The Leader’s Imperative: Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility pdf

Imperative “Put in more direct terms, good teachers ought to be good persons, good doc- tors ought to be good persons, good lawyers ought to be good persons, and good military professionals ought to be good persons. We want to live in a world where the duties of a competent professional can be carried out by a good person with a clear and confident conscience.” — BB BB B rigadier Grigadier G rigadier Grigadier G rigadier G eneral Meneral M eneral Meneral M eneral M alham M. alham M. alham M. alham M. alham M. WW WW W akinakin akinakin akin “There are no moments in human history that are not governed by moral rules; the human world is a world of limitation, and the moral limits are never suspended—the way we might, for example, suspend habeas corpus in a time of civil war.” — MM MM M ichael ichael ichael ichael ichael WW WW W alzalz alzalz alz erer erer er “Professional life for all of us presupposes training, certification, a professional code involving moral and professional standards and the courage to enforce them, and the trust and respect of the clients or society we serve. The hardest part of the code, that hardest part of being a member of a profession, is enforc- ing the code—enforcing it in our own lives and, with even more difficulty, ap- plying it to our fellow professional.” — RR RR R evev evev ev erer erer er end Eend E end Eend E end E dwardwar dwardwar dwar d A. Md A. M d A. Md A. M d A. M alloallo alloallo allo yy yy y , C.S.C., C.S.C. , C.S.C., C.S.C. , C.S.C. “We decide the kind of people we are through some series of decisions, through some series of actions over the course of a life. I have come to believe fervently as an adult what I was taught as a child—that in the end we are, in- deed, moral and spiritual beings. It is the example we set which in the end, I think, tells the tale.” — William J. BennettWilliam J. Bennett William J. BennettWilliam J. Bennett William J. Bennett The Leader’s Imperative FF FF F icarricarr icarricarr icarr ottaotta ottaotta otta PP PP P urur urur ur duedue duedue due PP PP P urur urur ur due Udue U due Udue U due U nivniv nivniv niv ersity Persity P ersity Persity P ersity P rr rr r essess essess ess WW WW W est Lafayest Lafay est Lafayest Lafay est Lafay ette, Iette, I ette, Iette, I ette, I ndianandiana ndianandiana ndiana (continued) Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility EDITED BY J. Carl Ficarrotta PURDUPURDU PURDUPURDU PURDU EE EE E UNIVERSITUNIVERSIT UNIVERSITUNIVERSIT UNIVERSIT YY YY Y PRESSPRESS PRESSPRESS PRESS The > ,!7IB5F7-fdbieb!:t;K;k;K;k ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN 1-55753-184-61-55753-184-6 1-55753-184-61-55753-184-6 1-55753-184-6 This volume is a complete col- lection of both the Reich and McDermott lectures given at the U.S. Air Force Academy from 1988 to 1999. It gathers together twenty of today’s lead- ing thinkers on the topic of leadership, ethics, and integrity. Distinguished men and women all, they discuss the ethics of leadership from a variety of perspectives—those of policy- makers, educators, military leaders, philosophers, jurists, and clergy. Many of these essays discuss great leaders of the past and the moral decisions they faced. Sev- eral are very well known, such as Abraham Lincoln and his understanding of moral truths, and the controversial decision by the Allies to bomb civilian sites in Germany in World War II. Others present such little- known examples as the German general who disobeyed his supe- riors to save Paris from total de- struction in World War II, and the young Air Force Second Lieu- tenant who died in action during his third consecutive tour of duty in Vietnam. Still others discuss gross ethical failures, such as eth- nic cleansing in the Balkans. Some essays explore how our predecessors in the Western tradi- tions have framed these issues, offering us Aristotle’s views on virtue and the just-war tradition as it developed in the Church. Another group of contribu- tors offers hard-won lessons from personal experiences, making dif- ficult decisions and observing the behavior of others when duty to an overarching principle overrides a specific directive. Finally, and perhaps most im- portantly, these essays discuss our future: How can we instill a sense of integrity and responsibility in tomorrow’s leaders? L eader’s The Leader’s Imperative The Leader’s Imperative Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility ◆ 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 v 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 vi ◆ ◆◆ ◆ 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 vii Preface ilitary academies aim to educate for leadership. As a nation, we hope that 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 vol- ume 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 M viii ◆ ◆◆ ◆ 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 [...]