn all possible use of force. On a close reading of the Woolman passage,

I am not sure that even he is implying that the use of force is absolutely always wrong. He

says that when violent measures are used, the passions of the victims are `frequently'

aroused and the conflict is not really resolved, and he suggests that meekness `often' leads

to the promotion of righteousness. He seems to be talking more about the spirit in which

things are done, rather than laying down absolute moral rules. (In confirmation of this

view, we might point out how the imposition of economically crippling `reparations'

against Germany after the First World War led to such suffering and resentment as to

create the conditions in which the Nazis could rise to power; and that after the Second



World War the Nuremburg trials of individual war criminals and the lack of national

vengeance enabled a peaceful democratic Germany to emerge.)

It is not clear to me that Woolman would have condemned police action against a

murderous gunman, or community defence against unprovoked aggression. I do not,

anyway. Of course, it is a very important further question in what sorts of circumstance

the use of force is morally justified. We need a theory of the legitimate limits of state and

police power, a doctrine of just and unjust wars, and an ethical discussion of deterrence

policies. But all that is matter for other occasions.

III

If the use in extremis of controlled and legitimately-authorised force is morally permissible

(and perhaps even morally required), the production of arms for those limited purposes

must be permissible too. There had better be some accurate rifles available for police

marksmen; and the army, navy, and air force of each country will need to deploy enough

weaponry to mount a credible defence against invasion. Such armaments will have to be

manufactured, and they will need to be kept effective, and up-to-date with changing

technology.

But it does not follow that they should be sold on the open market. After all, the state

must have a monopoly of supreme military force to rule its territory effectively; it can

hardly permit individual citizens or private armies to manufacture, purchase or deploy

tanks, bombers, missiles, nuclear warheads or nerve gas. Nor can a state allow the

indiscriminate sale of such stuff to other countries without grievously endangering its

own security (though transfers to trusted allies may be another matter).

Individuals or groups who find themselves in a position to make a profit from the sale of

agents of mass destruction Ð chemical, nuclear, and biological Ð will of course be

tempted to do so. (There are very worrying reports that the break-down of authority in

the post-Soviet armed forces is allowing this to happen.) In this case, the practical and

moral judgment is surely obvious and uncontroversial. The use of weapons of mass

destruction, involving the deliberate and indiscriminate killing of civilians, is surely

wrong in itself. There is a question whether any state has a moral right to deploy such

weapons for deterrent purposes Ð but that is a much-debated issue, which I do not

propose to re-enter here. If (and it is a big `if') deployment of them for deterrence is

sometimes permissible, some transfers of such technology to allies might be permissible.

But this is not the place to go into this difficult question in the depth it deserves. My

present topic is the uncontrolled sale of weapons of mass destruction, and I submit that in

this case the answer is much more obvious. It is wrong in itself to put such power into

almost anyone's hands, to sell the means for enormous evil to whoever is willing to pay the

going rate. And it is surely also wrong in consequentialist terms, because of the huge risks

to human life and world peace.

The trade in smaller arms is less drastically threatening, and perhaps less obviously

wrong. Purely defensive technology such as gas masks, armour-plated vehicles, and bomb

shelters surely present no moral problem even for the pacifist. If these can be ethically

deployed, they can surely be legitimately sold. And there are lots of multi-purpose

artefacts such as knives, shotguns, aeroplanes, weedkillers and poisons, which have

peaceful uses in cookery, pest-control, transport, agriculture, and chemistry, but which


90 L. Stevenson

can readily be transferred to offensive uses. About these things, it may reasonably be said

that it is the buyer's responsibility what use he makes of them, and that the manufacturer

and salesman have no particular authority or responsibility to be a watchdog over the

behaviour and morals of their clients. The issue of responsibility will receive further

examination below, but it is not central to this stage of my argument.

My present business is to consider the sale of artefacts whose obvious and only purpose

is to injure, kill, or destroy. Some are primarily for ìnternal' repression within states; and

there is of course a vast range of so-called `conventional' weaponry for external defence Ð

or attack. Let us consider first the case of technology for internal repression. It is not

always easy to classify devices in terms of their intended uses (small arms, tear gas and

tanks may be used internally or externally), but instruments of torture are a very clear

case. There are, I fear, quite sophisticated devices designed to inflict excruciating pain on

individual victims without leaving evidence of their use Ð and there are disturbing

reports that some western countries have been making and selling them. The suggestion

that they are intended for use as cattle-prods is unbelievable Ð why pay through the nose

for cattle-prods? And such use would be immoral anyway Ð why inflict extreme pain on

cattle?

