Military Virtues and Moral Relativism (original) (raw)
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Military Ethics and Virtues: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the 21st Century
2010
Although long-established military virtues, such as honor, courage and loyalty, are what most armed forces today still use as guiding principles in an effort to enhance the moral behavior of soldiers, much depends on whether the military virtues adhered to by these militaries suit a particular mission or military operation. Clearly, the beneficiaries of these military virtues are the soldiers themselves, fellow-soldiers, and military organizations, yet there is little that regulates the behavior of soldiers towards civilian populations. As a result, troops trained for combat in today's missions sometimes experience difficulty in adjusting to the less aggressive ways of working needed to win the hearts and minds of local populations after major combat is over. It can be argued that today's missions call for virtues that are more inclusive than the traditional ones, which are mainly about enhancing military effectiveness, but a convincing case can be made that a lot can already be won by interpreting these traditional virtues in different ways. This volume offers an integrated approach to the main traditional virtues, exploring their possible relevance and proposing new ways of interpretation that are more in line with the military tasks of the 21st century.
Ethics and Armed Forces, 2021
How can military personnel be prevented from using force unlawfully? A critical examination of typical methods and the suitability of virtue ethics for this task starts with the inadequacies of a purely rules-based approach, and the fact that many armed forces increasingly rely on character development training. The three investigated complexes also raise further questions which require serious consideration – such as about the general teachability of virtues. First, the changing roles and responsibilities of modern armed forces are used to refute the notion that timeless, “classic” military virtues exist, for example physical courage. With regard to today’s missions, virtues of restraint seem more necessary. Reflecting on the four interrelated and less military-specific cardinal virtues of courage, wisdom, temperance and justice could bring the military and civil society closer together. At the same time, this would be a logical step towards promoting personality development. Respect is one example of such a “contemporary” inclusive virtue that some armed forces have adopted into their canon of values. Apparently, however, it often refers only to members of one’s own organization. And it is no less inappropriate to use it to justify moral relativism or excuse immoral practices, such as the widespread sexual abuse of Afghan boys by men in positions of power (“boy play”). Finally, the essay asks about the general suitability of a virtue-based approach in ethical education, since social psychological research has shown that situational factors strongly influence behavior. The research findings do not render such an approach worthless, but they should be integrated into military personality training.
First to Fight: Warrior Virtues in the Age of Moral Relativism
Marine Corps Gazette_Copyright is held by the Marine Coprs Gazette, 2017
The purpose of this article is not to resolve the debate over relativism. Instead, it explored warrior virtue, explained the moral factors/elements of war, and then examined an often overlooked dimension of morality: human nature. This was followed by two contemporary examples of moral failure: the problem of SA (sexual assault) and SE (sexual exploitation) in the military. Finally, it recommended how to strengthen both individual and institutional character.
Situations and Dispositions: How to Rescue the Military Virtues from Social Psychology
Journal of Military Ethics, 2017
In recent years, it has been argued more than once that situations determine our conduct to a much greater extent than our character does. This argument rests on the findings of social psychologists such as Stanley Milgram, who have popularized the idea that we can all be brought to harm innocent others. An increasing number of philosophers and ethicists make use of such findings, and some of them have argued that this so-called situationist challenge fatally undermines virtue ethics. As virtue ethics is currently the most popular underpinning for ethics education in the military, it is important to know to what extent the claim situationists make is correct. Fortunately, a closer look indicates that an interactionist perspective, with our character and the situation interplaying, is more accurate than the situationist perspective.
Virtuous Soldiers: A Role for the Liberal Arts?
The modern soldier is faced with a complex moral and psychological landscape. As Nancy Sherman puts it, "soldiers go to war to fight external enemies ... but most fight inner wars as well." The modern soldier is no longer simply a warrior: he (or she) is at once a peacekeeper, diplomat, leader, sibling and friend. In the face of such challenges, some responsible for the teaching of soldiers have endeavoured to incorporate a character-based training program for soldiers; designed to develop virtues which will assist soldiers in fulfilling the multiple roles required of them. However, these training programs are stymied by the dearth of virtue-based discussion within the most influential guide to the moral conduct of soldiers, Just War Theory (JWT). JWT remains a primarily deontic, system in which rights, duties and law are generally perceived as the most important considerations. Virtue ethics has a great deal to offer both JWT and military education programs. However, earlier instantiations of JWT had in mind a specific role for the virtues in the conduct of just war; the virtues were indeed the foundation of JWT. This approach saw the type of actions a soldier or political leader was likely to perform as intimately linked to the type of person that soldier or leader was. The best guarantee of just warfare, therefore, was to ensure it was fought by just men and women. In the first section of this paper I will describe JWT as overwhelmingly rights-interested, and argue that the omission of virtue discussion from JWT is historically inconsistent with the origins of JWT and both a serious problem for the moral theory itself, and for the actual practice of soldiering. A virtue ethics approach to JWT will be shown to serve the basis of the modern-day deontic approach by giving deeper meaning to the rights, laws and duties it espouses; as well as complimenting the deontic theory by providing a suitable psychological explanation of the best circumstances for adherence to its requirements. In the second section I will review a number of examples of virtue-based educational methods suggested for military education. These approaches, the best of which focus on enabling capacities such as autonomy, responsibility and critical thinking, will be shown to be easily complemented by the liberal arts approach to education's formative interest in the development of moral and intellectual virtues within its students. A broad, liberal arts-inspired education would facilitate the moral virtues and thus encourage greater rule adherence; and by fostering intellectual virtues, empower soldiers to seriously consider the justice of the causes for which they fight.
