Who Decides Freedom? Investigating the Ethics of Intervention in Afghanistan
In 2001, the United States launched its invasion of Afghanistan partly under the banner of liberating women from Taliban rule, but was liberation ever really the goal? Afghan women who had long suffered under Taliban rule were supposedly rescued by foreign powers after the War on Terror. However, is that the actual outcome they experienced? Were women truly rescued? This article argues that while intervention may be justified as an ethical responsibility, it often becomes an unethical misstep that leads to more detrimental consequences and further jeopardizes those who are already vulnerable.
A Moral Intervention
One state involving itself in another’s affairs is usually considered a breach of sovereignty. It’s as though I went into my neighbor’s house and rearranged the living room, unasked and uninvited. However, in the circumstance of human rights breaches and violence, an intervention may be a moral step.
Martha Nussbaum’s “Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach” shows that with moral universalism -the idea that certain rights apply to all people everywhere- clear boundaries can be drawn after which intervention becomes not only justified, but morally necessary. Her position allows for intervention because practices that deny people, particularly women, basic liberties and opportunities should not be protected simply because they are culturally or religiously traditional.
Nussbaum openly criticizes cultural relativism -the idea that practices should be understood and judged within their own cultural context- emphasizing its immoral nature when it comes to women. Many cultural traditions around the world, to varying degrees, undermine women’s rights and freedom, whether through forced marriage, full dependence on a husband’s permission, or practices such as widow burning. The violent neglect of women as a custom reflects outdated and brutal tendencies in male-dominated societies, where physical power was historically used to maintain authority. This ultimately leads to consequences in which “many women all over the world don’t have” the idea “that it was a violation of rights.” While tradition may present these practices as culturally appropriate, both law and basic human rights clearly condemn them. Nussbaum’s perspective is prominent in Western politics and academia, and justifies intervention when it seeks to prevent clear harm and protect basic human rights. She also emphasizes, “certain universal norms of human capability should be central.” I agree with this position and would add that such traditions should be questioned when they systematically undermine women’s rights and well-being. In this context, cultural relativism becomes problematic because it can be used to excuse harm under the label of tradition, rather than critically assessing whether those practices are morally defensible.
In this way, we arrive at moral universalism, which directly contradicts the view that all social practices should be understood and evaluated within their own cultural context. I argue for a middle ground: although cultural relativism should be respected, it must only be applied as long as it does not cross the line of violating basic human rights.
There are various forms of violations of women’s rights, ranging from limited access to education to violence and murder. In order to assess whether intervention is justified, we must assess the means through which it occurs: military involvement, occupation of territory, or overthrowing a leader or a group. Intervention may be regarded as unnecessary when the result does not justify the means, for example, when it is carried out because of a specific cultural tradition that does not involve violence toward individuals, but simply differs from other countries’ customs. As Lila Abu-Lughod argues in “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others”, such interventions can impose external values rather than support vulnerable people’s agency.
So, at what stage can we determine whether intervention should happen or not? Although no universal standard exists, judgments about intervention are often based on perceptions of the level of harm involved. I assume that fewer countries are likely to intervene in cases where rights such as access to education, the ability to pursue a career, or emotional well-being are limited, not because these issues are unimportant, but because they do not involve immediate physical violence or death. In many societies, “domestic violence, child sexual abuse and child marriage, inequality before the law, poverty, lack of dignity and self-regard” are “human rights abuses,” and appear to be the primary indicators that justify intervention. This is because violence is widely regarded as cruel. The logic pertains that an intervention, which itself may involve violence, can be justified when it aims to stop greater harm. Thus, extending Nussbaum’s argument, intervention may be justified when it seeks to prevent severe violations of human dignity and fundamental capabilities, particularly when the consequences of inaction would result in greater harm. One would think that this enables leaders to act morally and liberate minorities, preventing the worst.
Does moral universalism inevitably lead to liberty for Afghan women?
The idea of the “liberation” of Muslim women, particularly within Western political and media discourse, became a widely discussed issue after the events of 9/11. Under Taliban rule, an Islamist militant group, many women in Afghanistan were subjected to violence backed by religious beliefs. As a result of the group’s actions, the legal and political system was severely weakened. The United States intervened in the country, claiming to do so to confront the violent regime established in the region. However, did this intervention truly lead to the liberation it promised, or does it reveal the limitations of moral universalism in practice?
Many people supported the intervention and were largely influenced by justifications grounded in moral universalism - the idea that everyone has equal rights, including women, and therefore intervention on their behalf is necessary. There are reasons to support this view, which can be aligned with Nussbaum’s argument. Women under Taliban rule were subjected to strict control in public life, including limitations on movement, participation in society, and interaction outside the household. Apart from that, women were denied access to education and employment, significantly limiting their independence and opportunities. Despite the Taliban’s attempts to establish their authority, many of their restrictions cannot be directly supported by religious texts. As a result, we can see that most fundamental human rights of women were neglected and justified as religiously correct, even though not all of these practices were grounded in the Quran. It seemed that external help may be needed, and, based on Nussbaum’s argument, intervention to challenge Taliban rule could be justified.
However, were women truly saved? If they were, the intervention can be considered morally right.
To assess this complex question, I turn to Lila Abu-Lughod’s paper, in which she argues that we should not justify intervention in other cultures by claiming that we are “saving women,” because this idea oversimplifies their lives and often serves political agendas. Her argument promotes cultural relativism, as opposed to moral universalism. From this perspective, intervention in Afghanistan cannot be fully justified, as the cultural context was not sufficiently taken into account.
Abu-Lughod argues that the intervention and its moral justification restricts Afghan women to passive victims, ignoring their agency and their own ways of responding to their circumstances. For example, Western media often portrayed the burqa as a symbol of women’s oppression in Afghanistan. However, many women continued to wear it after the U.S. intervention, indicating that its use cannot be explained solely as a result of Taliban coercion. Second, it assumes that Western societies know what is “best,” which reflects a form of ethnocentrism. As Lila Abu-Lughod argues, “projects of saving other women depend on and reinforce a sense of superiority by Westerners.” Third, it can be used to justify intervention for reasons unrelated to women’s rights, such as security concerns or political influence. For example, although the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was primarily motivated by counterterrorism after 9/11, the oppression of Afghan women was often used to help legitimize it for a broader audience. Finally, in practice, the intervention did not consistently or sustainably improve women’s lives.
I argue that even when intervention may be justified in principle, its success largely depends on how it is done. When women’s rights are instrumentalized to pursue broader political or strategic goals, the intervention becomes ethically problematic. Rather than liberating the oppressed, it imposes damages through military intervention and undermines women’s autonomy and agency.
Perhaps, as suggested earlier, there are middle grounds. The United States’ intervention was militaristic, but other options to promote human rights exist. If an alternative approach had been adopted - one that supported local initiatives and gave women greater agency to define their own freedom and social roles - the moral justification of the intervention might have been viewed differently.
