Hard Moral Choices in the Military

Abstract

Integrating and building on the constitutional ethics paradigm proposed by Paul Roush and the neo-intuitionist moral decision-making scheme proposed by Robert Audi, I defend a novel decision-making procedure for hard moral choices in the military. The key to Roush's model of justifiable disobedience is a soldier's ability to recognize when an ostensibly legal order constitutes a ‘fundamental violation of justice’. However, the nature and structure of this act of moral recognition requires more elucidation than Roush has provided. In order to avoid grounding moral recognition and decision-making on a narrowly partisan account of moral theory (e.g. deontology or consequentialism), I appeal to Audi's neo-intuitionist account of prima facie moral duties. I then repurpose and develop further a decision procedure that Audi proposed for the business context. When faced with an ethical dilemma in military service, a soldier should (1) classify his/her obligations; (2) identify the conflicts between his/her obligations; (3) assess the weightiness of his/her obligations; (4) determine ethically viable options; and then (5) make a decision. I close the discussion with an examination of the practical problems one might face in adopting the proposal.