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What is Wrong with a Military Career?

However real the benefits of a military vocation, and however real the possibility of doing good for others as well as oneself, there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with it. As often noted, the civilian culture of Western democracies centers on an ideal of humanity, and a view of morality, which is fundamentally at odds with the ideal of the soldier and the morality appropriate to that ideal. Civilian culture rests on the idea of the rational and free self, capable of and entitled to self-determination. Human dignity, and the rights that go with it, follow from this ability to think wisely and choose well for ourselves and for our society. This is not so for military culture, though it sub-serves this democratic society. The military defends constitutionally grounded egalitarianism and various “freedoms” by subjecting its own members to hierarchically ranked authorities and limiting their freedom to make moral decisions—notably the paradigmatic moral decision to harm others or to permit oneself to be harmed. The career soldier is expected to negotiate the divide between civilian and military life even though, from a moral point of view, it is an abyss not a boundary. There simply is no morally permissible way to surrender autonomy or to delegate moral agency to another. Here I sketch four arguments in favor of this claim that the military life is a morally compromised life. They are not the only arguments, and some have more weight than others. Note that the discussion is confined to consideration of career soldiers (hereafter “soldiers”) only, those who, as “career” implies, freely spend a considerable part of their lives, develop and mature as personalities, as a member of a military force. Some of this may bear upon those who risk a short-term enlistment. Conscripted soldiers are not considered. Nothing said here is critical of those who, voluntarily or not, fight a just war (self-defense or properly sanctioned defense of other nationals), unless they excuse themselves from the necessary harms they deliver, enjoy warring, and wish to make a career of it. Finally, note that its proponents justify the military life using different moral perspectives, but primarily in terms of utilitarianism (war brings less harm in the long run) and virtue ethics (the military is character building.) This critique suggests that which ever of these ethical theories is used, the military life is still morally problematic. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 19:183–189 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 online DOI: 10.1080/10402650701353646