This thread is for the discussion of Massimo's June 2004 Rationally Speaking article entitled Soldiers' Morality.

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N. 50, June 2004

Soldiers' morality

It has been an awful month in Iraq, dominated by the news of prisoners' abuse in detention facilities run by the US and its allies, by the decapitation of an American, broadcast on the Internet, and of course by the usual list of bomb explosions and casualties all over the Middle East. Plenty of commentators have remarked on all these events, but I have made a list of what I think are interesting phrases related to the prisoners' abuse scandal, and that I'd like to submit to the readers' attention. What I think is relevant in the following quotes is what they reveal about the common sense of morality that appears to be shared by a lot of us. As we shall see, it makes for a disturbing picture of our ethical standards.

One of the first excuses adduced by the accused soldiers and their friends and families is a classic: "I (he/she) was following orders." Well, all right, what that means is that responsibility needs to be ascertained throughout the chain of command, but in what sense is this an excuse for the soldiers' behavior? It didn't help the Nazi at Nuremberg whenever they tried the same approach, and for good reasons: when an adult individual does something, even at the prompting of somebody else, that individual is primarily responsible for what he has done. In the United States, it is common to try children as adults for all sorts of crimes, and one often hears calls for the death penalty in some such cases. But when it comes to our own "boys" (and "girls") doing awful things, all we have to do is to point the finger to whoever gave the order? What happened to one of the cornerstones of the American ethos, personal responsibility?

A second common refrain heard during the past few weeks has been that "they were not properly trained." As if a mature adult actually needs special training to figure out that it is not moral to torture prisoners of war, that it is not ethical to humiliate people that are in one's custody, for example by forcing them to engage in acts that their culture or religion considers demeaning. On a much minor scale, of course, a similar attitude is behind the idea that if someone at the office sexually harasses one of his employees, the problem will be fixed with "sensitivity training," as if any reasonable man wouldn't know that touching, or even talking to, a woman in a certain manner without permission is simply not an acceptable thing to do.

Many of the friends and family of the accused soldiers have been understandably shocked and surprised at the news of the abuses. But, rather than accepting the reality of photos and testimonies, a common reaction has been along the lines of "he is such a nice boy, I simply can't believe he could do that sort of things." This, of course, is the same simplistic attitude that explains why the majority of crimes are committed by people who know the victim, the latter being simply unable to think that her nice uncle, neighbor, or friend could possibly do what they in fact went on to do. In several of the televised interviews with friends and family of the accused soldiers, the attitude was palpably not just one of disbelief at the reality of the events, but rather one insinuating the possibility that somebody, somewhere, was simply making all of this up.

To continue with our brief analysis, consider Donald Rumsfeld, the (too) briefly embattled Secretary of Defense: he immediately went on television to "take full responsibility" for the abuses, and then gingerly (even contemptuously) ignored calls for his resignation. What exactly does it mean to "take responsibility," then? I thought, naively as it turns out, that it would mean that someone at the top of the chain of command (say, Rumsfeld) would resign because he had not been able to correct a problem of which he had been aware for months before the scandal erupted. But I guess Mr. Rumsfeld's dictionary includes some other, hitherto unknown, definition of "taking responsibility."

We then come to President Bush, who has been quoted saying, after viewing the photos of the prisoners' maltreatment, "this does not reflect the America I know." Well, the problem is that -- contrary to what Mr. Bush and his cronies have been saying for years -- there is no such thing as "the" America they know. The United States of America is, like many other places in the world, sometime a wonderful and sometime an awful place to live, depending on the circumstances. Americans, like any other people in the world, don't have a monopoly on goodness (or on evil, for that matter), but are simply a bunch of human beings, with all the great potential and faults that human beings typically have. That is why it is equally silly to say that one is "proud to be an American" (how can one be proud of a birth accident?), as that one "hates America" (how can one meaningfully hate an abstract entity?). Rather, one should say that one is proud, ashamed of, or even hate, particular Americans, especially individual leaders and the policies they implement.

