Book

Nye, Joseph S., author. Jr., 1937-2025

Do morals matter? : presidents and foreign policy from FDR to Trump / Joseph S. Nye.

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

xiv, 254 pages ; 25 cm

"Americans constantly make moral statements about presidents and foreign policy. Unfortunately, many of these judgments are poorly thought through. A president is either praised for the moral clarity of his statements or judged solely on the results of their actions. Woodrow Wilson showed, however, that good intentions without adequate means can lead to ethically bad consequences. Richard Nixon, on the other hand, is credited with ending the Vietnam War, but he sacrificed 21,000 American lives and countless others for only a brief "decent interval." In Do Morals Matter?, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., one of the world's leading scholars of international relations, provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of the role of ethics in US foreign policy during the American era after 1945."--Publisher.

Presidents -- Professional ethics -- United States.

Presidents -- United States -- Decision making.

United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1989 -- Moral and ethical aspects.

United States -- Foreign relations -- 1989- -- Moral and ethical aspects.

Presidents and foreign policy from FDR to Trump

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: American moralism -- American exceptionalism -- Wilsonian liberalism -- The liberal international order after 1945 -- What is moral foreign policy? -- How we make moral judgements -- Double standards in dirty hands -- Mental maps of the world and moral foreign policy -- The best moral choice in the context: scorecards -- The founders -- Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Harry S. Truman -- Dwight D. Eisenhower -- The Vietnam era -- John F. Kennedy -- Lyndon Baines Johnson -- Richard M. Nixon -- Post-Vietnam Retrenchment -- Gerald R. Ford -- James Earl Carter -- The end of the Cold War -- Ronald Reagan -- George H. W. Bush -- The unipolar movement -- William Jefferson Clinton -- George Walker Bush -- Twenty-first-century power shifts -- Barack Hussein Obama -- Donald J. Trump -- Foregin policy and future choices -- Assessing ethical foreign policy since 1945 -- Contextual intelligence and moral choices -- Ups and downs of American moral traditions -- Challenges for a future moral foreign policy -- Conclusions.

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327.73 Nye