Hybrid ethics and the good soldier: The challenge of grounding military ethical thinking and education

Military ethics education programmes must prepare soldiers and other military personnel to carry out their duties responsibly, honourably and, above all, ethically. But the practical, moral, and ethical reasoning employed by soldiers in their professional activities—what I call ‘military ethical thinking’—is deeply challenging. The successful interpretation and application of principles and other demands of military ethical thinking presupposes more fundamental commitments that serve as its grounding. But whether soldiers address questions of grounding in their training and education tends to depend upon their rank and role. The ethics education provided to senior officers, junior officers, NCOs, enlisted soldiers, new recruits, or conscripts varies greatly. Nonetheless, to facilitate coordination and cooperation across ranks and roles, there must be an overall unity and coherence to an ethics education programme. This paper asks which ethical approaches are best suited as grounds of military ethical thinking and education. According to a widely held view, the militaries of many democratic states are committed to ‘hybrid approaches’ to military ethical thinking and education. Here I argue that while hybrid decision-making procedures are valuable tools for soldiers facing ethically challenging situations, hybrid approaches cannot play the fundamental grounding role. Instead, I make a case for grounding military ethics education in a non-reductive virtue ethics which is based around the concept of ‘the good soldier’ and which is able to meet objections commonly put to virtue-based approaches.