The Bush administration also tried to get some mileage out of the alleged fact that the US is "dealing" with the matter openly and swiftly, as opposed to some dictatorship that American blood has helped eliminating. Right, except of course that that dictatorship had actually been helped into place by the same American interests that later removed it, not to mention the maddening fact that the Bush administration tried to keep the news of the abuses out of the public eye for months, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing to stop the practice. Only when the news finally became public Rumsfeld "took responsibility" (see above).

Lastly, one of the most disturbing comments I've heard in the news about this whole horrible affair began appearing after the decapitation of Nick Berg was broadcast on the Internet: "well, see, at least we are not as barbaric as they are." Yes, there is no question that the decapitation of a human being is a barbaric act (although, let us remember that the US is the only Western country that still applies the death penalty -- being killed by raw decapitation is surely worse than being fried on the electric chair, but at some point this becomes an academic matter for the person involved). And surely decapitating one prisoner outdoes abusing several by a long shot (then again, at least one prisoner did die under torture in American hands). But even to make the comparison, it seems to me, dramatically lowers our own moral standards. So now the US is no longer a knight in shining armor, interested only in bringing democracy and economic prosperity to the rest of the world. We are reduced to a picture of the US army doing awful things, yes, but at least not as awful as those of the other side. Have we completely lost our moral compass? Did we ever had it to begin with?

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"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them"

It is interesting that in this post a real vivid wrong and evil is posed. Something beyond a cultural upbringing and deep in the "heart of a man." Now most people I find, say all morals are relative to the culture, but this articule would say there are some things that just should be known regardless, why else would he say, "As if a mature adult actually needs special training to figure out that it is not moral to torture prisoners of war." If morals are a part of the enviroment, then indeed the soldier did need training. Now tell that to the Americans and see how they react. I highly doubt they would say those acts weren't really wrong, just subjectively wrong to our culture. I would imagine they would say these acts were wrong and should be punished, not because we think they were wrong, but because they really were wrong. For what right would the people to deal subjective punishment under the gise of justice is there never existed such moral standards. So an interesting question is brought up, did the soldiers really know what they were doing was wrong, did they have absolute morality or right and wrong instilled in them, or were they lacking the enviroment to teach them those things?

You've just made my brain hurt. Excellent questions you've asked. I'm from the camp that believes there is no such thing as right and wrong outside of the minds of sentient animals.

Morality cannot be universal unless there exists something external that created this morality...such as a God. Morality is simply that which a social group deems right or wrong for the members of that social group. Yes, all social groups tend to view certain things as immoral, but this doesn't make those things immoral. Immorality only exists if we will it into existence. I hope I'm making sense.

What if there existed a social group where ALL members were sociopaths that lacked the ability to feel fear, remorse, or even pain. If Sociopath A kills Sociopath B, was the act of killing wrong? Sociopath A didn't feel it was wrong and didn't feel remorse. Sociopath B wasn't afraid of dying, and experienced no pain in the process of dying. So who is to say that the act of killing was wrong? Who was the victim? How can there be right or wrong if there is nobody experiencing victimhood? Is victimhood even a word? lol

So what does my post have to do with those soldiers and their morality? Not a damn thing, but thanks for asking.

But now that you mention it...

Those soldiers are a part of a social group that teaches that those types of actions are wrong, therefore, they committed a wrong. Not because torturing is inherently wrong, but simply because the majority of members of their social group say it's wrong.

Chris

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them"

Chris,

You are arguing that morality is socially constructed. A member of the group violating the "morals" of the group is therefore immoral by that logic no matter the nature of the act. By this interpretation an SS man was immoral for refusing to gas Jews because the group he was in had constructed a morality which he violated.

...[T]o ignore the classics is ultimately to weaken the very foundations of our society. - James Atlas, Book Wars: What it Takes to be Educated in America

Chris, I suggest we read "The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer. At the very least, it will help to clarify questions like these. I'll put that down, along with Blink for the next quarter.

Morality isn't relative, yet neither is it absolute. It's somewhere in between, and that makes it difficult to come to agreements on ethical questions. Is it immoral to torture prisoners of war if they are infidels? 'Yes', according to the bible; but 'no' according to your feelings.

