War leads to an overthrowing of points of reference and puts the relationship between morals and action at the heart of the profession of arms. Civil society is evolving, greatly modifying or even abandoning the hierarchy of values. There has been renewed interest on the question of ethics within France’s armed forces, and many articles have been published. Today just as much as in the past, consciences, which concern culture, reflection and meditation, have to be reawakened. The military leader faced with issues of conscience will have to find the answers within himself.
The Obscure Clarity of Military Ethics
‘Human feelings, military ethics, and (incidentally) the need for efficiency and to conserve ammunition, are all arguments against killing for killing’s sake.'(1) Since antiquity war has given rise to many moral and philosophical reflections from thinkers such as Saint Augustine, Hobbes and, later, Clausewitz. Modern armies often present themselves as the standard-bearers of universal values; paradoxically, recent lapses in behaviour in Western armies on operations seem to indicate that military ethos is failing to inform military action.
How do we define ethics? Several values have been put forward which differ as much as do their authors. For the philosopher P. Ricoeur, ethics refers to the concept of ‘Good’, with morals referring to the idea of obligation. The scientist J. Bernard proposes a more elaborate definition, with two etymological origins of ethics:
• the term ‘ithos’ which signifies the state of the soul, the style, in the classical French sense of the word–for example ‘the style is the man’;
• the term ‘ethos’, complementary to the other, which can mean all the norms born of respect for a reasonable solution.
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