... only the life we live And of that human life, he offers the time is a point, and the substance is in a ¶ux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and. .. war (the killing of the Armenians and of the Jews), but none of them was necessary to ¤ghting the war, none was occasioned by military necessity The motives for the murders were varied—religious and ethnic in Turkey, ideological and class in the Soviet Union, ethnic and ideological in Germany, ethnic and class in Rwanda Characteristic of each case is the marking of the victims as different from their... extraordinary progress in the mapping of the brain, locating, for example, the amygdala as the place where emotions of anger and anxiety are processed, and charting the effect of dopamine on certain synapses Analogies with the workings of computers have aided these scienti¤c endeavors in understanding the neural connections and processes These successes, and the greater successes they promise, have encouraged... as the survival of the regime, for the result he relies on came about only by the destruction of the regime Inadequate as their criteria are, Goldhagen and Posner are clear in their judgment of the Nazis and expect their readers to share their judgment Does not each silently appeal to a standard of judgment that is not local and relative, that is more stable than shifts in a regime? I infer that they... not murder.”28 The people to whom the commandment was originally addressed, and to whose care its preservation is owed, engaged in various kinds of killing without compunction They ate animals, they practiced capital punishment, they conducted wars.29 “ You shall not murder” was how the commandment was understood The commandment was reinforced by the story that opens the Hebrew Bible: The Creator creates... was put upon them—literally in Germany, ¤guratively in the other cases—declaring the difference: “ They are not us.” It has been essential to mark the victims in this way so that the murderers will not see them as human beings like themselves Not see them as themselves—that is the trick, if “trick” is not too trivial a description of the act by which a species of subhumanity is created The “not seeing”... to death” (Exodus 21:12, RSV) “Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys” (Joshua 6:21, RSV) 30 “This is the list of the descendants of Adam When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God” (Genesis 5:1, RSV) 31 Brevard S Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Philadelphia,... detail the Japanese rape of Nanking and killing of more than 260,000 Chinese,9 the Cultural Revolution in China and the killing of 7.7 million Chinese,10 the regime of the Khmer Rouge and the deaths of 1.5 million Cambodians.11 Morbid fascination may be the result of this catalogue of horrors that has marked the twentieth century, most of them in my lifetime; but they are horrible to dwell upon, and memory... education, the inequities, the frequent shabbiness, the embattled teachers, the de facto segregation, and the drop-out rate Or, one could discuss the epidemic facts of mindless violence and, if I may, the bizarre move to legalizing concealed weapons And riding well beneath the surface, yet perilous, nonetheless, is the decades-long failure to maintain our infrastructure: bridges, tunnels and water-quality... footless, homeless, anomic and pathetically lonely, each and all of them, lonely together Nana Kelly was dead within the year I think here of America, our “strand” of hope and I ask do we still have that long-standing, self-announcing con¤dence in our ability to meet and match our foes, of any and every stripe, political, economic, natural, and, above all, spiritual, arising from without and within our commonwealth? . professional code involving moral and professional standards and the courage to enforce them, and the trust and respect of the clients or society we serve. The hardest part of the code, that hardest part. leaders of the past and the moral decisions they faced. Sev- eral are very well known, such as Abraham Lincoln and his understanding of moral truths, and the controversial decision by the Allies. we instill a sense of integrity and responsibility in tomorrow’s leaders? L eader’s The Leader’s Imperative The Leader’s Imperative Ethics, Integrity, and Responsibility ◆ Edited by J. Carl