True Faith And Allegiance: The Burden of Military Ethics

Introduction

Introduction The principal foundations of all states are good laws and good arms; and there cannot be good laws where there are not good arms. —Machiavelli, The Prince (1513) This book must overcome two main obstacles. The first is created by those, often connected with the far left of the political spectrum, who argue that military people have already renounced ethics by donning uniforms. The second is created by those, often connected with the far right of the political spectrum , who argue that military people should not be accountable to usual ethical standards because "all's fair in love and war." This book proceeds in the firm conviction that ethics in the military is possible, desirable, and necessary. It is probably best, at the outset, to describe first the vexations and then the values that shape and inform it. I am disturbed by writers, such as George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), who imperiously dismiss military professionalism. In 1909 Shaw wrote: "There can no longer be any question of the fact that military service produces moral imbecility." There are moral imbeciles in the military—as there are everywhere— but I do not believe that military service necessarily and invariably produces them. I am troubled by American academic institutions that offer courses in "ethics" without, in many cases, having any reasonable moral standards (or sometimes even scholastic standards) themselves. For the last thirty years, however, the military has been a target of opportunity on many American campuses. These same institutions used to be able to dismiss faculty members for moral turpitude. As Irving Kristol points out, "Our universities don't know what moral turpitude is. But they are very busy devising courses in ethics, for themselves and everyone else. What can they be teaching in such courses? Well, they can 2 TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE teach why and how it is that an educated person should find it presumptuous to claim to know what moral turpitude is. Which is what they do. . . . [Academic ethics] is no longer committed to moral instruction or moral elevation. It is proudly 'valuefree '—i.e., committed to radical, rationalist and supposedly scientific skepticism."1 There seems to be great difficulty in conducting discussions about ethics in the "academic" climate to be found on many campuses today. One no longer has principles, only biases. Ideas about duty are often regarded as old-fashioned; conversations seem to be exclusively about rights. Concepts derived from religious traditions are often dismissed as the property of cranks, even where astrological horoscopes and objects of the occult appear acceptable. I am irritated by the sometimes very difficult prose of ethics textbooks. Most people seem to have a pretty fair sense of what is right and wrong, but the language of instruction seems to confuse, rather than to clarify, issues—perhaps because the content of many courses in ethics suggests that those bourses themselves have no clear idea of right or wrong.2 I am upset by the American national attitude toward questions of ethics. The Wall Street Journal of 8 September 1987 frontpaged this short news summary item: "Ethics are nice, but they can be a handicap, some [business] executives declare." And the media, Irving Kristol has pointed out, "refuse to go beyond the most sketchy and primitive codes of professional behavior, lest this impinge on their rights, as they perceive them, under the First Amendment."3 It would be funny, if it weren't so sad, to see the media and business accusing each other of sleazy practices (in one instance, business correctly won when NBC admitted it had rigged the crash-and-burn scene of a General Motors truck).4 Finally, I am vexed by the.explosion of materials on ethics, very few of which seem concerned with inculcating virtue or with elevating the lives of the students to whom they are addressed . One writer asserts that "schools are increasingly becoming emergency rooms of the emotions, devoted not only to developing minds but also to repairing hearts," perhaps because Americans are less inclined today to value sexual fidelity, Introduction 3 lifelong marriage, and parenthood as worthwhile goals.5 About fifteen years ago philosopher Alasdair Maclntyre pointed out that moral argument in the United States had been so corrupted that Americans could no longer reasonably say to one another, "You should do this or that" and then discuss the issue; instead , we would have to say, "I feel as though...