Military Review English Edition March-April 2014

ETHICS EDUCATION Professional Ethics Effective professions police and hold their members accountable, and there is good reason for doing so. When a profession hangs its own violators from the yardarm, the punishment is almost always regarded as just propitiation. It serves as sufﬁcient retribution and satisﬁes public demands for corrective measures. Further, if a profession effectively polices itself, it controls much of the criteria by which its members are judged and punished. As long as this authority is not abused, the profession is trusted to self-regulate. Professions must labor to maintain this trust, as it is earned every day, and even 99% on that test is a failure! The misconduct of a few paints the entire profession. A public press and jury cannot be expected to fully understand context, nor will it take the time to discover the facts before pointing an accusing ﬁnger. … the SSCs can build trust through mutual understanding of ethical conduct within the United States and between the United States and its partners throughout the world. The United States does not espouse any particular religion, but powerfully manifests an ethical ethos to be a merciful peacemaker through its military action.22 We seek peace through positive action and reconciliation for the oppressed. It is our national ethical premise to have abandoned the effort to meet our needs through the destruction of our enemies; this promise imparts great ethical power to our actions. Reach of SSC Programs to Senior Leaders The second basis for teaching ethics at the SSCs highlights their unique reach to U.S. and international partner senior military leaders and SSC students’ access to the senior policy makers of their countries. This represents a powerful inﬂuence through MILITARY REVIEW March-April 2014 the modeling of their ethical leadership. If ethics programs are effective, the SSCs can build trust through mutual understanding of ethical conduct within the United States and between the United States and its partners throughout the world. To be effective, government and military relations require a high level of trust. The call to shared ethical standards seeks effective understanding and trust in our own civil-military relations as well as those of the partner nations’ military and security forces with which we serve. A common understanding will assist in overcoming disparate and often contradictory moral structures and laws. While it is absurd to believe worldwide agreement may be constructed during our lifetimes, the SSCs, more than any other institution, may exert a powerful inﬂuence. SSC students possess the ability to think independently and the authority to inﬂuence policy and change behavior, with inﬂuence over large geographic areas. Their professional identity, enhanced through ethics instruction, has wide-reaching utility. SSCs present the opportunity to engender a common vocabulary and trust among partners that is so essential to building effective alliances. If the SSCs do their jobs well, their graduates will effect change within their nations and assist in the building of reliable alliances among nations. Their international students will go forth as models of behavior, with trust in America’s commitment to ethical action. Recent conﬂicts have required broad alliances to effectively counter security threats. With the diminishing defense budgets of most nations around the world, alliances have more than ever become necessities, ﬁscal as well as political. Conclusion Ethics is not mere abstraction, but rather an integral component of a leader’s character. Leaders do not serve either their profession or country without ethics as their guiding light. To equip an expanded ethics program at the SSCs will require careful planning to avoid offering a course that distracts from other more didactic courses (as did my ethics course in law school). To be effective, it must walk the line between philosophy and anecdotes and avoid the perils of irrelevance. It must develop critical thinking. It is not enough just to teach principles and rules; ethics education must delve into soldiers’ service careers to ﬁnd the challenges 59

Military Review English Edition March-April 2014 | Page 61