Of course, if there is to be a profit to be made out of such an ìmpure' trade, some

people will be tempted, and will offer self-serving justifications of it. They will say that if

they do not provide the means, others will. But this would not be a defence of doing the

torturing oneself Ð so surely it is no better defence for the provision of instruments of

torture. I take it that I do not need to argue the immorality of such trade any further. To

use such means on any person is wrong, and to provide the devices for it is equally wrong.

Any government with the least pretensions towards an ethical policy must ban the

manufacture and sale of such devices. But for other things such as small arms and military

vehicles, a difficult judgment may have to be made about whether they are suited to

internal repression, and intended for such use.

IV

At the two extremes, then Ð instruments of individual torture, and agents of mass

destruction Ð we have, I trust, some consensus on the immorality of trading in them. The

most difficult cases lie in the large area of `conventional' weaponry in between Ð from the

swords and crossbows of long ago, through pistols and rifles, tanks and artillery, to jet

fighters and anti-aircraft missiles.

Let me deal first with the sale of arms for individual use Ð primarily guns. There is of

course a controversial question whether individuals should be legally permitted to bear

arms, and if so, what sort. As noted above, all states have to exercise control over

weaponry within their borders, and all legislatures have to take a view on what counts as

an òffensive weapon'. Britain has recently banned handguns completely, whereas the

USA has a very strongly-established gun culture dating back to frontier days. The

difference in the murder rate is an obvious utilitarian argument for gun control. Although

a non-pacifist has to allow the permissibility, at least in principle, of arming oneself for

self-defence, what arms it is wise for the state to permit citizens to possess will depend on

circumstances. It is surely safer if the carrying of guns can be restricted to the police Ð

and preferably to a minority of them.



Where a trade in guns is legal, it may seem self-righteous to issue moral condemnations

of those who choose to make their living by it. However, it does not follow that an activity

is morally in the clear just because it is not illegal Ð consider prostitution, abortion, and

the sale of cigarettes, alcohol or unnecessary life insurance. Woolman condemned the sale

of rum to the Indians as a `wicked practice' (p. 156), because of its clearly disastrous

effects on them, though such trade was legal enough in eighteenth century America. It is

now coming to light that our contemporary tobacco companies were presented some time

ago with evidence of the harmfulness of smoking, even by their own research

departments.

The prospect of profit is always a great persuader, but in a world where the market

tends to be revered as king, it needs saying that there are after all other reasons for action

or omission, which people are perfectly capable of understanding, and acting upon. If a

product is obviously likely to be harmful to its purchaser or to others, that must count as a

reason for not selling it. Shopkeepers who sell glues and solvents to children must bear

some responsibility for consequent harms. Publicans sometimes recognise when a drinker

`has had enough', and have at least a moral duty not to serve him more. To be sure, the

state must decide what legal restrictions to impose Ð but that cannot absolve individuals

or corporations of all moral responsibility for their actions within the law.

It has to be admitted, however, that there are grey areas here. It is unrealistic to expect

a shopkeeper or salesman to compute an estimate of probable good and harm every time

he makes a sale. And yet it is hard to admire those who manufacture, advertise and sell

knives and handguns as people who are contributing to the good of society. Nobody is

forced to engage in such trade, after all: there are always other ways of trying to make a

living. The trend towards `ethical investment' Ð which usually means avoiding

companies dealing in tobacco, alcohol and armaments Ð is a welcome sign of developing

sensitivity to the moral issues. The threat of expensive claims for damages may

concentrate corporate minds wonderfully; but we have yet to see this work in the case

of arms-sales.

Let me now at last grapple with the most difficult kind of case Ð the sale of

conventional weaponry to states. There is a distinction to be made here between

questions for governments, and questions for individuals and companies operating

within the framework of law and government regulation. It is not the function of a

philosophical article to discuss particular foreign, diplomatic and military policies Ð only

the moral limits within which these should function. If conventional arms are permitted

for self-defence, it will presumably be legitimate to sell them to allies or neutrals Ð but it

is not very clever to allow their sale to potential enemies. The problem is how to

distinguish the latter in advance, and how to enforce any rules that governments decide

on.

