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It is commonly believed that, in some sense, military professionals are bound by a higher moral standard. This belief is especially prevalent inside the military. Even though there are occasional (perhaps inevitable) moral failures, there are nevertheless numerous internally promulgated codes and public espousals that enunciate such a belief.1 Many commanders exhort their troops to moral goodness and chastise them when they fall short.2 Military education frequently includes courses on the demands of professional ethics.3 Indeed, from the top down, part of the background noise of professional military life is these higher expectations, and a belief that, somehow, this line of work is one with a special moral status, special moral problems, and special moral demands.
In this article, I want to critically address what, at least generally, this higher moral standard might amount to. I want briefly to offer a more concrete interpretation of what we might mean by a higher standard. I will then explore what reasons there might be for believing military professionals are bound by one. While my posture is a skeptical one, I still think there are arguments that make a partial case for some unique and especially strict military obligations. But I do not think we will be able fully to justify a more robust (and I think more commonly held) conception of higher demands on military behavior and character.
What Might We Mean by a Higher Moral Standard?
There are at least two ways we might elucidate the idea of a higher moral standard for the military. First, we could mean there are unique moral obligations for military professionals that most other people simply do not have. For example, we might think military professionals (but not people in general) are morally obligated to follow the orders of their superiors or be courageous in the face of physical danger. Call this the "uniqueness" interpretation. Second, we could mean military people have good reasons for being bound more strictly to the moral standards that apply to everyone. Here, we would ask military professionals more insistently to be moral, and would find them more blameworthy should they fail. Along these lines, we might say honesty is something we want from everyone, but that it is especially important for military people to...