Philosophy and ethics education for cadets.

Abstract

As a values-based institution, West Point seeks to instill a moral sense in its leaders. This endeavor can run crosscurrent to the free-form ethical investigation that is a hallmark of the contemporary ethics course. The result is a sometimes-uneasy tension, a constant effort to steer between the undesirable extremes of preaching the moral "right answer" and graduating military leaders who do not share the Army's ethical commitments.

Introduction

There's a saying at West Point: "The history we teach was made by the people we taught." A mandatory two-semester military history course for all cadets makes the statement true ipso facto, but the saying means more than its denotation. The history of the US and the world has been shaped by the graduates of the Academy. Although there are a number of institutions that can declare this, the claim is not idle boast: to the extent that American history has been shaped by its wars, it has been shaped by its warriors, and West Point has educated a good many of this group. Indeed, it would be impossible to tell the story of the twentieth century without including the influence of West Point graduates, including (among many others) Pershing, Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Marshall, Westmoreland--and, more recently, Wesley Clark in the Balkans and Norman Schwartzkopf in the Persian Gulf War. But history is not written by generals alone. The conflicts of the past century feature plenty of nameless subordinate leaders, and countless ordinary people who made decisions of import.

In war, the nation will grant new Academy graduates (mostly twenty-three and twenty-four year olds) an extraordinary amount of destructive power, and it will charge them with the safekeeping of its sons and daughters. Platoon leaders command an immense potential to do good or evil. They will be the representatives of our way of life in foreign nations, too, and the impressions they leave will cling. For these and other reasons, West Point takes its ethics instruction seriously. A significant amount of that ethics instruction takes place in the course I teach, Introduction to Philosophy.

West Point's Version of Introduction to Philosophy

Mandatory for all cadets West Point's semester-long Introduction to Philosophy is primarily a combination of rudimentary logic and ethics, with a significant amount of military ethics toward the end of the semester. Despite the military focus of part of the course, it shares a goal with intro philosophy courses in civilian schools: producing inquiring humans who can think deeply and critically about issues and arrive at their own reasoned conclusions. Contemporary philosophy courses take a common tack through their theoretical landscapes. They generally hope to free minds from their fetters, allowing students to try new ideas and claim new conceptual positions. There is a kind of "no holds barred" approach in philosophy that many undergraduates find a surprising--and refreshing---contrast to high school instruction. A crucial, and I suspect nearly universal, aspect of this intellectual journey is the teacher's non-dogmatism. That philosophy teachers are "experts" in their field does not mean the most effective means of learning is a lecture that yields the "right answer," and it certainly does not mean that any particular expert is right on even the most fundamental philosophical issues. [1] For this reason, among others, professors of philosophy do very little professing in their classes, and (even when they do profess) they allow students to hold well-reasoned viewpoints without punishment. Good teachers of philosophy don't preach, and they don't penalize students for holding divergent, though well-reasoned views. On the contrary, they encourage excellent thought, even when it contradicts their own opinions.

The introduction to philosophy--in most cases, the only philosophy course the student will ever have--seeks to engender a number of worthy ends: a healthy skepticism, sharp reason, a simultaneous moral humility and awareness. The goal, of course, is not to teach students the right answers. Who, some philosophers will ask, knows what they are anyway, assuming there are any to be known? That most philosophical claims cannot be proven can lead to an atmosphere akin to belief-pluralism, the idea that all beliefs are equally legitimate and that all ought to be equally admitted and respected. West Point's Introduction to Philosophy holds generally the same goals as counterpart courses at civilian institutions: the Academy seeks, among other things, to "heighten awareness of moral issues and the value of leading an examined life [and] provide opportunity to engage in reasoned discussion of philosophical issues." [2] But the course does so within a context that unambiguously rejects belief-pluralism. The United States Military Academy mission statement indicates commitment to a firm moral base: "To educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country; professional growth throughout a career as an officer in the United States Army; and a lifetime of selfless service to the nation." The US Army, moreover, emphasizes its moral foundations. The field manual on Army leadership indicates an implicit rejection of moral nihilism in its exhortation to Army leaders:

   [W]hen soldiers ... take the oath, they enter an institution guided
   by Army values ... These values tell you what you need to be, every
   day, in every action you take. Army values form the very identity of
   the Army, the solid rock upon which everything else stands,
   especially in combat. They are the glue that binds together the
   members of a noble profession. [They] are nonnegotiable ... They are
   the fundamental building blocks that enable us to discern right from
   wrong in any situation. Army values are consistent; they support one
   another. You can't follow one value and ignore another. [3]

