Page:The Public and Its Problems (1946).pdf/5

moral responsibility. But the same thing holds good in relations that are private and non-political; the chief difference is the greater ease with which moral responsibility broke down in the case of relationships between nations, The very doctrine of “Sovereignty” is a complete denial of political responsibility.

The fact that this issue is now within the active scope of political discussion also hears out another point made in the text. The matter at issue is in no way one between the “social” and the “non-social,” or between that which is moral and that which is immoral. No doubt the feeling on the part of some that the moral responsibility which concerns the relations between nations should be taken more seriously played a part in bringing about a greater emphasis on the fact that the consequences of these relations demand some kind of political organization. But only the ultra-cynical have ever denied in the past the existence of some moral responsibilty. Sufficient proof of this is found in the fact that, in order to interest the citizens of any genuinely modern people im an actual war, it has heen necessary to carry on a campaign to show that superior moral claims were on the side of a war policy. The change of attitude is not fundamentally an affair of moral conversion, a change from obdurate immorality to a perception of the claims of righteousness. It results from greatly intensified recognition of the factual consequences of war. And this increased perception is in turn mainly due to the fact that modern wars are indefinitely more destructive and that the destruction