War Rights and Military Virtues A Philosophical Re-appraisal of Just War Theory
The overwhelming majority of theorists addressing questions of the morality of war do so from within the moral framework provided by Just War Theory (JWT): a normative account of war that dates back over 1500 years in the Western Tradition. However, today’s iterations of Just War Theory are markedly different from those of its intellectual ancestors. Specifically, today’s accounts tend not to consider matters of moral virtue, personal excellence, moral psychology, or human flourishing – that is, aretaic matters – to be worthy subjects of discussion. Instead, they prefer to focus overtly on questions of law, justice, and human rights – deontological questions – as if they were the entire purview of a comprehensive morality of war. I explore some of the major theorists in the history of Western JWT, showing that the ancestors of today’s just war theories did consider aretaic matters – in particular the moral virtues – to be of central importance to the morality of war. I also show how and why it came to be that deontological and aretaic discussions became fragmented in contemporary JWT. In order to demonstrate how this fragmentation is problematic, I consider deontological ethics’ connection to aretaic ethics. I explain how contemporary JWT tends to conceptualise rights, emphasising the central place of intention in those theories. I show how aretaic ethics can enrich deontological appraisals of ongoing debates in military ethics. Finally, I make a positive case for aretaic ethics by identifying new questions that aretaic ethics reveals to JWT, those being: the complexity of the identity of soldiers, how moral character and identity can help prevent moral transgressions, and the moral and psychological trauma suffered by many soldiers and veterans. I argue that aretaic modes of thinking help to explain moral transgressions of soldiers and the psychological difficulties that veterans can experience post-war. Deontological and aretaic ethics also interact in the three professions most relevant to waging war: soldiers, commanders, and political leaders. I show how the virtues are necessary character traits in order to guarantee that warfighters and their political leaders can be relied on to fulfil their professional duties. Aretaic ethical analysis is also able to provide conceptual understanding of supererogatory actions. Contemporary just war theorists would be wise to re-integrate aretaic ethics into their considerations of the morality of war. Aretaic ethics can be combined seamlessly and productively with deontological ethics, yielding more robust and intelligible responses to the most pressing controversies facing military ethics today. Rights and deontology present crucial elements of the ethics war, but they can be ably complemented by insights from aretaic ethics; specifically, matters of character and the moral development of the agent. Furthermore, incorporating aretaic ethics into JWT enables theorists to utilise that framework to consider matters currently outside of its purview, but which are of growing relevance to military practice.
Shielding Humanity: a new approach to military honour
In recent years there has been a growing interest in approaches to military ethics that focus on guarding the moral character of soldiers against the horrors they may be required to commit in war. This approach, which Christopher Toner calls the “shield approach”, offers a variety of mechanisms by which soldiers might shape their characters (or have their characters shaped) in ways that reduce their vulnerability to moral corruption; specifically, the likelihood of their committing moral atrocities. Two prominent examples of the shield approach are those of Nancy Sherman and Shannon French. Sherman argues that the inculcation of empathy within soldiers; empathy for the plight and humanity of noncombatants, enemy soldiers, and colleagues, is the best way for soldiers to guard themselves against committing atrocities. French, on the other hand, argues that appealing to a warrior code of honour provides soldiers with an internalised set of beliefs about the type of things that soldiers should and should not do. In this paper I will argue that Sherman’s approach, whilst effective in preventing the killing of noncombatants, will do little to restrain soldier’s passions when the target of those passions is culpable for some wrongdoing (i.e. killing a member of the troop). French’s approach, on the other hand, relies on a soldier seeing himself primarily as a warrior (and thus being governed by the warrior code). The difficulty here is that the soldier’s conduct is governed by what the rest of his peers (fellow warriors) see as laudable or blameworthy. A better approach, I believe, is revealed to us by Shakespeare in Coriolanus when the protagonist, Caius Marcius, is persuaded against destroying Rome by the exhortations of his mother, who reminds him of the shame he will bring on himself as a son, a husband, a father, and as a Roman. Coriolanus is swayed by the prospect of shame not by fellow soldiers, but by society generally. In a similar vein, this paper will argue for a variant on the shield approach which appeals to the soldiers’ self-identity outside of the military, as well as his role as a warrior. Coriolanus’ eyes are brought to “sweat compassion” out of love for his mother, and his memories of home. This approach is also appealing in that it can be applied more easily to the growing number of military operators who do not fit the warrior archetype, such as drone operators. Thus, soldiers will do well to remember their moral commitments on the “home front”, as well as the expectations of fellow soldiers.
Why the Military Needs Confucian Virtues
The U.S. military often focuses on virtues that are deeply interconnected with the ways individuals interact with one another, highlighting character traits that are on public display that don’t just make more excellent individuals, but that help make us more excellent together. While some might try to reduce ethics to nothing more than the bumper sticker slogan of “doing the right thing when no one else is looking," the U.S. military often stresses that doing the right thing when everyone else is looking is another essential aspect of the ethics, one that requires much, much more of us than we might have initially suspected. It is in many ways surprising, therefore, that the military hardly ever, if ever, appeals to the philosophical foundation most suitable to those aims: Confucian virtue theory. This brief introductory piece attempts to argue why Confucian ethics are an essential element for a proper understanding of military ethics.