The manual lists the seven Army values--loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage--and charges its readers: "As a leader, you must not only understand them; you must believe in them, model them in your own actions, and teach others to accept and live by them." [4]

West Point takes the responsibility of moral training seriously, and that fact is evident in many facets of cadet life, from Values Education Training classes to lectures by combat veterans to the serious study of officership and the moral responsibility it entails. Perhaps the most obviously moral aspect of cadet existence is the cadet honor code, which states that a "cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do." Notably, the honor code gives no reason for its imperative. Cadets accept it upon their arrival, and violating it can be grounds for dismissal. Acknowledging that the rule is probably alien to many new cadets, as they are drawn from a cross-section of America, the Academy does not simply enforce this high standard. [5] In their regular honor classes, cadets are frequently told that the goal of the cadet honor system is the internalization of the honor code's spirit, rather than a mere adherence to its proscriptions. West Point, as an institution, has settled on what the right is, and it is intent on imprinting it on the men and women it graduates. The tension between the two systems--the philosophical classroom on one hand, West Point internalization on the other--is obvious. [6] It surfaces early in the semester, near the start of our ethical theory block, when we discuss several moral theories that, in their denial of an objective standard of right and wrong, seemingly stand in contrast to those the Academy would endorse. My role here seems like that of a professor in a seminary, I suppose. While the realm of discourse in a seminary might be broad, some points of view are rejected outright. A Lutheran seminary is no place for the Buddhist or the Nietzschean; likewise, West Point remains deliberately inappropriate for the moral nihilist.

The Balance in Ethics and War

The third block of West Point's Introduction to Philosophy uses Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, a seminal book on the morality of and in war. I invite my cadets to pick apart the arguments and to question Walzer in class discussion and in written assignments, for I want them to continue developing a concurrent respect for and skepticism of arguments. I typically encounter lively discussion when we cover what Walzer thinks soldiers ought to risk on behalf of civilians---even civilians that support the enemy:. "The limits of risk [to your own troops, in order to preserve noncombatant lives, I remind my cadets] are fixed, then, roughly at that point where any further risk-taking would almost certainly doom the military venture or make it so costly that it could not be repeated." [7] Practically speaking, Walzer sets the bar high, and some of my students object. Why, they ask, should I be expected to sacrifice myself or my soldiers for civilians? For citizens of the enemy state? For "enemy" civilians who do not support the US cause in its combat operations? Sometimes the arguments are narrowly self-centered, but cadets just as often disagree with Walzer out of loyalty to troops, an obligation to country, or skepticism about why combatants and noncombatants acquire different wartime rights at all. The direction I try to lead my class politely labels some avenues off limits: the idea that noncombatants have no special protection in war, that soldiers can shoot them with impunity, is one that is defeated early on, by the cadets themselves or by me. As discussion continues, we see that there are alternatives to Walzer's criterion that might respect both civilian and soldier lives. Some moral ambiguity remains--as it should in a philosophy course--but we achieve a common understanding of and assent to at least part of a "right answer," as well. [8]

Another example: Walzer takes up the case of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman (himself a West Point graduate) and the Burning of Atlanta- To Walzer, Sherman subscribes to what Walzer himself terms the War is Hell Doctrine: the idea that "war is entirely and singularly the crime of those who begin it, and soldiers resisting aggression ... can never be blamed for anything they do that brings victory closer." [9] The idea, which Walzer resists, is that actions in reaction to another state's initial aggression are always justified--even when they seem reprehensible. Walzer considers the idea anathema because it closes the door to important discussion about the morality in war: even in war, he argues, "it is possible to be more or less humane, to fight with or without restraint." [10] Cadets will occasionally disagree, sometimes from the easily dispatched position that the rules that pertain to others do not pertain to us. More often, though, their arguments are more sophisticated. Some suggest, for example, that fighting a war as brutally as possible is the surest way to a quick conclusion; in order to end the conflict, American troops should conduct war too cruelly for their enemy to endure. On this point, though, Walzer must he tight, and I feel a duty to help cadets see that. For one, I (personally) feel strongly that some actions remain morally off-limits to soldiers, even when they fight for a just cause. We might include rape, torture, and deliberately targeting noncombatants in a short list of activities that are never justified in war, regardless of the rectitude of one's cause.

