The Ethical Problem in Pluralistic Societies and Dr. Toner's "Mistakes"

Aerospace Power Journal, Spring, 2001 by DR. ALEXANDRE S. da ROCHA

Editorial Abstract: How can the military instill high ethical standards in its members when these standards appear to be in social decline? Are military cultures out of touch with the people they protect? First published in the Portuguese edition of Aerospace Power Journal, this piece by Dr. da Rocha responds to an earlier APJ article by Dr. James Toner. Here da Rocha provides an international (Brazilian) perspective in a deep, theoretical tutorial on the origins and relationships of social and military ethical standards. His article wilt challenge readers to think.

IN THE PAST, the Airpower Journal has published many articles about ethics in the military. This article is in response to one of them: Dr. James H. Toner's "Mistakes in Teaching Ethics," which is compelling both for its content and for its goal of being practical. [1]

Sometimes academic discussions about theoretical issues can be rather abstract and remote from the practicalities of everyday life. However, I believe in scrutinizing theoretical concepts as a tool to make them useful in achieving "practical" results. I will discuss theoretical issues absolutely necessary to understanding ethical problems as they appear in today's society. Without that understanding, there is no ground for sound, practical decisions regarding ethical issues in the military or elsewhere.

Because ethics deals with value judgments about good or evil, ethical issues are preeminent where and when it comes to applying military power. This involves both individual and organizational actions. [2] The more powerful the actor, the more important the ethical issues. And we must also remember that collective conduct, in fact, stems from individual actions--hence the link between individual and organizational ethics. The bottom line is that individuals and organizations require sound ethical judgment.

Authors who write about ethics and the military, like Dr. Toner, point out that the essence of the ethical problem is being sure that decisions are "right" and lead to "right" actions. This requires clear understanding of what "being right" means, as well as establishing who is entitled to legitimately define those "rightness" criteria.

Since this is entirely a multifarious problem, a linear argument is poorly suited to deal with it. What follows are some comments regarding various aspects of this ethical problem. They encompass diverse concepts that will, in the end, show their commonality.

First, I intend to discuss a rather abstract issue that is key to understanding the ethical problem today--what is the nature and the source of "ethical bewilderment" seen in our society? I would suggest it comes from ideological [3] differences most people fail to notice as they engage in rational discussions about ethical matters. Because they do not share a common ideological basis, rational discussion is impossible, even though it may take on the appearance of rationality. As a consequence, it cannot produce rational agreement. Simply put, people talk in good faith but don't understand each other.

This certainly applies to the military. Military members are real people living at a particular time in history and experiencing the perplexities of changing, clashing values. The military is generally socially and politically conservative (see the section "Some Concepts 'Held Sacred' in the Military," below), if not for other reasons, because of its rigid hierarchical structure. Consequently, it is possible that many of the most cherished values in the military could conflict with newer, possibly more liberal, ones of society. New social values are not necessarily the result of a deliberate attack upon the "good old ones" but can be simply a result of social experiences.

I also discuss how personal conduct is affected by the insertion of an individual in an organization, particularly one--like the military--known for its strong "esprit de corps." Finally, I deal with the difficulties of defining the ethical standards that must be taught in a military academy and some of the problems that affect teaching. In order to focus my argument, I follow the "mistakes" pointed out in Dr. Toner's article. [4] However, I show that all of the difficulties we can identify in teaching ethics in the military are broader than mere pedagogy. In fact, they come from the very nature of the military bureaucracy.

The Ethical Problem in Pluralistic Societies

The Intuition of Good

The concept of ethics is directly related to the concept of good. Today there are two philosophical trends explaining how good originates: the universalist school affirms that the concept of good is a universal intuition--people know how to tell right from wrong because they have, as human beings, an inherent ability to do so. The circumstantialist school, on the other hand, declares that the concept of good has a social origin--it is related to the collective interests of a society to ensure its survival and development. Such interests become values that are part and parcel of the set of concepts known as the society's symbolic universe [5] and become criteria to discriminate between good and evil. [6]