How Philosophy Plays a Role in Politics and International Events

All human acts are voluntary acts, and the human agent is responsible for the consequences of those voluntary acts. When examining final causality, one must examine the execution and intentionality of the final cause, in particular every effect must have an efficient cause and every agent acts for an end, to bring about the effect. After spending quite a bit of time following the presidential election of 2004, I realized how one of the candidates had no sense of how much damage his decision to remove American troops from Iraq would cause for both the United States and the Middle East. This one act would cause a horrible turmoil in the end, with the final result of more horrific situations than anyone could imagine. Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush both had plans for the troops in Iraq and the security of our nation, however John Kerry’s decision to pull the troops from Iraq may have been an unintentional act, but the result was foreseeable and in the end would have only killed more innocent people in the Middle East along with soldiers of the United States.