Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility J

Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Purdue University Press e-books Purdue University Press 6-1-2001 The Leader’s Imperative: Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility J. C. Ficarrotta Follow this and additional works at: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks Recommended Citation Ficarrotta, J. C., "The Leader’s Imperative: Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility" (2001). Purdue University Press e-books. Book 6. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/6 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. The Leader’s Imperative The Leader’s Imperative Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility N Edited by J. Carl Ficarrotta Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana Copyright ©2001 by Purdue University. All Rights Reserved. 05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The leader’s imperative : ethics, integrity, and responsibility / edited by J. Carl Ficarrotta. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55753-184-6 (alk. paper) 1. Military ethics. 2. Leadership. 3. Integrity. 4. Responsibility. 5. Com- mand of troops. 6. United States—Armed Forces—Of¤cers—Conduct of life. I. Ficarrotta, J. Carl, 1957– U22 .L36 2000 355.3'3041—DC21 00-008224 Contents Preface vii First Things 1 Three Moral Certainties John T. Noonan, Jr. 3 2 “Turning” Backward: The Erosion of Moral Sensibility John J. McDermott 15 3 The Mission of the Military and the Question of “the Regime” Hadley Arkes 29 4 Why Serve the State? Moral Foundations of Military Of¤cership Martin L. Cook 56 Integrity 5 Some Personal Re¶ections on Integrity General George Lee Butler 73 6 Decisions of Leaders and Commanders—Ethics Counts Lieutenant General Bradley C. Hosmer 84 7 Professional Integrity Brigadier General Malham M. Wakin 95 Ethical Problems of Warfare 8 The Just-War Idea and the Ethics of Intervention James Turner Johnson 107 9 Emergency Ethics Michael Walzer 126 v vi N Contents 10 Terrorism and the Military Professional Manuel M. Davenport 140 11 Unchosen Evil and the Responsibility of War Criminals Peter A. French 155 12 The Core Values in Combat General Ronald R. Fogleman 167 The Just War Tradition and Moral Problems Outside Warfare 13 The War Metaphor in Public Policy: Some Moral Re¶ections James F. Childress 181 14 The Control of Violence, Foreign and Domestic: Ethical Lessons from Law Enforcement Reverend Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C. 198 Thinking about Hard Cases 15 When Integrity Is Not Enough: Guidelines for Responding to Unethical Adversaries Richard T. De George 213 16 Conscience and Authority Thomas E. Hill, Jr. 228 17 In the Line of Duty: The Complexity of Military Obligation Nicholas Rescher 243 Traditions in Moral Education 18 The Education of Character William J. Bennett 255 19 Liberal Education and Its Enemies Allan Bloom 272 20 The Hazards of Repudiating Tradition Christina Hoff Sommers 283 Contributors 297 Index 303 Preface ilitary academies aim to educate for leadership. As a nation, we hope that M even those graduates who do not serve full careers in the military will even- tually assume positions of leadership in other institutions. The essays in this volume are a complete collection of the distinguished lectures in ethics given at the U.S. Air Force Academy from the fall of 1988 to the spring of 1999. While there is no single theme that runs through the entire collection, each essay has a common purpose: each lecturer was, in his or her own way, attempting to con- tribute to the ethical education of our nation’s future leaders. The contributors come from a variety of backgrounds (the series has enjoyed the participation of distinguished academics, high-ranking military of¤cers, judges, university ad- ministrators, and political of¤ce holders) and in this volume we can read what some leading thinkers from these various backgrounds have to offer on the sub- ject of ethics and leadership. The two lectures are managed by the Academy’s Department of Philoso- phy. The Joseph A. Reich, Sr., Distinguished Lecture on War, Morality and the Military Profession began in 1988 and is delivered each fall. The late Joseph A. Reich, Sr. was a distinguished and long-time resident of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was instrumental in bringing the Air Force Academy to that city. The Reich lecture series is supported though an endowment fund from Mr. Reich and his family, which is administered by the Air Force Academy As- sociation of Graduates. It honors “Papa Joe,” as he was affectionately known, for his many years of dedicated service