by Rushworth M. Kidder

The world’s battle with pirates off the coast of Somalia came to a head last weekend with reports of two rescue efforts. One was a complete success. In the other, a hostage died. Were both — or either — ethically right?

The success came on Sunday, when a team of U.S. Navy Seals rescued Richard Phillips, the captain of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama, from a lifeboat where he was being held by three Somali pirates. The shootout, which left his captors dead, came after U.S. negotiators refused the pirates’ offer to free Capt. Phillips in return for their own freedom.

The less successful venture came on Thursday, when French soldiers stormed the Tanit, a 41-foot yacht seized by pirates five days earlier. The commandos freed four French hostages and killed or captured the five pirates on board. But the yacht’s owner, Florent Lemacon, was killed during the attack. French government officials repeatedly had warned the two families aboard the yacht, which was headed for Zanzibar, not to sail through the Gulf of Aden, where the attack took place.

Behind these events lie several ethical premises. On the first set, we probably can all agree:

• Premise: Piracy is criminal, with no moral justification.
• Premise: Maintaining sea lanes free from piracy is essential to international trade.
• Conclusion: Nations should take vigorous steps to eliminate piracy, by force if necessary.

The second set is more complex:

• Premise: Ransom should never be paid, and pirates should always be punished.
• Premise: Protecting the lives of innocent hostages is of overriding importance.
• Conclusion: Nations should …?

Here’s where the moral sledding gets tough. These premises are at odds with each other. Should nations put the needs of the whole community above the safety of their own citizens? Or should they refuse to put at risk the lives of noncombatants — innocent people who have not signed up for military service? Must they be willing to sacrifice hostages in order to convince thugs that no effort will be spared to eradicate piracy? Or must they value the tangible life of each citizen above the abstract principles of international trade?

The challenge of this individual-versus-community dilemma, of course, is that both sides are right. The case on the individual side was made last week by James Christodoulou, who was held hostage for 56 days last November when his ship was taken by Somali pirates. The CEO of Industrial Shipping Enterprises Corp., Christodoulou described to National Public Radio the patient steps that he took — and the ransom his company paid — to negotiate the safe release of his crew. Christodoulou says that as CEO he feels the lives and safety of a crew are “my primary concern — and, believe me, I would do anything that I had to to make sure that they were returned home.”

From this individualist perspective — and presumably from that of Capt. Phillips’s family in Vermont — the only ethical position is to “do anything” to protect innocent lives first, and to worry about dealing with global piracy later. It’s a perspective that a rule-based Kantian thinker could applaud. If the principle is that you always avoid killing or causing death, then you would want everyone in the world to hold to that principle regardless of the immediate consequences for piracy, shipping, or international affairs. You would, in other words, always negotiate instead of risk an attack.

From the point of view of the community, however, it is enormously important to stamp out piracy. The BBC, reporting that piracy may have cost the world $60 million to $70 million in higher prices for goods shipped internationally, cites Kenyan government estimates that pirates received $150 million in ransom over the past year. Result: Pirates buy faster boats, more powerful weapons, and sophisticated navigational systems. That kind of cash also makes piracy ever more alluring — and tougher to stamp out.

From this perspective, then, the only ethical position is to defend the entire community, even at the cost of the occasional sacrifice of an innocent noncombatant. Here the ends-based utilitarian thinkers would be comfortable. Wanting to do the greatest good for the greatest number, they would argue that sometimes a small amount of bad (like a hostage death) may be necessary. So you would always attack if negotiations stalled — and never let pirates go unpunished.

Was it right, then, for the French soldiers to attack last week, even though it resulted in a death? Does the fact that Monsieur Lemacon ignored the warnings make his life less valuable than if he had turned back? Or is all human life equally valuable? In the end, was his death an unfortunate but necessary sacrifice to deter piracy and save future French lives?

And was it right for the Navy Seals to attack despite the fact that it turned out well? If Capt. Phillips had died, would the attack have been wrong? Is the nation right to insist on signaling a tough line on piracy? Or should the Navy have accepted the pirates’ offer of Phillips’s freedom for their own — a bargain Mr. Christodoulou probably would have snapped up?

The point: Like so much in our world today, these are not right-versus-wrong issues but right-versus-right dilemmas. Case by case and nation by nation, policymakers, military officers, and law enforcement personnel will continue to sit around tables and discuss how best to respond to piracy. At times they’ll vote to attack and at times to negotiate. And at no time will either group have the moral standing to say flatly to the other side, “You’re wrong!” Nor, as citizens, will we.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

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