| dc.description.abstract | The author aims at providing a coherent body of ethics, a shared moral standard, for a
modern Dutch military. He starts by describing the historical context and the present
situation of the Dutch military and the morally relevant aspects. These include notions of
justice in committing armed forces and a professional ethos based on duty, proficiency,
resilience and respect. The author rejects the recent introduction of a code of conduct,
mainly because this code does not address the operational character of military practice
and does not provide a tangible link with the strong tradition of the military
The author argues that a virtue‐ethical approach will be best suited to provide a
coherent shared moral standard. He chooses the theory of Alisdair MacIntyre to further
elaborate a normative framework that addresses both the operational nature of military
practice and provides a strong link with military tradition. The theory is based on an
interconnectedness of practice, narrative and moral tradition and claims to provide an
objective method to establish which virtues are relevant for a practice. The theory aims
primarily at the internal goods of a practice that can only be acquired by participating in
that particular practice. The virtues enable the practitioner to excel and so increase the
benefits gained by participating in the practice. After examining MacIntyre’s approach
and reviewing several criticisms aimed at MacIntyre’s theory, the framework is
augmented, including the notion that a practice also has an external goal, a purpose.
This purpose provides an extra dimension in ascertaining which virtues are relevant. Also
the idea that the special virtues of a practice must somehow fit with wider ideas of
morality is taken into account. The ideas of MacIntyre are further supplemented with a
the need to establish the constitutive parts of a practice as well as a method to
determine more exactly what is the meaning, the content, of a virtue.
The elaborated framework is than applied to Dutch military practice. First the
constitutive elements of military practice are determined. Next is established what are
the primary goods that people want to acquire in participating in military practice. Based
on these goods, eight military virtues are identified: duty, military professionalism,
comradeship, respect, resilience, discipline, courage and justice. The content of these
virtues is further elaborated. The author continues to show how these virtues fit into a
narrative and how this narrative enhances the individual virtuousness. The result is a
coherent body of professional ethics. Next the author examines the role of the military
institution and its place in Dutch society. In Dutch society the military has no reason to
expect a priori status or power. Political control over the military is complete and widely
accepted as a necessary and valuable feature of civil‐military relations. The only way to
acquire status by the military is by excelling: a feature that fits well in Dutch general
moral tradition. The nature of the Dutch Armed forces as a closed institution provides
the next perspective. This feature entails the reciprocal values of duty and trust. The
organisation has the duty to look after its soldiers and trusts that they will do their job,
as well as the soldiers have the duty to execute their mission in the trust that the armed
forces organisation will look after their wellbeing. Duty and trust are the core values of
the organizational morality of the military. The notions duty and trust also provide a
linking pin between ordinary morality of society and the organizational morality of the
military and eventually the professional morality of the sailors, soldier, airmen and
marechaussees1. The government has the duty to care for its military and trusts that the
military will do their job; on the other hand the military has the duty to perform well and
trusts that the government will take proper care of them. In this way a fit is also
established between ordinary morality and military morality.
The author concludes that the modified model he developed, based on the virtue‐ethical
theory of Alisdair McIntyre, provides indeed a suitable way of establishing what could be
the content of a modern military morality for the Dutch armed forces. He claims that a
soldier educated and trained in accordance with the virtues will not only be a better
soldier, but will also enhance military effectiveness and eventually this soldier will be a
better person and a better citizen as well. | |