to the Academy, the Colorado Springs community, and the United States. The Alice McDermott Memorial Lecture in Applied Ethics has been given each spring, beginning in 1991. The McDer- mott lectures are in memory of Alice Patricia McDermott, deceased wife of the Academy’s ¤rst Dean of the Faculty, retired Brigadier General Robert F. McDermott. Mrs. McDermott was intensely involved in the lives of cadets vii viii N Preface and was a strong, positive role model for all the young people that knew her. When General McDermott assumed the presidency of USAA, the McDer- motts moved to San Antonio, where she continued her tireless volunteer ef- forts with St. Luke’s Hospital, the Cancer Center Council, The Southwest Foundation Forum, Ronald McDonald House, the San Antonio Symphony League, and Project ABC. The McDermott series is funded by the Major Gen- eral William Lyon Chair in Professional Ethics. The Leader’s Imperative First Things 1 Three Moral Certainties John T. Noonan, Jr. hat do I mean by “moral certainties”? I mean things that we are sure of W by means other than mathematical calculation or logical deduction, where following the rules of the system assures certainty, and other than physi- cal sensation, where we trust our senses to know that we have two hands and walk on earth. We are morally certain that there is a Julius Caesar and morally certain that there is an Uzbekistan. On a personal level most of us are morally certain that our parents love us. Moral certainty depends on experience, but the certainty exceeds the experience. To be morally certain of something is not to be infallibly right but to be sure enough of it to act con¤dently in the belief that it exists. We have, obviously, a multitude of moral certainties. I should like to elaborate on three moral certainties that we have in our moral life. These certainties are in a double sense moral. They affect our moral life, and they have a certainty of the kind I call moral. I will begin with a story. In 1942 the German army was occupying Poland. Far behind the lines was the small Polish city of Józefów. In June, Police Bat- talion 101, a unit of ¤ve hundred men of the occupying force, received orders to round up and kill every Jew in Józefów.1 Every Jew meant every Jew, regard- less of gender, health, or age. The order was carried out. The Jews were taken from their homes to the town square and methodically shot. Babies were bay- oneted. In all over twelve thousand persons were put to death.2 These killings are described with documentary detail by Daniel Joseph Goldhagen in his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners. 3 4 N John T. Noonan, Jr. Focusing on particular events Goldhagen highlights the personal decisions of those who took human lives in the course of the Holocaust, a mass event whose enormity, the destruction of over ¤ve million Jews, is such that it may blunt our sensibilities or cause us to blank out. Just as it may be far easier to understand the expenditure of $1,000 than the expenditure of $1,000,000,000, so the smaller killings can be better grasped. So Goldhagen takes pains to de- scribe the action of Police Battalion 101’s commander, Major Wilhelm Trapp, who told his men that anyone who did not think himself able to engage in the killing would be excused without reprimand.3 Several men took advantage of this order. The rest were willing executioners. What is one’s ¤rst reaction on reading or hearing of this event? I am not sure, but I think it is to ask, “Had the Germans discovered some sabotage going on in Józefów or had there been some guerilla action against the Ger- man invaders for which this response was deemed appropriate reprisal?” Inex- cusable as such massive retaliation would have been, whatever the stimulus, we still do not want to believe that it did not have the slightest military justi¤cation. Nothing of a military nature had, in fact, occurred. The Jews of Józefów were not different from other civilians in the occupied area. They were killed because of deliberate Nazi policy.4 When we ¤nd on such investigation that the victims were totally blame- less and that the order to kill was deliberate policy, we think—nearly all people will think—that the killings were murder, the intentional taking of human lives without justi¤cation. The killings were acts of evil. We do not need to know the international law of war or the law of the Third Reich to reach this conclusion. We are morally certain. That certainty is part of a larger moral certainty: evil acts are done in the world. Let me drive home this large and simple truth with other examples of mass murder from this century.

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