Equality Within Military Organizations

Abstract

In this paper, I wish to discover whether there is some mark or feature common to all of the warfighting cooperative virtues, playing an essential, identifiable role in the intentions presupposed by each. While the fundamental intention not to harm innocents constrains and informs external justice (jus in bello) in the moral craft of warfighting, a similar intention constrains and informs justice internal to warfighting organizations. As I shall argue, ‘equality of innocence’, understood as ‘no harm’, serves a fundamental role within the intentions of internal justice at play for cooperative warfighting teams that excel. By ‘equality of innocence’ understood as ‘no harm,’ which plays some role within any martial cooperative virtue, I mean this: no one is to be harmed unless his contributions to the warfighting team are not what they ought to be. ‘No harm’ is an implicit expectation of virtuous soldiers, and it must be a part of the implicit and explicit norms of any excellent warfighting organization as well. This equality of intention along with the formal equality within military law [for example, the US Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)] are the only forms of equality in intentions that should be operative within hierarchical warfighting units given their architectonic warfighting activity of winning their nation's wars. This ‘equality of innocence’ represented by ‘no harm’ results further in an atmosphere of trust within the warfighting unit, where guile is minimized—if not eliminated—as a requirement for excellence internal to the warfighting unit. An atmosphere of excellence for the whole can then be best realized when such trust obtains.

Keywords:

• Innocent
• jus in bello
• arete
• equality

Notes

1. Wise soldiers have long recognized how this distinction reinforces the effectiveness of armies. In medieval warfare, its importance was acknowledged early on: ‘According to various motives, governing powers and military authorities often sought to impose on their troops the “discipline of chivalry”, respect for which not only resulted in a certain humanization of war but also reinforced the effectiveness of armies’ (Contamine 1986: 290).

2. Of course there is one very important form of equality acknowledged within the U. S. military among these various permutations. This form is concerned with equality before the law, or procedural equality. What does the work of procedural equality is the content of the law together with the principle of consistency. I assume that this form of equality within the American military practice (or any other nation's military, for that matter) to be uncontroversial; thus, it does not require justification in this paper.

3. I take it as a given and uncontroversial that soldiers must also intend to reward and punish excellence and failure, respectively, in accordance with just dessert (Aristotelian distributive justice).

4. Cf. Plato's treatment of atheism in the Laws (908 B, 909 B, 862 D ff. and 856 B).

5. Aristos is demanded of even the lowliest of soldier roles, as Kipling knew all too well. His telling description of the water carrier (bhisti) Gunga Din is apt on this score:

An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o'water–green:

It was crawlin’ an’ it stunk,

But of all the drinks I've drunk,

I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din (Kipling 34).

6. I borrow the form of this argument from Adkins's reformulation of a Platonic argument for the ideal state of justice (dikaiosune) (Adkins 1960: 286).

7. ‘The perfect is the enemy of the good’ often serves as a slogan of lesser warfighting units because they see a desire for the ideal of excellence as destructive of the lesser, good results that they can in fact attain. Instead, I offer that the ‘ideal is the friend of the excelling unit’ because the ideal ever motivates these units towards further (if unending) improvement.

8. Cf. Paul Woodruff concerning the respect at play within the ceremony of military salute: ‘Respect is given, not earned, and to think otherwise would tear any hierarchy apart’ (Woodruff 2001: 180).

9. I owe the preceding insights pertaining to the psychological state of innocence and the trust it engenders to Herbert Morris (Morris 1976: 157–161).

10. The most important cooperative warfighting virtues are justice, reverence, patriotism, extended benevolence, selfless service, loyalty, friendship, duty, obedience, responsibility, respect, moderation (sophrosyne), and fairness.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ted S. Westhusing1

The Journal of Military Ethics is in this issue publishing posthumously an article written by Ted S. Westhusing submitted originally in August 2004. Since Ted earlier published three articles in the Journalwe wish to honor the memory of his commitment to military ethics, both in his capacity of researcher and teacher at West Point