Utilitarianism In Military Ethics

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Within the military individuals are put into situations that forces difficult decisions to be made. In the line of duty quick decisions must be made and comprehended which could equate to the lives lost or saved of many or few. The study of ethics comes into play to allow these difficult decisions to be made quickly, morally and most importantly to explain the reasoning behind the decision. Over the centuries philosophers have investigated the theories and reasoning of ethics. In that time many studies and ideologies have been created to be used as a tool in explaining which morally correct action should be taken. One of the most focused ideologies within the military today is the study of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism as defined by Dr. George …show more content…
Unlike many ideologies, Utilitarianism has a very specific core value that can even be mathematically calculated to determine a ‘correct’ decision. However, due to this straight forward core thinking, certain situations that Utilitarianism would consider moral are not. For the example given in The Guide to Ethics and Moral Philosophy by Robert Cavalier, “Suppose you could end a regional war by torturing children whose fathers are enemy soldiers, thus revealing the hide outs of the fathers” (Cavalier 7). According to Utilitarianism this situation would be considered moral since a regional war would be ended by the torturing of only a few children, the greater good for this instance would be for the region. However, we know that this is unmoral since children should not be tortured no matter how useful the end result may be. In this example it is very easy to see that Utilitarianism would not be the best ideology to use as a decision making tool. Another problem with Utilitarianism is that it “demands too much” (Cavalier 9). It leads to the idea of self-sacrifice. If it is rational that a person will help the community by leaving then according to Utilitarianism the person is morally obligated to consent regardless of the reasons. A relating example of this is an elderly person that is required to be on life support. If the life support keeping this elderly person alive is too expensive and is putting a financial burden on the family then that elderly person is believed to have the duty to die for the greater good of his/her family to relive said burden. This example also portrays another problem found within Utilitarianism which is described by Cavalier that, “Utilitarianism does not take the moral significance of individual persons seriously enough; it treats us as mere conduits for utility” (Cavalier 11). Continuing with the elderly person example we reveal another issue that “Utilitarianism
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