Military Ethics

Military Ethics

Military ethics pertain to a wide range of issues, such as the conduct of soldiers and the supervisors and the relations between these entities and their civilian leaders as well as matters relating to war. For many years, there has been an ongoing debate on the category of ethics under which military ethics belongs to. This paper argues that military ethics is a combination of professional ethics and normative ethics.

In his article titled “International Justice and Military,” Jokić (2018) explores the various arguments presented regarding military ethics. One of the arguments presented in this article is about military ethics being part of professional ethics. However, the article under review posits that military ethics is not part of professional ethics. On this note, Jokić (2018) argues that professional ethics are not a matter of ethics but policy. Professional ethics comprises the rules and regulations that guide the action and conducts of people operating in a certain field of practice. Examples of individuals who are guided by professional ethics include doctors and lawyers. On this note, a doctor can turn to the guidelines offered by the organizations governing this field of practice when an ethical dilemma faces him or her. For instance, an American doctor may refrain from administering euthanasia to a terminally-ill patient who has requested him or her to terminate his or her life since the directive issued by the American Medical Association forbid such conduct (Jokić, 2018). Similarly, lawyers are required to follow specific rules set by their professional bodies before making certain decision regarding the client they can represents and what information to diverge to various entities.

Professional ethics differ from one country or jurisdiction to another. As a result, a lawyer or doctor in one area is bound by specific rules that are different to those in another jurisdiction. For instance, a lawyer working in Canada and is a member of the Quebec cannot go about disclosing information pertaining to an ongoing case he or she is handling to the media even if he or she thinks that he or she is serving the client’s best interests (Jokić, 2018). The situation would be handled differently in America. For instance, the American lawyer is not forbidden from using the media to sanitize his or her client’s image that is being tarnished by the media (Jokić, 2018). This means that professionals have very little or no discretion when dealing with a dilemma in their practice since they are supposed to follow policies provided by the professional body that they are a member of for guidance on how to reserve the situation they are facing.

At the same time, Jokić (2018) argues that professional ethics is not a matter of ethics but policy since there are three different normative discourses. These discourses are legal, political, and moral orders. Actions can either be right or wrong, permissible or impermissible based on whether one is assessing it from a political, legal, or social perspective. For instance, abortion can be morally wrong but legally permissible (Jokić, 2018). As such, any assessment of a normative statement must put into consideration the social situations responsible for producing the claim in question. At the same time, moral judgments change from one era to another. For instance, there was a time in which slavery was morally wrong but legally permissible in America. Besides, infidelity is considered to be morally wrong but it is legally permissible. This is what Jokić (2018) refers to as reflexivity of normativity. The notion of reflexivity of normativity points to moral judgments changing depending on the domains and eras that they are based on.

Additionally, Jokić (2018) thinks that military ethics is not analogous to professional ethics. As already established, medical doctors follow conventions passed by the American Medical Association. As such, professionals such as lawyers and doctors operate under professional ethics. As compared to conventions, the normative domain has its rules that are not formulated by any person for others to follow. According to Jokić (2018), moral deliberations are not governed by conventions and are neither part of political nor legal orders. For instance, the recognition of the negative implications of slavery justified the passage of laws outlawing it. This means that moral reasoning may justify the changing of polices. For this reason, Jokić (2018) argues that moral order as comprising of the legal and political domains. On the other hand, legal orders are more important than political ones. For this reason, one cannot use moral justification as a defense for violating the law.

On the other hand, this paper seeks to establish that military ethics is as a result of professional and normative deliberations. For instance, soldiers are forbidden from attacking areas inhabited by civilians, especially women and children. At the same time, failure by the soldiers to abide by the federal and international conventions regarding armed conflict may result in soldiers being held accountable under the existing legal framework. At the same time, soldiers are required to exercise their discretion when they are stationed in areas experiencing armed conflict. Doctors and lawyers have the time to consult the codes and directions provided for by the organizations that they are members of whenever they are facing a dilemma in their practices. On the other hand, soldiers are often faced with life and death situations where there is no right or wrong decision. Whichever decisions they make may translate to life or death outcomes for them, their colleagues, or other entities. Traditionally, there are two sets of judgments pertaining to the morality of the use of military force. One of these judgments pertains to jus ad bellum, which involves assessing whether or not there are situations in which the use of force is warranted (Jokić, 2018). However, there are conventions and pieces of legislation that govern the extent to which force can be used in armed conflict. At the same time, political domains play a crucial role in justifying the use of force. According to Jokić (2018), the legal domain is far superior to the political one. As such, the military is expected to act in a certain way by existing conventions. Failure to adhere to these conventions may result in the military being reprimanded by a country’s ruling systems, such as the Congress. Also, international organizations may join hands to condemn how the military conducted its business while operating in certain parts of the world.

On the other hand, jus in bello focuses on the conduct of soldiers during combat (Jokić, 2018). This is the realm of military ethics that is heavily influenced by normative ethics. While in the battleground, the conduct of the individual soldiers is influenced, to a large extent, by their decision-making process as opposed to the existing conventions or laws. According to Jokić (2018), the just war theory postulates that although war has mainly negative implications, it is usually not the worst idea. Individuals who believe that military ethics are part of professional ethics provide four tasks that they think justify their position. One of these tasks involves the critical evaluation of the laws of armed conflict (LOAC) (Jokić, 2018). The presence of laws guiding the conduct of soldiers when they are engaged in situations involving war makes military ethics a part of professional ethics. The other task involves an assessment of the insights history can provide regarding the development of the military profession (Jokić, 2018). This task is supposed to prove that the military is a field of practice that has evolved over time, and this makes it similar to other fields.

The normative aspect of military ethics is usually ignored because, in most cases, the society and the military usually have a common frame of reference regarding the action of soldiers, especially when it comes to the use of force during armed conflict. The political domain of the society ensures that it makes use of the resources it has at its disposal to convince the masses that certain military actions are necessary. One of these tools is the mass media. Through the mass media, the political domain of the society tends to portray one of the conflict parties is the aggressive one that needs to be tamed by whichever methods available. When this happens, the laws of the land, as well as the international conventions, are manipulated to support the course of action that the political leaders have seen fit. As already established, decisions pertaining to both jus in bello and jus ad bellum are made by individuals in all levels of the military and civilian leadership (Jokić, 2018). However, society also engages in ethical decisions regarding these decisions. In a democratic society where citizens have easy and free access to information, citizens, the mass media, religious leaders, among others make independent assessments of the morality of the decisions reached by military and political leaders. These leaders must persuade the masses that there is a justifiable reason for the use of military force in specific situations. At the same time, the actions of specific military leaders and individual soldiers can become an object of ethical assessment and national scrutiny. One of the areas that may raise a serious challenge as far as military ethics is concerned involves access to information pertaining to soldiers’ participation of armed conflict by the masses. In essence, military ethics is an essential component of professional ethics as well as normative ethics.

In conclusion, the article under review opposes the argument that military ethics is part of professional ethics. Instead of being part of professional ethics, military ethics is part of applied ethics. However, this paper has demonstrated that the line between military ethics and professional ethics is very thin, and it is easily crossable. This is because the conduct of soldiers is guided by federal and international conventions. In this sense, soldiers are professionals who have to abide by existing federal and international conventions. At the same time, being a soldier means that a person is required to make many decisions at any given moment, especially during situations in which the military is involved in armed conflict. Besides, military ethics is part of the normative ethics because the military and its civilian leaders have to consider the opinions of the masses since the former are accountable to the latter.

References

Jokić, A. (2018). International Justice and Military Ethics. In international justice after the Cold War: essays with applications. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.