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Identifying peacekeeping as practical ethics helps analyze how the problems of existing approaches to military ethical training led to practical problems of standard setting. This article illustrates the value of understanding ethics as a theoretical framework to confront and prepare for moral practice. Pointing out the problems in terms of how military ethics ascertain the nature of ethics, the field of military ethics frames problems in ways that undermine standard settings for moral practice. Specifying these problems complements established theoretical inputs and helps peacekeepers better adjust to the moral choices and dilemmas ahead. This is particularly because military ethical training is also about coming to terms with society's moral standards and demands that led to peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in the first place. The article illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to military ethical training with the example of Austrian peacekeeper ethical training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that morality matters to strategy, often through emotions. However, this research has not fully engaged with contemporary psychological research to enunciate our understanding of the relationship between morality, strategy, and emotions. This article argues that a proper engagement with contemporary psychological research usefully contributes to our understanding of the given relationship, particularly in the context of strategic studies. Specifically, contemporary psychological research highlights the importance of distinguishing among various specific emotions, explains the complicated relationship between emotion and behavior, allows for finding patterns in variance, and offers an opportunity to study the malleability of morality in strategic context. This improved understanding of the relevant relationship provides solid grounds for further research on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals have been almost entirely absent from scholarly appraisals of the ethics of war. Just-war theory concerns when communities may permissibly resort to war; who may wage war; who they may harm in war; and what kinds of harm they may cause. Each question can be complicated by animals' inclusion. After introducing just-war theory and the argument for an animal-inclusive just-war theory, this paper reviews ethical appraisals of war on animals' behalf and wars against animals. It then turns to consider harm to and use of animals in war. It concludes by considering questions in the ethics of war beyond just-war theory as traditionally construed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous factors are known to impact human decision-making: fatigue, stress, fear, sleep deprivation, organizational culture, ethics, and even substances consumed, among others. Making decisions within the context of a military operation poses exceptional challenges. Time constraints are consistently tight, and military personnel often contend with physical and mental exhaustion, along with substantial stress and fear. Our proactive strategies for addressing these hurdles predominantly revolve around educating military personnel, incorporating both theoretical training and immersive simulations that may include different types of war games, role playing and VR applications that mimic real-world challenges. However, can we extend our efforts further to ensure that military personnel surmount difficulties and consistently make morally and legally sound decisions amidst exceptional situations? Moreover, where does trust lie: in the insights of a comrade, a commanding officer, or the guidance provided by sophisticated algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems? Could AI potentially outperform human guidance when it comes to elevating the ethical and legal discernment of military personnel amid the intensity of combat situations? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, military violence has been legitimized using consumer marketing practices, particularly microtargeting. This responsive strategy invites various audiences to interpret military violence and thereby become its legitimation agents. The lethality concept recently adopted by the IDF has been central to such a strategy. Communicated in a deliberately vague manner, lethality served as an effective mechanism for legitimizing violence by allowing competing and dynamic interpretations, aligned with the values and interests of different social groups. The present study examined this mechanism by analyzing readers' comments on lethality-related news articles, and found it to be highly effective in achieving legitimacy by marking the concept's ethical boundaries and the sectorial interests bound up with it. Following this dialogue with the public, the military chose to highlight the relation between lethality and the relative security calm and economic prosperity achieved in Israel, marketing the IDF as the "largest startup in the country." This responsive strategy, however, compromises the democratic process by shifting the choice of strategic concepts from elected representatives onto a direct dialogue between the military and its favored legitimation agents. It also erodes the military's apolitical status and has a heavy ethical, operational and moral price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Involvement of senior commanders in bribery and sex scandals and deviations from ethical values and norms in operational units raises questions regarding the effectiveness of the learning mechanisms of ethics education in military colleges. The digression of those who are supposed to be role models from the professional and ethical point of view led to a series of studies on the subject. The review reveals that despite the establishment of an educational framework, there is still a lack of a clear strategy for the management of ethics education. The studies are mainly based on memorization and compliance with rules, and the methods do not properly develop critical thinking, nor do they impart applied knowledge on how to design an ethical organizational culture. The existing evaluation processes do not measure the effectiveness of the ethical programs on changing the ethical climate in the units. Addressing the gap between what is declared and what is done in practice requires a paradigm shift in ethics education and the initiation of an extensive strategic move to examine basic assumptions, goals and learning mechanisms. An outline for operative steps presented at the end of the article may help to lead the change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honor, freedom of expression, and judicial independence are core values in