Unless there is 'some factor' influencing those feelings.

Perhaps the military's dogmatic approach to follow orders caused the troops to disregard their feelings and obey the orders. For the order givers, perhaps the pressure of the position and the need for information that would save many lives outweighed their feelings otherwise. Combined with their physical detachment, which would likely lessen empathy as a result, their feelings were overmatched by circumstance.

I think that when faced with a situation where you are led to believe (over 99.9% of the time correctly) that you must follow orders without hesitation or people will die it must be hard to distinguish the rest of the time.

...[T]o ignore the classics is ultimately to weaken the very foundations of our society. - James Atlas, Book Wars: What it Takes to be Educated in America

I completely agree, and even non-wartime military or former military personnel may not fully understand how powerful the force of a wartime order is. I am former military, and could even see myself carrying out immoral orders due to the strength of respect to the military hierarchy and orders given.

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Morality is simply that which a social group deems right or wrong for the members of that social group.

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I am amazed by the extend I agree with you Chris. Yes, I also see morality in the same way as you do. Long time ago, I had said something very similar in one of my posts... that morality is a kind of social consensus.
Interbane did not agree. I think he believes there is something like an universal morality. Maybe he will rephrase it in his kind of spectral ladder, not black nor white, but somewhere in between... Maybe the extreme is MadA, because he is convinced about an external God that provides such ethical standard. But I do not see any. When I was a kid, I thought that one could find some evidence for morality in the natural world... but then after many years of studies in biological sciences... I came to the conclusion that moral is only a social agreement. I would not say that it is restricted to human beings, because I believe that some sort of moral behaviour can occur in all kind of social animals. Even in bees or ants, but more clearly and evident in wolfes and apes. Undoutedly, moral behaviour has some evolutionary advantages... and that is why it is still there.

On the other hand, I have also come to the conclusion that the human race is a violent and criminal species. Maybe this is a trival and obvious observation if one watches the news. But I mean it in an evolutionary context... if the early hominoids had not been as violents as we naturally are, then the human species might have never evolved as it did. Why are there no living intermediates between apes and humans? Why did the australopitecus, erectus and habilis die out? I do not think that they were not adapted, I think it is because we killed them all. We killed the neanderthalers and many others. In the same way that we wiped out the aborigines in Australia, or the native Americans in our contitent.

We have blood in our hands...

that does not mean that it is OK to carry on... we have to overcome this animal past and become more intelligent... much more intelligent than we are today... and I do not think that going to invade Irak was a very smart thing to do. And neither I think that voting for Bush, or appointing Rumsfeld was a piece of brilliancy.

Diversity is Good!

In respect of morality, the initial trigger of this tread... maybe I could add some more of my recent thoughts...

Maybe morality is not as plain as I had been able to present... but very often I tend to simplify a lot... this is not because I want to get rid of the magic... but maybe it is part of my instinct as a scientist whose aim is to try to find the simplest explanations to the most complex phenomena... maybe science is not very diferent from art... because both are a kind of revelation of a mystery... both try to create simbols for the what is outside and inside our minds... E=mc2 is nothing else than a simplified simbol of what in reality is much more complex and diverse...

But back to morality... besides being a kind of social consensus... it is interestingly also a very important component of our status... it is part of our personal reputation... how other people see us... who much do they respect us or value us... the position that we occupy in the social ladder very much depends on the morality that we express to the outside world...

For example, a person who has very high moral values... high ethical standards... even if it is only an artificial impression... then it is very dificult to not have a high respect for such person.
On the other hand, a person who has very low moral, or even none... then it is very easy for us to have little respect for such a person... it is easy to hate him or to have the lowest feeling for him...

The Pope for example... even if we do not agree on many issues with him... because he has supossedly such high ethical standards, then many people in the world respect him... it is really dificult to really hate such persons like him... it is easy to like and value such ethical symbols.
On the other hand... a prostitute... because she sells her body for money... and this is supossedly an inmoral behaviour.... then it is very easy to disrespect a prostitute... to think of her as a lower person... to call her bad words... just because of the fact that we think she has low moral standards. We all want the best for our children, and therefore it is so dificult for a father to know that her daughter is a prostitute... We would not be ashamed of our son becoming a priest, but our daughter becoming a prostitute is beyond the line of our belt.


