Professional Integrity and Disobedience in the Military

Abstract

Do military personnel have a professional duty to refuse to participate in military operations that violate the constraints of jus ad bellum? It is sometimes argued that military personnel might be justified in conscientiously objecting to participation in such wars (even if they are already in the military), but the idea that such refusal might in fact be a professional duty has not, as yet, been countenanced. This paper argues that such a duty exists, and arises from the military's commitments to the laws of armed conflict as well as from the moral principles underlying these laws. The military, by claiming to be a profession, commits itself to stringent moral constraints on how and when military force may be used. Such constraints give rise to a positive moral duty on the part of individual military personnel of all ranks to refuse to allow their military expertise to be used in ways that violate these moral commitments.