Suchergebnisse

If we are going to take the moral claims of military service seriously, and if we are going to expect our generals to act at anything except a modest administrative level of responsibility, then we must reform laws that make generals the unresisting pawns of politics. In this thesis I argue for reform of section 8 (2) of the Defence Act 1903 (Cth), which stipulates: "the Chief of the Defence Force must comply with any directions of the Minister." I offer three reasons. First, I say the law should be reformed in order to accommodate the special moral responsibilities of the general. The entire spread-out chain of command is unified in the general. It is the general who offers the only connection between the military and politics. Only the general might turn political direction into military command and thus capacitate the undertaking of war. Since Nuremberg people have understood generals cannot plead as a defence that since they were in uniform, they had a duty to comply with any political direction. Generals do have a duty to obey. But this duty is pro tanto, overridden by the moral obligation to act rightly. Second, I argue that by voluntary enlistment, citizens who serve as generals have chosen to accept the burden of service to the state. This burden is onerous. But it is not unlimited. I accept democracy has significant moral value worth protecting, and democracy must impose on citizens who serve as generals. But there are limits; the state's authority can only go so far. Third I argue law cannot capture the whole human responsibility for war's violence. I say for people in our culture, beyond law's explicit terms, war is a moral undertaking. There is something measly about using law and lawyerly language to characterise war's dreadfulness. On my account, moral perspective might be integrated within law through the creation of a specific exception. In conclusion I say there will be moments when generals must comply. Hard-edged political realities will oblige and constrain individual choice. But the ...

Investigating ideas of moral autonomy in Australian Defence Doctrine Publication 00.6: Leadership in the Australian Defence Force ( doctrine ), the present thesis finds expectations of moral strength subordinated beneath ideas of positional power. For this reason doctrine is not seen to provide a philosophy applicable to the profession of arms. Recalling the foundations of western military thinking in classical Greece, the thesis investigates the metaphor of the hoplite phalanx. The phalanx defined a physically brutal, philosophically uncompromising approach to conflict. In the phalanx, military service was saturated with moral expectation. Following collapse of the poleis and demise of the phalanx, critical ideas were recaptured by Stoicism, a philosophy resonant with western military ideals. Stoicism found compelling expression in the philosophy of self-mastery asserted by Epictetus. Harm, argues Epictetus, comes only from the surrender of moral autonomy. This uncompromising credo captured the Socratic conviction that good will alone is significant. Evoking Plato and Aristotle, this idea captures the bequest of classical thinking to modern ethics. Stoicism articulates a philosophy of morally autonomous and purposeful self-mastery. Resonant with the profession of arms, Stoicism belittles physical harm in relation to the agony of shame endured by those who fail in moral duties. Yet, despite the military timbre, Stoicism is seen in the present study to challenge the dominant ideas of Australian doctrine. Doctrine detaches ideas of personal integrity from the reality of war. Doing so, doctrine fails to recognise that war has a moral veracity determined by human judgement, and connected to inherited and persistent moral ideas. Moral ideas persist through the advancement and evolution of societies, illuminating philosophical constants and enabling war to be interpreted and understood as more than manoeuvre and strategy. Recalling the past, this study provokes consideration of a new doctrinal paradigm. The study ...