modern societies. The latter two are associated with democracy and liberalism, while the roots of honor lie in the need for recognition. The British in Mandate era Palestine came from a democratic tradition, but it is unclear whether, and to what degree they intended the locals to enjoy these values. The article analyzes a series of defamation cases which shed light on the way the British Mandate courts balanced these concepts when plaintiffs sued after being accused of loyalty to the British. Such cases were unique in requiring judges to exert independence in their balancing of the plaintiff's honor, the defendant's freedom of expression, and the courts' willingness to accept loyalty to the Crown as negative and offensive. This was a three-dimensional test case of British attitudes towards the three values. We show that at least some of British judges in the lower courts perceived themselves as independent and were willing to set aside the honor of the British government in order to allow the local inhabitants to defend their own honor. This adds to our understanding of the roots of judicial-independence and honor in (pre)-State Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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There has recently been increasing interest in the possibility and ethics of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), which would combine sophisticated AI with machinery capable of deadly force. One objection to LAWS is that their use will create a troubling responsibility gap, where no human agent can properly be held accountable for the outcomes that they create. While some authors have attempted to show that individual agents can, in fact, be responsible for the behaviour of LAWS in various circumstances, this will not be possible in all cases. This article argues, however, that by assigning responsibilities to group agents operating within the military‐industrial complex, as well as the military‐industrial complex as a whole, we may be able to close the responsibility gap, or at least reduce its costs. Insofar as the potential for responsibility gaps poses an ethical barrier to the development and deployment of LAWS, this argument, if sound, may show their use to be morally permissible in a greater range of cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the problem of conciliation of military authority and peacekeepers' autonomy. At first glance there is a tension between authority and autonomy in many areas of human life like religion, political life, national soldiering and even peacekeeping missions. The core of this tension is the practical contradiction between authority, which implies reason for controlling the behaviour of others, and the autonomy of the others, which involves reason for self-governing. This article proposes a distinction in peacekeepers' autonomy between professional and moral autonomy, and suggests a way of explaining away the tension. The essential part of the solution is the claim that peacekeepers' professional autonomy involves 'building the moral community' between the formerly hostile sides of a conflict within the confines of international military hierarchy. From this claim I draw the conclusions that the concept of military authority is part of the concept of peacekeepers' professional autonomy, and that due to the content of peacekeepers' professional autonomy, peacekeepers' special moral autonomy is extended as compared to civilian moral autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the First World War, many soldiers in the Belgian Army were endowed with a decoration, in order to inspire, motivate, and reward desirable conduct. The relationship between decorations and the soldier's self-consciousness, his behaviour and his emotions, is present in every aspect of decorating, as it emphasized his self-esteem, pride, and character. By analysing the material aspects of decorations, the ceremonies surrounding their bestowal, and the textual motivation for doing so, this article explores the functions and effects of decorating, the evaluation of behaviour and self-conscious emotions by both Army Command and soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors from Cicero to Smith held honor to be indispensable to make people see and do what is right. As they considered honor to be a social motive, they did not think this dependence on honor was a problem. Today, we tend to see honor as a self‐regarding motive, but do not see this as problematic because we stopped seeing it as a necessary incentive. Bernard Mandeville, however, agreed with the older authors that honor is indispensable, but agreed with us moderns that it is a self‐interested motive. Honor might be necessary to keep society functioning, but that does not make it less self‐serving. Mandeville thus combined the classical preoccupation with honor and the modern view of man as self‐seeking. That our motivations are self‐serving is something we wish to hide from others and ourselves; society benefits because we generally behave well in order to live up to this inflated (self‐)image. Hypocrisy is the price we pay for living together peacefully. It is this sobering view on honor that sets Mandeville apart from later authors on the subject, particularly David Hume and Adam Smith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UAVs undermine the shared recognition of humanity between enemies that has historically functioned as a prerequisite for battlefield restraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the notion of universal human rights allows for the idea that states (and supranational organizations such as the European Union) can, or even should, control and impose restrictions on migration, both notions clearly do not sit well together. The ensuing tension manifests itself in our ambivalent attitude towards migration, but also affects the border guards who have to implement national and supranational policies on migration. Little has been written on the ethics that has to guide these border guards in their work. Juxtaposing the ethics of border guarding against the ethics of the somewhat related military profession, this article attempts to (a) describe border guarding as a comparatively rule-guided profession; (b) outline the aim and basis of the ethics education that prepares border guards for their work; and (c) propose a research agenda for the future that should further our understanding of (a) and (b), but also help us improve the moral education of border guards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I ask whether the martial virtues can serve as a role morality for soldiers. In it I compare three role morality theories and ask, according to each, whether the role of 'soldier' is the kind of role that generates a role