@triskaidekaphobe13 I suppose yes, that there are extreme cases where the soldier can be sure of a fuck up somewhere in the chain of command. Genocide is not a bad example.
@triskaidekaphobe13 Ok, we're mostly in agreement but here's my point the soldier never has reason to belive that his moral call is better than his CO's moral call because his CO has more information and more experience people making the call.
If you're a west wing fan think about whether toby was morally correct to leak the spaceship story in series 7. He knew the benefit of leaking it but didn't have all the information about costs, disobeying the order was very costly.
@triskaidekaphobe13 I think if you look only at consequences then your ethics is meaningless. Intent and prior knowledge clearly matter. eg Opening a door is not immoral, whether or not there is a man on a ladder on the other side who will fall and be injured, as long as you have no reason to suspect there could be that man there, opening the door is morally the same
With orders you know you don't have the facts so the "best guess" is that the act is morally justified. making disobeying immoral
@triskaidekaphobe13 Well, the point I was making in the video was that, in a well run military it is always more likely that the action is moral for reasons you don't know about than that it is immoral. The military works best if the soldiers are not having to constantly assess. Therefore it is moral.
Conscripts are subject to the same moral recompense although the morality of conscription itself is a whole other matter.
If we take that they have passed information up the chain as a given
Then not performing the action is always the immoral action. Because you have to assume that this is the right action based on their being information you don't know.
@triskaidekaphobe13 True, there are circumstances where soldiers know they are getting bad orders. I think there is a rather large metadiscussion to be had on how to ensure that all orders are good ones, however whether or not the soldier thought he was doing an unethical thing, it was STILL the right thing to follow the order (so long as he had passed requisite information up the chain)
And who is responsible for trusting people who shouldn't have been trusted? Is idiocy or not having good information immediately present an excuse? People should hold personal responsibility, or they are tools not worth being called humans in the proud aspect of that word. That would reduce the efficacy of army, which would be a perfectly good thing given universal acceptance of the moral, which is assumed when ones preaches morals. That ethic doesn'tmean people should be held accountable by law
@esaman I disagree. The military functions best when decisions are carried out quickly and precisely. Since some information is necessarily classified from the soldiers taking the actions it is the moral thing to do to trust your superiors.
This ofcourse gives you a moral responsibility to make sure the process of becoming a superior is as good as possible. It is here where you have a new moral responsibility.
I'm not to versed in ethics so forgive me if i sound a bit silly here. But surely there are courses of action that are never justifiable, regardless of chain of command. For instance genocide, take nazi germany for example; i would hold each and every one of those soldiers in the death camps and concentration camps personally responsible for their actions regardless of orders because quite simply they should have known there could have been no justification for their actions.
I would disagree with you. As soldiers they had trust that their commanding officers knew what they were doing. As it turned out their commanding officers were massively unethical but as soldiers they had lost the right to question that decision.
It of course depends on whether or not the soldier was drafted. The ethical fault lies with the career soldier because he has chosen to put himself in an ethically compromising position. It seems like something like 'military ethics' is somewhat of a new topic. I bet few in Victoria's day gave it a second thought because they operated under 'king and country' mode
I don't think ti does. As I say it relies on trust in the system but if you can trust the system to be making the right decisions you are still ethically secure even if you CHOSE to be a soldier. If you do not have good reason to trust the decision you are ethically responsible for the risk you knowingly took in signing up.
I think your thoughts are interesting but have you considered the other side of a conflict ? If, for example, in a poor country run by a military dictatorship, a soldier is ordered to pass through village, flaying everyone, in order to set an example, wouldn't the soldier be even slight ethically responsible for this?
I really enjoy your videos, looking forward to seeing more.
@WellOfWisdom As I said, If you fail to set up the chain of command structure in a way that can be trusted you have bigger problems than the ethics of the soldiers.
But I see what you mean. Are there certain acts a soldier should "never have to do even if ordered to" like flaying alive, torture etc. Yes, it is worth discussing.
I guess you would have to make it very unambiguous because the last think you want is for a soldier to delay a valid order. More thoughts on that next time. GOOD POST!
@triskaidekaphobe13 I suppose yes, that there are extreme cases where the soldier can be sure of a fuck up somewhere in the chain of command. Genocide is not a bad example.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@triskaidekaphobe13 Ok, we're mostly in agreement but here's my point the soldier never has reason to belive that his moral call is better than his CO's moral call because his CO has more information and more experience people making the call.