My strong personal feelings cannot be a good reason for me to (sometimes heavy-handedly) guide my students to a particular answer, an action some might see as one step short of proselytizing. There is another, stronger consideration, though, and it is this. The US has made up its mind on certain aspects of the conduct of war, and all officers must act in accordance with them. An example: the US is signatory to the Geneva Convention (IV), which prohibits soldiers from murdering, taking hostage, or torturing noncombatants. [11] A central part of my role as philosophy teacher is to get cadets to "buy into" the moral position, to help them recognize its intellectual persuasiveness.

To an extent, this is the business of any teacher of an ethics course: to have the students take the claims of morality seriously by the end of the semester. My job, I argue, is slightly more urgent. Civilian undergrads who graduate without a moral anchor, can gain one later. My former students can--and this year, do--join an Army at war. Within months of graduation, some will be deployed to combat zones to lead platoons in incredibly demanding moral circumstances. If my cadets graduate with the fixed opinion that anything, morally speaking, is allowed in war, I have done a significant disservice to my employers--the American public. I have additionally failed those foreign noncombatants who may suffer at the hands of the immoral officer. And I have, in the most fundamental way, defaulted on my obligation to the cadets. Morally adrift people can live normal Jives, and most do. Morally adrift officers can order war crimes, and some have: witness the long-lasting effects of Lieutenant William Calley in Vietnam's My Lai Massacre.

Conclusion

The tension arises in the demarcation between that which is open to discussion and that which is non-negotiable. How can I teach my cadets so they are committed in a fundamental way to the nation's core values, while developing the ability to think critically and deeply?. In the involute realm of morality in war, both attributes become crucial. A past colleague says it well: "while soldiers rarely carry a copy of the field manuals that cover the laws of land warfare and proper conduct, they will carry their ability to make moral decisions through their intellect and reason." [12] When they become officers in the Army, my students will meet difficult situations, situations that require both moral conviction and moral imagination. The problem is that the overemphasis of one threatens to diminish the other. In teaching ethical theory, my colleagues and I attempt the daily navigation between the Scylla of preaching the "right answer" and the Charybdis of graduating cadets who do not understand that there is a difference between right and wrong, and that the difference matters.

Notes

[1] I like the description of "soft" expertise David A. Conway and Ronald Munson give: people become experts because they have a specialized knowledge, but some areas of study are such that experts disagree about the most basic points. Religious scholars, literary critics, and philosophers are examples of experts "whose views on certain matters are more informed and more carefully considered than the views of the rest of us," but whose views can still conflict radically with those of other experts in the field. The Elements of Reasoning, 3d ed. (Stamford, CT: Wadsworth, 2000), 199.

[2] Default Syllabus, PY201, fall 2003.

[3] Department of the Army, Field Manual 22-100, Army Leadership (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 31 August 99), sec. 2-4 through 2-7; available online at http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/22-100/ch2.htm#2-2.

[4] Ibid., sec. 2-7. The emphasis on character traits seems on its face to accord with a virtue-theoretic form of normative ethics, a theory that emphasizes the cultivation of virtues through habit. For an early form of the theory, see Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics.

[5] I should note that, though overseen by officers, the honor system is cadet-run. This does not weaken the point, which is that my students operate in a realm where they are to some extent "fed" a moral framework and expected to understand, believe, and live it.

[6] Much has been made through the years of West Point's dual nature, its simultaneous missions to train and educate Army officers. I, for one, believe the demarcation odd, particularly in the realm of teaching ethics. See Elizabeth D Samet, "Teaching Poetry to Soldiers in a Post-Heroic Age, "Armed Forces and Society 29, no. 1 (fall 2002): 117.

[7] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 3d ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 157.

[8] For a fascinating account of how a philosopher at the US Naval Academy teaches ethics and war, see Shannon E. French, "When Teaching the Ethics of War Is Not Academic," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 March 2003, B7.

[9] Walzer, 32.

[10] Ibid., 33.

[11] This is a truncated list. See the Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, Article 3, available online at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva07.htm for the complete statement.

[12] Kristine V. Nakutis, "Teaching Moral Responsibility in Warfare," Teaching Philosophy 25, no. 3 (September 2002): 238.

Michael W. Brough, United States Military Academy

Brough is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the United States Military Academy. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense or U.S. Government.