Some more thoughts on the warrior ethos

A continuation of this post.

Would anyone deny that the Christian knight had a warrior ethos? Yet his warrior ethos was different from the samurai (Lt. Col. Astore refers to World War 2 Japanese soldiers in his piece). In their roles as warriors they share at least some virtues in common. I think that they differ significantly not in their roles as warriors, but as citizens or members of a political community--how they relate to others when they are not engaging in war. In what way are their warrior virtues integrated into their full roles?

Seeing how awkward it is to express what I want to say in terms of roles makes me think that a "roles-centered" ethics may have certain limitations, if roles are conceived as being equal rather than ordered, potentially leading to a sort of "compartmentalization."

Let us start afresh -- a Christian knight, as a knight, performed a certain function during times of war. He was expected to use his training in service of higher goods, not for glorifying the self, but to defend his community and to serve God. This was true even when he was not fighting--because his role as warrior was linked to his social status and role (which was also true of the samurai), the code of chivalry instructed him on how to behave both on the battlefield and off the battlefield. Fighting in battle may be the function of the knight as a knight, but it was not only function of the knight as man. He had other duties to perform, especially his duty to God, and his fulfillment of his function as a knight was ordered to the securing of higher goods. We still recognize that if a soldier must fight and kill, he must do so justly.

In our society we have a complete separation between the military sphere and the political sphere, so that service in the military alone does not automatically entitle one to hold a position in the political hierarchy. Do we blame the military for not teaching soldiers how to be citizens? Or do we blame the state? The answer is obvious if we are cognizant that the military's expertise does not lie in the art of politics or legislation (or nation-building) but in waging wars. If it is to educate soldiers how to be better citizens, it must receive direction from that authority which has competence in this area.

I would not entrust the task of educating to those in the National Government or to Democrats. If Aristotle were around today, I think he would judge the National Government as being concerned with training citizens who will perpetuate the regime instead of producing citizens who are also good men (i.e. virtuous).

Might it be that the complete separation of the military from the political is detrimental to the exercise and development of citizenship? Are our officers and soldiers able to dissent from U.S. foreign policy while wearing the uniform and in a public forum? Can they criticize the Federal Government like "civilians" can? (Did the Greeks who were fighting criticize Pericles during the Peloponnesian War?)

This essay by John Hittinger is still available: THE SOLDIER AND THE CITIZEN: LESSONS FROM PLATO AND ARISTOTLE