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We are now more than a decade on from the release of the Abu Ghraib abuse photos, which led to one of the largest scandals of the War on Terror. While there have been reports and investigations in the decade since, Peter Finn writes that there are still many unanswered questions. He argues that those higher up in the military chain of command, as well as contractors and their companies, still remain unaccountable. In order to bring closure to the victims and their families, a full and frank investigation into abuse by U.S. forces during the War on Terror is still needed.

Alan Donagan's modern classic, A Theory of Morality, stands as an articulate and cogent apology for deontological ethics. Among its important contributions is the argument Donagan makes that this rationally anchored morality is the most reliable platform for social criticism – particularly in times of ethical 'drift'. He rules out Hegel's alternative, developed in opposition to Kant, according to which to act morally simply means to comport oneself to the prevailing normative practices of one's community. In Donagan's view, this position risks dreadful ethical failure if such practices already are, or are gradually becoming, morally pernicious. To illustrate this point, Donagan considers the historical case of Franz Jägerstätter – a man whose conscientious objection to being conscripted to serve in the German Wehrmacht led eventually to his trial and execution. For Donagan, Jägerstätter's tragic case vividly and clearly illustrates the critical capacity of the deontological moral agent amidst a grotesquely malign 'moral' community. This essay argues that contrary to these conclusions, the Jägerstätter case, properly understood, affirms precisely the type of ethics Donagan thinks that it condemns.