Virtue Ethics vs. Ethical Rules: How Should War be Conducted?

The pursuit of war is constrained by rules: civilians must be treated according to certain rules, soldiers must be treated according to certain rules, particular types of weapons are banned, and so forth. Rules have the disadvantage of being unable to always handle new and dynamic situations. Is there an alternative, though?

Darrell Cole writes in the Spring, 1999 issue of the Journal of Religious Ethics:

I believe that a close examination of Thomas Aquinas... will reveal resources necessary for reformulating modern just war approaches that are overly dependent upon rules and lacking in any account of how anyone can obey those rules and why they should want to do so in the first place. ... Aquinas, with his synthesis of Aristotle and Augustine, shows why an account of the virtues is desirable if we are to construct a coherent moral account of war to which Christians can subscribe.

For example, an account of the virtues will deal with moral dilemmas in a way quite different from rule-driven accounts and will even show us how to avoid such dilemmas. The virtuous soldier acts in view of who he is and does not make critical “decisions” in the way described by critical-stage moralists. Thus, critical-stage problems can often be forestalled because the very nature of the virtuous combatant prevents, in the first place, the sort of actions that, in their chain of consequences, inevitably issue in such dilemmas.

Virtue ethics is any type of ethical system where the “right” thing to do flows naturally from the character of a “virtuous” person. A virtuous person doesn’t look to a rule book to decide what their moral duty is or to figure out what action will lead to the greatest happiness; instead, they almost instinctively know what the proper choice is because they have acquired a “habit” of acting morally. Virtue ethics has an advantage with handling new situations for which rules have yet to be created.

On the other hand, a person has to acquire a habit of acting morally somehow — even if they choose to follow the example of another virtuous person, how will they know whether this person really is acting properly in all circumstances? Rules are the product of experiences, usually the experiences of other people, and they thus have the advantage of allowing people to share the fruits of their experiences with others whom they’ll never meet. Ignoring rules — or, worse, not caring enough to create any — doesn’t strike me as an intelligent method to adopt when addressing morality.

Encouraging virtue and virtuous behavior in soldiers makes some sense, but not if it’s done at the expense knowing, understanding, and following the rules. The military runs on discipline and won’t function effectively if everyone is able to act according to their own understanding of virtuous behavior.

 

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• War and Morality
• War on Terrorism