Prudence Ð a virtue for governments, as well as for individuals Ð surely counsels

erring on the side of extreme caution in the vetting of client states, and stringent

enforcement of whatever policies are decided on. On any sensible view, there are far too

many weapons in the world already, diverting resources from desperate human need, and

making horrendous destruction more possible with every technological advance. The

trouble is that short-term economic advantage all too obviously motivates other

departments of government and the armaments companies (with whom they may have

a close working relationship) to take every opportunity of pursuing profits.

The moral situation of individuals and companies involved in the international arms


92 L. Stevenson

trade is similar to that of those selling weapons within a country. Where there are legal

restrictions imposed by government, there is a clear duty to obey, and severe penalties can

reasonably be imposed for evasion Ð provided the administration itself is clear and

consistent, not declaring one policy in parliament whilst nodding and winking at

something else in practice. Where there is no official restriction, companies and their

directors, employees and shareholders still have choices, and they can reasonably be asked

to justify the decisions they make.

Some products are more morally dubious than others. Landmines are an example.

There may be some circumstances where their use might be reluctantly approved, e.g. to

seal a strip of frontier-land against infantry invasion, keeping careful records of exactly

where the mines are, and lifting them all when the threat has disappeared (the iron

curtain dividing the two Germanies during the Cold War was perhaps a case in point).

But it is all too obvious that most use of landmines is careless and indiscriminate. Can

their makers and sellers rest easy in their beds, having seen the images of amputees and

maimed children all over the world? It is hard to shrug off all responsibility to the buyers

in this case. Nobody is forced to work for a particular company, or to invest in it, after all.

Of course, the alternatives may be less profitable and less comfortable. But who said

ethics was easy?

For governments as well as companies, short-term profits often tend to trump long-

term strategy. But is this sustainable? It has already happened that Britain has fought a

war against opponents equipped with British-made weapons. The more that ever-

advancing military technology is spread around the countries of the world, the more

likely it is that we will all reap the whirlwind, and that not even the comfortable West will

avoid the direct or indirect consequences. The more vividly we are made aware of these

dangers, the more hope there is that we will be impelled, for reasons of both ethics and

long-term self-interest, to try to avert them. Another eloquent passage from John

Woolman (Reynolds, p. 142) implores us all to seek `the seeds of war' in ourselves and

our lifestyles (and one does not have to be a believer in a conventional God to appreciate

the moral force of his writing):

Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and proceedings contrary to

universal righteousness are supported; and here oppression, carried on with

wordly policy and order, clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a

seed of discord in the soil. And as this spirit, which wanders from the pure

habitation, prevails, so the seed of war swells and sprouts and grows and becomes

strong, till much fruit are ripened. Thus cometh the harvest spoken of by the

prophet, which `is a heap, in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow'.

Oh, that we who declare against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God

only, may walk in the Light and therein examine our foundation and motives in

holding great estates: may we look upon our treasures and the furniture of our

houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds

of war have any nourishment in these, our possessions.

V

My first thought was to end this article on that note of moral exhortation. But Ð as with



the slave trade Ð the searching of individual consciences, however necessary, will not be

enough to solve the problem. Large-scale institutional changes, at national and

international level, will be needed to create the conditions for what Kant called `perpetual

peace', and make the arms trade unnecessary and unprofitable.

It is not the function of a philosopher to enter into practical politics, but to lift our

attention above short-term problems, to criticise contemporary assumptions and suggest

new ideas, even perhaps new ideals. An ideal world order would surely be one in which the

use of force was needed only for a policing role to prevent armed conflict, just as the

police at national level (backed up by the army if necessary) prevent civil disorders,

becoming seriously violent.

