Military ethics and virtues
Subtitle: an interdisciplinary approach for the 21st century
By: Peter Olsthoorn
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 175
ISBN-13: 9780415580069
Description: This book examines the role of military virtues in today's armed forces. Although long-established military virtues, such as honor, courage and loyalty, are what most armed forces today still use as guiding principles in an effort to enhance the moral behavior of soldiers, much depends on whether the military virtues adhered to by these militaries suit a particular mission or military operation. Clearly, the beneficiaries of these military virtues are the soldiers themselves, fellow-soldiers, and military organizations, yet there is little that regulates the behavior of soldiers towards civilian populations. As a result, troops trained for combat in today's missions sometimes experience difficulty in adjusting to the less aggressive ways of working needed to win the hearts and minds of local populations after major combat is over. It can be argued that today's missions call for virtues that are more inclusive than the traditional ones, which are mainly about enhancing military effectiveness, but a convincing case can be made that a lot can already be won by interpreting these traditional virtues in different ways. -- Publisher description.
Table of contents: title: Virtue ethics and the military; title: Honor; title: Courage; title: Loyalty; title: Integrity; title: Respect.