Not so random deep thoughts from a Philosopher Queen
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(Part III of IV) What Kind of Honor? If honor can be morally salient and sustainable in contemporary Military Ethics, it will have to be a certain kind of honor. Accordingly, the core question is: can or to what degree can military honor be reimagined as an ethical concept without a certain problematic version of Continue reading "Introduction: What Kind of Honor?"
Why Honor? Before moving forward, I want to engage the why of thinking about military honor; it is important to situate this both in the context of recent developments in Military Ethics and my own work over the last decade. Why bother to engage a concept that has such problematic aspects and connotations and seems Continue reading "Introduction: Why Honor?"
Selections from the Introduction/Chapter 1 – An Experiment in Serialization Introduction “For he to-day that sheds his blood with me/Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,/This day shall gentle his condition;.”[i] “The most profound perfection for the warrior to pursue was perfect peace with death. Samurai were instructed always to keep the reality Continue reading "Rethinking Military Honor"
Remarks for New America Event, “The Military and Democracy : The US in Comparative Perspective” (prepared for Sept 2023) Dr. Pauline Shanks Kaurin, Professor of Philosophy What are the moral obligations of members of the military, how do they adjudicate amongst competing obligation in their service? What does the oath mean in this context? Continue reading "Civil Military Relations: Thoughts from…
When Martin and I (two Stockdale Chairs at the US Naval War College – one emeritus and one former) started discussing the fate of the Liberal Rule Based Order (LRBO) and its implications for Just War Theory and Military Ethics this summer, the exact contours of the new national security environment and priorities were still Continue reading "Two Stockdale Chairs walk into a Blog…"
The Argument in December 2020 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27032896?seq=1 In the Fall of 2020, I was writing the above invited article for a collection of articles on Civil Military Relations (CMR); my task was to address the intersection between ethics (defined as thinking about and practices related to morality, not just law) and CMR. There is not Continue reading "The Unprincipled Principal…
First, I want to thank the first Dean of CLE for having the courage to hire me, and to defend me when I ruffled feathers. I was not a conventional choice by any means! I also thank the Interim Dean and current Dean for the fortitude to lead with me as a faculty member in Continue reading "The End of An Era, the Start of an Age"
(Part IV in a five part series on Ethical Practices) Emotions get a bad rap in moral philosophy and ethics. There are some deep reasons in the history of philosophy – some of which also have their roots in gendered discourse and presumed attitudes about emotion and gender that are still with us today. Unfortunately, Continue reading "Engaging Your Emotions: Emotive Analysis and Ethical Reflection"
Welcome to the third installment of my series on Ethical Practices; this one is engaging a certain kind of moral dilemma that Lisa Tessman calls moral failure and that Martha Nussbaum terms tragic dilemmas. For Tessman, understanding moral failure is key to understand the ways that morality itself (not just moral agents) can fail, while Continue reading "Moral Failure and Tragic Dilemmas"
While this post is longer than my usual posts, I think it is important to go into more detail on this ethical practice, since it is one that subsequent posts will use as foundational. What is Moral Deliberation? Moral deliberation is a specific, structured kind of ethical reflection that is designed to engage a moral Continue reading "Moral Deliberation: A Cyclical Process of Reflection"
