GGPViper wrote:
Gromit wrote:
Only if you abandon or restrict the concept of personal responsibility. Are you saying the soldier has no duty to judge whether the war is justified? Having been excused from that responsibility, is the soldier then only responsible for following the laws of his country and the treaties his country has signed up to?
Short answer: Yes.
You might not like where that leads you if you are consistent. It was Hermann Goering's argument in his defence at Nuremberg.
GGPViper wrote:
You are imposing naive legal categories (justification, responsibility) upon people who do not have the luxury of being naive.
You told me that personal responsibility is the default concept. Now you tell me that your default concept is naive. I like to see consistent arguments. I don't yet see that you have one.
GGPViper wrote:
The reality of warfare is that you have people - often young and inexperienced - cowering in a trench, hiding in a barn, sitting below a window, carrying out orders which are incomprehensible to them because they are only informed on a "need to know" basis. To these people, concepts of laws, treaties etc. are worth less than toilet paper once the bullets start flying.
You agreed above that a soldier is responsible for following the laws of his country and the treaties his country has signed up to. Now you excuse him from the responsibility to follow any law or treaty? Do you say that ethics is purely a matter of practicality? Then perhaps you might want to listen to what Chesterton had to say about Germany's invasion of Belgium in WWI:
http://librivox.org/appetite-of-tyranny-by-g-k-chesterton/.
Or do you argue that to expect anyone to act responsibly in battle is unrealistic? Then don't people have a responsibility to think about this before volunteering for military service? If I know that I am an aggressive drunk, I deliberately set out to get drunk, and I hit you, would you say my intoxication absolves me from responsibility for its predictable consequence?
13 Feb 2013, 7:12 pm
