Ethics and the Military Profession The Moral Foundations of Leadership

George Lucas is Class of 1984 Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, U.S. Naval Academy, and  Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.

Capt. William Richard Rubel served as a Naval Officer for 30 years, including operations in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Iranian Contingency Operations, and Battle Damage repairs during Desert Storm. He has been the Distinguished Military Professor of Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy since 2002.

Introduction to the Fourth Edition: “The Age of Hybrid War” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

I. Why Study Ethics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

On the Eve of Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Ring of Gyges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Why Ethics is So Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

II. The Moral Framework of Military Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

A. The Relativity of Moral Beliefs and Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Relativism and Objectivism: Are There Universal Values?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

A Higher Moral Standard for the Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Service: Conflicts of Principles and Loyalties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

The Moral Foundations of Military Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Constitutional Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The American Professional Military Ethic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Letter from Birmingham City Jail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

REFERENCE: The Constitution of the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

C. Religion and Military Ethics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Religion and Morality: Exploring the Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Practical Reasoning and Moral Casuistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Abraham’s Obedience Tested. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

III. Traditions of Moral Reasoning in Western Culture . . . . . . 113

A. Utilitarianism and the Greatest Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Utilitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Utilitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

B. “Acting on Principle”: the Ethics of Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

from Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns . . . . . . . . . . 167

C. Aristotle and the Ethics of Virtue and Character . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

The Moral Virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Habit and Virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Courage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Friendship……. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Pride, vanity, humility……. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

The Great Sin…… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

J. Glenn Gray

D. The Tradition of Natural Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

from Summa Theologica, Ethics and Natural Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

from The Ethics of Natural Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Natural Law and the Principle of Double Effect: Six Hypothetical Cases . . . . 217

Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

A. The Justification for Going to War (Jus ad Bellum) . . . . . . . . . . 231

Is it Always Sinful to Wage War? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Law and Order in International Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Wars of Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

From jus ad bellum to jus ad pacem: Re-thinking Just War Criteria for

Irregular War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

The Concept and Practice of Jihad in Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

B. The Moral Code of the Warrior (Jus in Bello) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Jus in bello–Just Conduct in War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Guerrilla War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Just War Criteria and the New Face of War: Human Shields, Manufactured

Martyrs, and Little Boys with Stones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Ethical Issues in the Use of Military Force in Irregular Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Perspectives on Irregular Warfare: The Case of Somalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Why Warriors Need a Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Defending Liberty and Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

A. Liberty and Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

On Liberty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

War and Self-Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

B. Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Excerpts from A Theory of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Distributive Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Crime and Punishment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

from Billy Budd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

C. Upholding the Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Lying: Moral Choice in Public & Private Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

James B. Stockdale and Stoic Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Courage Under Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

The Enchiridion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Roman Stoicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

A Vietnam Experience, Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Admiral James B. Stockdale’s Leadership Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

VII. Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

The Hiding Places of Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

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