If you're a west wing fan think about whether toby was morally correct to leak the spaceship story in series 7. He knew the benefit of leaking it but didn't have all the information about costs, disobeying the order was very costly.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@triskaidekaphobe13 I think if you look only at consequences then your ethics is meaningless. Intent and prior knowledge clearly matter. eg Opening a door is not immoral, whether or not there is a man on a ladder on the other side who will fall and be injured, as long as you have no reason to suspect there could be that man there, opening the door is morally the same
With orders you know you don't have the facts so the "best guess" is that the act is morally justified. making disobeying immoral
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@triskaidekaphobe13 Well, the point I was making in the video was that, in a well run military it is always more likely that the action is moral for reasons you don't know about than that it is immoral. The military works best if the soldiers are not having to constantly assess. Therefore it is moral.
Conscripts are subject to the same moral recompense although the morality of conscription itself is a whole other matter.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@triskaidekaphobe13 No, I'm not sure you can.
If we take that they have passed information up the chain as a given
Then not performing the action is always the immoral action. Because you have to assume that this is the right action based on their being information you don't know.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@triskaidekaphobe13 True, there are circumstances where soldiers know they are getting bad orders. I think there is a rather large metadiscussion to be had on how to ensure that all orders are good ones, however whether or not the soldier thought he was doing an unethical thing, it was STILL the right thing to follow the order (so long as he had passed requisite information up the chain)
SPACKlick 1 year ago
And who is responsible for trusting people who shouldn't have been trusted? Is idiocy or not having good information immediately present an excuse? People should hold personal responsibility, or they are tools not worth being called humans in the proud aspect of that word. That would reduce the efficacy of army, which would be a perfectly good thing given universal acceptance of the moral, which is assumed when ones preaches morals. That ethic doesn'tmean people should be held accountable by law
esaman 1 year ago
@esaman I disagree. The military functions best when decisions are carried out quickly and precisely. Since some information is necessarily classified from the soldiers taking the actions it is the moral thing to do to trust your superiors.
This ofcourse gives you a moral responsibility to make sure the process of becoming a superior is as good as possible. It is here where you have a new moral responsibility.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
Challenging. Props.
GreatBigBore 1 year ago
I'm not to versed in ethics so forgive me if i sound a bit silly here. But surely there are courses of action that are never justifiable, regardless of chain of command. For instance genocide, take nazi germany for example; i would hold each and every one of those soldiers in the death camps and concentration camps personally responsible for their actions regardless of orders because quite simply they should have known there could have been no justification for their actions.
revolvingdoo 1 year ago
I would disagree with you. As soldiers they had trust that their commanding officers knew what they were doing. As it turned out their commanding officers were massively unethical but as soldiers they had lost the right to question that decision.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
exactly
soldiers don't have rights
they gave them up
so we can keep ours
Shadizar666 1 year ago
@Shadizar666 I wouldn't say no rights. We alleviate them of some ethical responisiblity and deny them some rights but not all of both.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@SPACKlick
of course
but for the layman to understand
it's easier to cut the niceties out
Shadizar666 1 year ago
@Shadizar666 I think it's important to discuss the boundaries with the layman. So we don't get the sort of outcry that happened post WWII
SPACKlick 1 year ago
It of course depends on whether or not the soldier was drafted. The ethical fault lies with the career soldier because he has chosen to put himself in an ethically compromising position. It seems like something like 'military ethics' is somewhat of a new topic. I bet few in Victoria's day gave it a second thought because they operated under 'king and country' mode
nate91han 1 year ago
I don't think ti does. As I say it relies on trust in the system but if you can trust the system to be making the right decisions you are still ethically secure even if you CHOSE to be a soldier. If you do not have good reason to trust the decision you are ethically responsible for the risk you knowingly took in signing up.
SPACKlick 1 year ago
I think your thoughts are interesting but have you considered the other side of a conflict ? If, for example, in a poor country run by a military dictatorship, a soldier is ordered to pass through village, flaying everyone, in order to set an example, wouldn't the soldier be even slight ethically responsible for this?
I really enjoy your videos, looking forward to seeing more.
WellOfWisdom 1 year ago 2
@WellOfWisdom As I said, If you fail to set up the chain of command structure in a way that can be trusted you have bigger problems than the ethics of the soldiers.
But I see what you mean. Are there certain acts a soldier should "never have to do even if ordered to" like flaying alive, torture etc. Yes, it is worth discussing.
I guess you would have to make it very unambiguous because the last think you want is for a soldier to delay a valid order. More thoughts on that next time. GOOD POST!
SPACKlick 1 year ago
@SPACKlick There are a number of international policies with exactly this sort of thing in mind.
mistertakeda 1 year ago