morality. I conclude that the cultivation of the martial virtues may be a necessary condition for martial morality, but it is not a sufficient one. Finally, I present a positive account of a role morality for soldiers that creates the space for crucial, if not traditionally martial, virtues such as respect for human life and human dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contributors to military ethics from diverse locations and philosophical perspectives maintain that virtues are central to martial theory and practice. Yet several contemporary philosophers and psychologists have recently challenged the empirical adequacy of this perspective. Their challenge is known as the situationist critique, a version of which asserts that: (a) situational features rather than character traits such as virtues cause and explain human behavior, and (b) ethical theories and development programs are empirically inadequate to the extent that they incorporate virtues. In this paper, I assess the merit of this critique and consider some implications of my assessment for military practitioners and theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 socalled 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian operations may pose challenges to which armed forces prepared for warfighting seem rather ill-equipped. It is the aim of this article to examine in what way military ethics should be adapted to humanitarian tasks. Two ideal types of military ethics are defined here: warfighting and humanitarian. The warfighting ethic is supposed to maximise the utility of the military in war and combat and to that end utilises the virtues of loyalty and honour. In contrast, humanitarian obligations require to a larger extent the development of personal integrity and an ability to follow one's own conscience. The adaptation of military ethics is demonstrated in the case studies of the UK armed forces and the German Bundeswehr. Whereas the moral code of the UK armed forces remains anchored in the principles of the warfighting ethic, the case of the Bundeswehr presents a military ethic closely approximating the humanitarian ideal type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Paul Robinson on magnanimity and integrity in the military and another by Desiree Verweij on friendship and comradeship.

Were William Faulkner's characters determined to their actions, perhaps by cosmic forces or divine providence, causal laws or genetic traits? In brief, no. Still, 1 argue that Faulkner does employ hard determinism in relation to one character, and this character represents an important exception: Flem Snopes of the Snopes trilogy. Flem Snopes's brand of evil was not moral evil (i.e., evil characteristic of genuine agents) but instead a distinct variety of metaphysical evil. In order to demonstrate this, I contrast the moral psychology of Flem with that of his murderer, Mink Snopes, by appeal to the Faulknerian virtue of honor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian legislation and military doctrine stipulate that soldiers 'subjugate their will' to government, and fight in any war the government declares. Neither legislation nor doctrine enables the conscience of soldiers. Together, provisions of legislation and doctrine seem to take soldiers for granted. And, rather than strengthening the military instrument, the convention of legislation and doctrine seems to weaken the democratic foundations upon which the military may be shaped as a force for justice. Denied liberty of their conscience, soldiers are denied the foundational right of democratic citizenship and construed as utensils of the State. This article critiques the idea of moral agency in Australian legislation and military doctrine and is concerned with the obligation of the State to safeguard the moral integrity of individual soldiers, so soldiers might serve with a fully formed moral assurance to advance justice in the world. Beyond its explicit focus on the convention of Australian thought, this article raises questions of far-reaching relevance. The provisos of Australian legislation and doctrine are an analogue of western thinking. Thus, this discussion challenges many assumptions concerning military duty and effectiveness. Discussion will additionally provoke some reassessment of the expectations democratic societies hold of their soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uruzgan Province is widely seen as one of the few areas where positive developments occurred in Afghanistan's south. A major reason for this success is believed to be the comprehensive approach that was adopted to address the complex and multifaceted nature of problems. This article analyses the coordination between the Dutch military and the wide variety of civil actors that took place during the period 2006–2010 in Uruzgan as this was a key element within the comprehensive approach. Making use of inter-organizational network theory, the article identifies and analyses three dimensions of civil–military coordination: interdependence, (in)coherence of logics and conditions for coordination. Based on these dimensions the article develops a strategic compass that guides military forces in establishing and managing their relationships with civil actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Utilitarianism is the strand of moral philosophy that holds that judgment of whether an act is morally right or wrong, hence whether it ought to be done or not, is primarily based upon the foreseen consequences of the act in question. It has a bad reputation in military ethics because it would supposedly make military expedience override all other concerns. Given that the utilitarian credo of 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number' is in fact 'agent-neutral', meaning that the consequences to everyone should weigh equally, this critique of utilitarianism is not entirely fair. By focusing on some anomalies in both the 'principle of double effect' and in our tendency to give priority to the interests of those who are near and dear to us, this article argues that there is something to be said for a military ethic that attaches less weight to intentions, and more to the consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented that explains the importance of loyalty as a fundamental aspect of morality in the context of the military and how loyalty drives social action. It considers the inculcation of loyalty in the military, the role of emotions in directing immoral or moral acts or choices, and the tendency of loyalty in the military to predispose soldiers to criminality. It posits that the military uses emotional manipulation to encourage soldiers to act in certain ways and shows how the social circumstances of military loyalty encourages malfeasance.