Why? Well, that is all because of moral... the higher your moral standards, the higher your reputation, the more other people will respect and regard you.
Thus, even if it is an artificial social invention... moral behaviour has some obvious advantages for our everyday's life... we get a social benefit if we behave ethically... If we are caught too often doing inmoral things... other people, our friends and even our family members will stop believing and respecting us... thus, it is better to comply to these morals... even if we think some of them are silly or oldfashioned...

For example, in a latinamerican country.... if a young girl has a strong appetite for sex and would like to sleep with as many men as she feels like... it is better that she does not have sex with all men during the first date... she has to give the impression that she is not so easy... that she has some moral reservations... otherwise, the men might enjoy being with her... but they will inevitably assign her a very low personal reputation.
This is also a reason why some men can do very nasty things with prostitutes, but at home they want a lovely wife they can be proud of. All this is related to the issues of morality and social reputation.

I am also aware, that while some people read this lines and realize my crude view of morality... in that it does not have anything to do with God... when I as a freethinker go beyond the moral boundaries of many persons... for example if I say unacceptable things about God... or about sex... many people will inevitably start to have a bad impression of me... my reputation will fall... maybe some of these persons will even hate me, or maybe they will just ignore me... I could not imagine that I would like or love a person, who would be absolutely free of moral attitudes... Can anybody feel more simpathy for me after having said such things?

Thus, by saying inmoral things about God... by saying God could be capable of inmoral actions... or that even our beloved armed forces... the army or the navy... the soldiers in the line of duty... that they are doing inmoral things... this is like hurting our own personal pride... and the status of our country... and therefore, it is more than understandable that we will hate any people or countries that put in doubt the morality of our intentions or actions... even if it is war, where everything is allowed.

Diversity is Good!

Interbane did not agree. I think he believes there is something like an universal morality. Maybe he will rephrase it in his kind of spectral ladder, not black nor white, but somewhere in between... Maybe the extreme is MadA, because he is convinced about an external God that provides such ethical standard.

I don't recall Interbane having made a statement of that sort, and I certainly haven't asserted an absolute morality. Please, don't go putting words in our mouths.

MadA,

you cannot recall Interbane saying something of a spectrum because of a problem with the arrow of time. It is due a desynchrony between the event of Interbane explaining his spectrum of truth and the event of your arrival at Booktalk.

Let me quote some of his old passages from the Belief in God tread:
Interbane (10.10.04)
There is an absolute truth to everything in the universe. This truth transcends all of our individual beliefs. (...) I am talking about the absolute truth that exists regardless of individual bias. In almost all cases, there is no way to know the absolute truth, we can only speculate and deduce and assume.

Whenever I learn new stuff or hear opinions or supposed facts, I let the information percolate and assign it to a hypothetical true/false spectrum in my head. Some information is more likely to be true, and some is more likely to be false. If I heard that Madonna had quintuplets, I'd place that very near the false end of the spectrum. If I heard that the sun is going to come up tomorrow, I'd place that right at the true end of the spectrum.
(...)
in all my experience one of the very few things that falls right in the middle of the spectrum is whether or not god exists (...)

Interbane (10.11.04)
As I said before, I place the existance of God in the middle of my true/false spectrum. The Bible is near the false end of my mental spectrum. Whether or not the Bible is true does not weight on my beliefs about God.

I like Interbane's analogy of a continuous spectrum of truth... and if you read carefully his posts (also between the lines), you will notice that his thoughts and arguments are always bearing some of this spectral attitude. He seldom wants to be radical or extreme. I could also say that Interbane is a good mediator, a kind of diplomat. Maybe he should consider this for his future career, that he might have some negotiating ability of bringing two opposite sides together.
In any way, I like most of what Interbane says, and I think he has a great potential of developing his ideas further. We all evolve with our life experiences as the years pass.

