Un mal pour un mal : une éthique des conséquences de l’acte guerrier

Abstract

Julien is a soldier. He opened fire in a warlike, heroic act. However, this act has become unbearable because of his peers’ gaze and the traumatic repetition syndrome he has suffered from ever since. This clinical vignette illustrates in its most dramatic form the soldier's deadly commitment, namely in his relationship to death, both the one he is likely to administer and the one he is prepared to receive. Thus, the soldier finds himself “at the heart of the dialectic of life and death”: the life of the civilian population to be protected whatever the cost, the death of the enemy, which he must inflict, or even his own death, which he is ready to receive in this same commitment that he has made. This leads to a cult of bravery, the “heroisation” of the individual who transgresses an unconditional law of human existence, that of not killing one's neighbor. To survive, the soldier conforms body and soul to the very meaning of the military code of ethics, which is defined by a rigorous discipline, a flawless process of toughening up designed for the acquisition of both an unwavering body and psyche… And yet the fall of the hero is not without fracas. The traumatic question, of which many soldiers are victims on their return from difficult missions, directs the subject's return to this essential question of death, the one felt in his own body, or in the reflection of that which he inflicts on his aggressor. Then, the reality of the shot received or the shot dispensed leaves the individual with an unbearable, unspeakable pain, immobilizing him in an experience of dehumanization that he had not anticipated. Also, the concretization of warlike conduct, although “trivialized’ in its usual manifestations, comes as a surprise to the soldier in the carrying out of the act for which he has prepared with so much effort, thereby questioning its validity as well as its moral scope.