The Nobel Committee recently awarded the European Union the Nobel Peace Prize. I was unaware that there is a history of the Nobel Committee giving this award to organizations and not persons. This article rather gives a slight critique of the Nobel Committee using it's clout to act as an agent on the world stage.
If there is an argument in this article I believe it is in this perplexingly written paragraph near the end:
"Yet we find ourselves asking whether it is really the job of the committee to use this award to get involved in current affairs rather than to single out great achievements, as the awards to Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa did. And we find it a bit hard to accept the singling out of the E.U. (which Norwegians have voted against joining) for its fostering of peace in Europe since World War II, when NATO and the United States were at least as responsible."
If anything he seems to be describing an argument for why the EU should not have been awarded the Prize.
1)The role of the committee is not to get involved in current affairs
2)Awarding the EU the Nobel Peace Prize is getting involved in current affairs
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3)The role of the committee is not to award the EU the Prize
If there is an argument in this article I believe it is in this perplexingly written paragraph near the end:
"Yet we find ourselves asking whether it is really the job of the committee to use this award to get involved in current affairs rather than to single out great achievements, as the awards to Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa did. And we find it a bit hard to accept the singling out of the E.U. (which Norwegians have voted against joining) for its fostering of peace in Europe since World War II, when NATO and the United States were at least as responsible."
If anything he seems to be describing an argument for why the EU should not have been awarded the Prize.
1)The role of the committee is not to get involved in current affairs
2)Awarding the EU the Nobel Peace Prize is getting involved in current affairs
-------------------
3)The role of the committee is not to award the EU the Prize
Nicely done. Of course, if we gauge what the Nobel Peace Prize ought to be about by the ways it has very frequently been used in the past, then the first premise is manifestly false -- Aung Sang Suu Kii, Martin Luther King, Jr., and even Henry Kissinger, Al Gore, and Barack Obama are among many examples of the Prize attempting to further peace strategically. If the author thinks the Nobel committee should not do this, we would need a separate argument to that effect.
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