MadA, I consider you as an intelligent and very literate person. But I think that I do not need to hide the fact that I do not have the same high level of admiration for your way of arguing and discussing. I think you have a slippery attitude, you never want to get caught, and sometimes you like to confuse rather than to clarify. You have a big phobia of fully agreeing with others at BookTalk. I have the impression that you like to discuss the ideas of others, and you sometimes answer with the ideas of others... the most prominent custom being the quoting of who knows which authors and books... but one never knows which is your real opinion. You are like hidding behind a mask... I do not know why you are so afraid of letting something from your real self out. In your posts, one seldom can distinguish between an idea that comes from your extensive readings, or one that comes from the depths of your hearth. Maybe you are timid in reality, and you feel much safer behind a trench of books.

I really do not have time to find all the quotes from your previous posts to substantiate all my claims... I do not recall where you mentioned that morality had an external standard... and also somewhere else, where you explained your beliefs in God... and how God could be considered as an external standard. Sorry if you have the impression that I put words in your mouth...

But maybe you remember better the things you said about God and morality... and instead of talking about peanut butter or only complaining about words being put in your mouth, you can requote or rephrase your ideas. Tell us which where the right words? Was untrue what I said about the external standard?
Is there a universal morality independent of the social context of humanity? Is there one morality for God and another for humans? Which are the common elements between the moral rules of a Deity and the ones of animals like us?

Diversity is Good!

Massimo Pigliucci has agreed to a live chat session. I'm not sure when we'll schedule it, but more than likely it will be on a Thursday evening at 9:00pm eastern.

Chris

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I think that this debate is needlessly complex. Human primate groups, whether they be family clans, tribes nations or cultures, evolve survival stategies.

The survival strategy devised by any given group will not neccessarily be the best possible strategy, but will simply be the first successful strategy they have hit upon. Having invented survival strategies which have at least baseline utilitarian value, human groups tend to cling rigidly to them.

Moral behaviour is just behaviour which conforms to the chosen group evolutionary strategy. Immoral behaviour is just behaviour which challenges the established group evolutionary strategy.

I think that in the case of Iraq, we are applying moral standards which are devised for application at a domestic in-group level, to an inter-group conflict in which the enemy is not applying the same standards.

Bringing moral restrictions into a conflict with an enemy who does not place any moral constraints on himself is like playing chess against someone who insists in allowing all of his pawns to move like kights.

Badmendicant's simplification may be useful, but rather than talking about the group's evolutionary strategy, I'd say it's more tenable to speak of their "cultural strategy". The cultural strategy may play into the survival of the group, but it implies consequences and traits that are not necessarily related to survival or evolutionary development along contingent lines. In fact, the cultural strategies may work against the survival of specific gene types, individuals, imbedded groups and, ultimately, the entire groups itself, but such strategies should at least serve the cohesiveness of the group, if not it's long-term survival. It's possible to see how this works by looking at any number of the small utopic communities that have formed throughout written history.

BadM: "The survival strategy devised by any given group will not neccessarily be the best possible strategy, but will simply be the first successful strategy they have hit upon."

How does that explain the provisionally universal nature of percieving killing as immoral? Did every single tribe on earth simultaneously come up with this guideline? The explanation may be complex, but it's been the norm for simple explanations to be failures when dealing with morality.

Why is it that we as people adhere to morals even if we are in a situation where we would never get caught, and no one would ever know? Are the cultural strategies so ingrained into our brains that it's difficult to go against them?

One thing lacking in Shermer's book is that society does indeed have an influence on morals, and a great influence. Because, even if we were to accept the evolutionary model of morality, how could we feel guilty about an immoral act if we didn't know it was immoral? There are some moral guidelines which are more of less universal, and apply uibiquitously. Then there are those moral guidelines which have evolved with our increasingly complex society, and that is the dynamic that Badm speaks of. But there is still an evolved psychological reason that we follow moral guidelines, it's not 'simply' the pressures of society that demand moral behavior from us, it's our own brains.