The article presents a list for 2015 reviewers of the "Ethical Theory & Moral Practice" journal including Sean Aas, Jeffrey Blustein, and Julian Culp.

Integrity is generally considered to be an important military virtue. The first part of this article tries to make sense of integrity's many, often contradicting, meanings. Both in the military and elsewhere, its most common understanding seems to be that integrity requires us to live according to one's personal principal values and principles - we have a moral obligation to do so, and it is a prerequisite to be able to 'look ourselves in the mirror.' This notion of integrity as upholding personal values and principles is a very problematic one in itself, especially to those working in the military. For several reasons, perhaps the role that the virtue of integrity has in a military organization could in fact be better played by other virtues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until fairly recently it was not uncommon for political theorists to hold the view that people cannot be expected to act in accordance with the public interest without some incentive. Authors such as Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith, for instance, held that people often act in accordance with the public interest, but more from a concern for their honour and reputation than from a concern for the greater good. Today, most authors take a more demanding view, maintaining that people are to be just solely from a love for justice, not from a fear of losing face. In this article today's prevailing view, which sees honour as something obsolete and archaic and not as a legitimate motive, is contrasted with the older view that honour is important for both knowing what moral is and acting on it. Subsequently, it is argued that the ethics of honour, especially in the form it took in the works of Hume and Smith, can still be of value, exactly because it is less demanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: The essay asks whether the ‘necessity defense’ can be used to legitimate torture. By modifying the criteria so as to fit the case, it is argued that torture fails to meet the established norms of the historic just-war tradition, which also underlie international law. ‘Interrogational,’‘terroristic,’ and ‘demonic’ aspects of torture are distinguished along the way. It is concluded that torture admits no necessity by which it can be justified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of honour as a spur to virtue. Noting the traditional division of honour into external and internal elements, the article associates the former with Aristotle's concept of 'magnanimity' and the latter with the modern preference for 'integrity'. It then argues that magnanimity should indeed be considered a virtue, and that integrity should not be considered an absolute. Both magnanimity and integrity encourage other virtues, but they can also encourage vice. An ethic of honour tends to produce an excess of those virtues considered most important within a given honour group. Honour systems are not conducive to prudence. To help overcome this problem, the article suggests two solutions: first, reconsidering the virtues which are considered most important in the military, to give greater weight to respect for human life and dignity; and second, broadening the honour group whose opinion soldiers value, in order to move beyond their immediate circle of comrades to encompass more fully the civilian society which they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first section of this article argues that the best-known definition of physical courage, stemming from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, is less than fit for today's military. Having done so, a short outline is given of more 'scientific' approaches to physical courage, drawing mainly on insights offered by psychologists, and of the problems that are inherent to these approaches. Subsequently, the article turns to a topic that is often paid lip service to in the military, yet remains somewhat hard to pin down: moral courage. Although both forms of courage are intertwined, they are so in a less straightforward manner than is often thought. The way the development of physical courage in today's military is undertaken, for instance, contributes little to the development of moral courage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analysis the importance of ethics training and development in the military, based on a workshop titled "Ethics Training and Development in the Military," held at the University of Hull in Great Britain, in 2006. The establishment of formal training programs for ethics in the military is discussed, as well as the development of several virtues the programs, which may provide a basis for a universal military code or ethic.

This article deals with the notion of honor and its relation to the willingness to make sacrifices. There is a widely shared feeling, especially in Western countries, that the willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good has been on a reverse trend for quite a while both on the individual and the societal levels, and that this is increasingly problematic to the military. First of all, an outline of what honor is will be given. After that, the Roman honor-ethic, stating that honor is a necessary incentive for courageous behavior and that it is something worth dying for, is contrasted with today's ruling view in the West, which sees honor as something obsolete and archaic and not as a legitimate motive for courageous behavior. The article then addresses the way honor continues to have a role in today's military, despite its diminishing role in Western society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Peter Olstroon on the notion of integrity in the military, another one by Stephen Coleman on the tensions between military duty and military loyalty and another one by Shannon French on the high level of responsibility of military officers for the men and women in their charge.

Military Virtues, ed. Michael Skerker, David Whetham, and Don Carrick. Havant, U.K.: Howgate, 2019. 410 pages. $39.99. The opening line of Military Virtues captures the attention of the reader with [...]