This paper explores the relevance of Kant's categorical imperative to military ethics and the solution it suggests for improving the treatment of women in the military. The second formulation of the categorical imperative makes universal respect for humanity a moral requirement by asserting that one must always treat other people as means in themselves and never as merely means to an end. This principle is a promising guide for military ethics and can be reconciled with the acts of violence required (...) by war. This paper argues that it can also regulate soldiers? relations to each other and that it may contribute to reorienting military culture in a way that overcomes the biases against female military personnel. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of military ethics, what we mean by that term, what it covers, how it is understood, and how it is taught. It suggests that the unifying factor that makes this a coherent subject beyond individual national interpretations of it is the core idea of military professionalism. The paper draws out the distinction between training and education and draws on research conducted by a number of different people and agencies, including the International Committee of the Red (...) Cross, to establish what factors contribute to effective pedagogy and the inculcation of appropriate attitudes and behaviours. The paper concludes by looking at the way military ethics contributes to military outcomes from protecting civilians and the vulnerable to building resilience in our own military personnel to protect their mental health, through to the strategic costs of losing the moral high ground if behaviour is seen to fall short of that expected from military professionals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRespect in morally and culturally critical situations during military missions is complex and loaded with ambiguity. Respect seems a desirable and positive cross-cultural competence. It is assumed and expected that respectful action serves the objectives of the mission and contributes to the perceived legitimacy of the military. However, by respecting ‘the others’ culture’ too much, one can neglect one's own values and sideline one's own ethical point of view. We conducted a qualitative study in which we extracted 121 morally and (...) culturally critical situations from 29 in-depth interviews with Dutch soldiers who have been deployed to, for them, unfamiliar cultural settings. The findings of this study reveal, firstly, that soldiers who refer to ‘culture’ as a reason for their own behaviour in morally and culturally critical situations encountered during deployments are less likely to intervene even though these situations conflict with their own values. This could be considered to be a sort of ethic.. (shrink)

This study explores the association between different types of morally challenging interactions during military deployment and response strategies, as well as the mediating role of moral emotions. Interviews with Dutch servicemen who participated in military operations were content coded. We found a relationship between local-cultural and team-related interactions and moral justification; these effects were mediated by other-condemning emotions. Similarly, other-condemning emotions mediated the relationship between local-cultural interactions and relativism. This study points at the importance of other-condemning emotions in shaping military (...) reactions to frequently occurring morally challenging interactions. (shrink)