For this to work, there would need to be international agreement to control weapons

production and deployment. We might hope to start by controlling weapons of mass

annihilation, perhaps eventually banning them. But for such agreements to mean

anything in practice, they would have to be enforceable. Who, then, is entitled to decide

when preventative force is justified? The present problem is that although UN resolutions

may require, for example, inspection of suspected weapons production in a particular

country, the Security Council tends to disagree on what should be done when such

requirements are defied. Without any clear international mandate, the USA and her allies

have threatened to act as policemen in the case of Iraq. But perhaps the word should be

`vigilantes' Ð because the trouble with self-appointed law-enforcers is that they have

their own particular interests and partialities, and are accountable to no higher authority.

It is a fair question why other countries known or presumed to have weapons of mass

destruction should not be equally subject to UN inspection Ð including the would-be

policemen themselves.

We will need an international body with the means to enforce compliance with its rules

about armaments. How else can mass human self-destruction be prevented, now that

science, technology and the worldwide arms trade threaten to put horrendous weaponry

into the hands of almost anyone Ð including terrorists, cults, and unprincipled rulers of

unstable states? Until the advance of sophisticated technology of communications and

weaponry, a worldwide authority was not possible, so the question has not seriously been

addressed.

If it is now becoming practical, is supra-national power even desirable? An analogy can

be drawn between the justification for the power of the state and the argument for world

government. As Hobbes saw so plainly, if people live in a `state of nature', with no

`sovereign' having an effective monopoly of the use of force, every individual is at risk

from others, and will have to use whatever power he can command to defend himself. It is

in everyone's interest, therefore, that there should be a sovereign authority which has

effective power to keep the peace, and enable people to get on with living their lives in

reasonable security from murder, enslavement or robbery. This is the first and most

fundamental duty of government. Where there never was such authority, warfare

between tribes was typical; where it breaks down, people find themselves at the mercy

of rival warlords, armed gangs, vigilantes, mafiosi, or ethnic cleansers.

Consider the analogy with the international situation. The many nations over the face

of the planet exist in a `state of nature', with no international authority having a

monopoly of force. So every state is potentially at risk from others, and it is rational for

every state to pursue its own security by amassing as much force as possible, making

alliances against potential enemies, and in extremis making pre-emptive strikes against


94 L. Stevenson

them. An international balance of power has sometimes managed to keep the peace for a

generation or more. But when such uneasy balances broke down, horrific destruction was

wrought, for example in the European wars of religion, the Napoleonic wars, and the two

world wars of the twentieth century. In the recent Cold War a balance of nuclear terror

kept the peace for half a century, but we shall never know how close we may have been at

certain moments to the ultimate disaster of `mutual assured destruction'.

Now we are moving into a new world situation with different dangers, in which

technology makes it possible for many states all around the world to develop weapons of

mass destruction Ð if not the expensive high-tech kinds such as nuclear submarines,

intercontinental missiles and thermonuclear warheads, then the cheaper intermediate

technology of chemical and biological agents. It is becoming all too conceivable that much

of the world could be held to ransom by a rogue government or a terrorist group with

nerve gas at their disposal. It is surely in everyone's vital interest that there should be an

international authority with enough power to prevent the further spread of weapons

around the world.

The question of a worldwide authority is presently academic. We have the UN, but it

has only such force as its powerful members can agree to give it Ð and such agreement is

notoriously rare. At most, we can ask how we might get there from here Ð how could we

begin to move towards a world authority? An agreement by all existing states to yield

ultimate military power upwards would be wonderful. But what hope is there of achieving

it? History suggests that it is rare indeed for human social entities voluntarily to give up

independence: sovereignty is seen as `sacroscant', even `holy'. The case of the thirteen

former colonies on the Eastern seaboard of North America coming together to form the

United States is a rare counter-example. More often, unification has been brought about

by force Ð for example, the empires of the Romans, the Ottomans, the British and the

Russians. The EU, for all its imperfections, presents a more hopeful example of nations

realising their common economic and security interests, and agreeing, however

reluctantly, to cede some powers to a supranational body.

I have no expertise on the enormously difficult practical question of how we might

move towards this ideal. The pessimistic thought is that it may take some truly awful

disasters to change enough minds. The more optimistic thought is that if slavery could be

abolished, why not the arms trade too? In the hope of moving towards that ideal, one can

provoke thoughts about the ethics of our present practices, and about how things could

be different.

Leslie Stevenson, Department of Logic and Metaphysics, University of St Andrews, Fife KY169AL, UK.

the arms trade and the slave trade

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