Questions of Morality

Q003 | July 13, 2015

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Is there a moral obligation of the countries that signed the UN Charter of Fundamental Rights to take active measures (military actions on the ground (not just parachute guns to local fighters or local governments), financial blockade, sizing the illegal exports of oil and other goods etc.) against ISIL?

Is there a moral obligation to protect the lives of those affected by war in their own regions, not just when the end up on the shores of European countries?

Is this moral obligation the same with the moral obligation that stands as the fundamental argument for humanitarian aid?

Also, is there a moral obligation to protect the cultural heritage affected by terrorist movements and abusive, dictatorial regimes?

And if such a moral obligation exists, are governments morally compelled to rethink their strategies in terms of military involvement and financial aid? Or these governments have a moral obligation only when a pandemic or a terrorist group threatens their own subjects, when an imminent threat exists?

Why should the German citizen be obliged to pay for a military intervention in Iraq against ISIL when his own existence is not affected by the threats of this organisation? Just because the terrorist group is so brutal that kills westerners and locals like in the Middle Ages?

And not ultimately, why should a Christian feel any moral obligation towards the lives of a Muslim population? Is Jesus’s model of life enough to support such a moral obligation?

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