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MAKING GOOD BETTER: A PROPOSALFOR TEACHING ETHICS AT THESERVICE ACADEMIESDeane-Peter Baker aa University of New South Wales, Canberra and University ofJohannesburgPublished online: 22 Nov 2012.
To cite this article: Deane-Peter Baker (2012) MAKING GOOD BETTER: A PROPOSAL FORTEACHING ETHICS AT THE SERVICE ACADEMIES, Journal of Military Ethics, 11:3, 208-222, DOI:10.1080/15027570.2012.738502
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2012.738502
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MAKING GOOD BETTER: A PROPOSAL FOR
TEACHING ETHICS AT THE SERVICE
ACADEMIES
Deane-Peter Baker1
University of New South Wales, Canberra and University of Johannesburg
This paper addresses the teaching of mandatory ethics courses in a military context, with
particular reference to the Service Academies of the United States Armed Forces. In seeking to
optimize the core ethics course’s potential to develop Midshipmen and Cadets’ moral reasoning
skills I suggest a model that employs case-based scenarios, woven together into a metanarrative,
in place of the traditional historical case study and in a manner that gives students deliberate,
guided practice in ethical decision-making. The described model also commends a resource- and
pedagogy-driven partnership between civilian philosophers/ethicists and senior military officers in
teaching the course. Also proposed is the deliberate use of a simple but formal method of applying
the central ethical theories usually taught in such courses, what I call ‘ethical triangulation’. The
employment of Computer Aided Argument Mapping is also recommended.
KEY WORDS: pedagogy, case-based scenarios, argument mapping, ethical triangulation
The Class
On entering the classroom this Tuesday morning the students of section 1234 make a by-now
familiar mental transition. No longer are they 3rd Class Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy.
Instead, they are the junior officers (JOs) who make up a significant proportion of the crew of the
lean-manned Littoral Combat Ship LCS-15, the USS Luce. And this is no classroom, it’s the ship’s
Ward Room where they meet twice a week for an informal gathering of JOs to catch up and
bounce issues off one another. The mental shift is aided by the coffee and pastries on the table
around which the students begin seating themselves, and by the brief video clip in which the
‘Captain’ of the USS Luce gives an update on the ship’s status and a reminder of the current
mission parameters.
As soon as the video clip ends, one of the students gets the attention of her peers. In the world of
the USS Luce, this student plays the role of the pilot of the ship’s embarked helicopter. Following a
prompt e-mailed to her earlier that morning, she outlines for her peers an ethically challenging
situation that requires her to make and act on a decision. In this case the question is as follows. As
all those in the Ward Room already know, Luce’s helicopter is currently contributing to the
MEDEVAC effort for casualties being incurred by Marines fighting alongside Azonian rebels
engaged in battle with the genocidal government forces of Azonia. On a recent MEDEVAC flight
the helicopter picked up two casualties, a Marine and a barefoot farmer turned Azonian rebel
fighter. Both were seriously wounded, but the Azonian rebel’s wounds were probably more life-
threatening than the Marine’s. Nonetheless the on-board medic insisted on treating the Marine
Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 11, No. 3, September 2012ISSN 1502-7570 print/1502-7589 online/12/030208-15
# 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2012.738502
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first. Both casualties survived, but the ‘pilot’ is nonetheless concerned that the medic’s actions
might be unethical. What should she do?
For the next fifteen to twenty minutes this issue is discussed back and forth across the ‘Ward
Room’ table. The Monday morning philosopher-led ethical theory lectures thus far have focused
mainly on deontological ethics, and as a result many of the discussants focus on the application of
Kant’s categorical imperative or Natural Law theory to this case. Nonetheless the students are also
by now comfortable with the ‘ethical triangulation’ model of ethical decision-making, and several
of the discussants make meaningful attempts at weighing the consequences inherent in this issue,
as well as considering what action seems best to fit with good character in general and the warrior
virtues in particular. The fictional roles inhabited by each student seem also to affect their position
in the discussion. The student playing the role of the officer in command of the embarked squad of
Marines is adamant that the medic is right, while the ship’s ‘intelligence officer’ strongly
emphasizes the broad strategic importance of securing the goodwill of the rebels. More than one
of the discussants catches himself staring at the empty chair at the table, a chair previously
occupied by a shipmate who was ‘killed’ as a direct result of one of the decisions made after an
earlier discussion like this.
At roughly the halfway mark in the class’s allotted time the section’s Military Instructor, a Navy
Captain who has until now sat quietly observing the class, calls the discussion to a halt. He presses
the student playing the role of the helicopter pilot for a short and clear statement of her decision
on what course of action she thinks is best in the scenario under discussion. The student is
expecting this, as each student in the class is required to make and defend an ethically difficult
decision on at least two occasions through the duration of the course. As the student outlines her
decision and the reasons for it, the Military Instructor creates an argument map of her position on
the classroom’s big screen, using Computer Aided Argument Mapping (CAAM). Once both the
Instructor and the student are satisfied that the argument map is an accurate portrayal of the
student’s position, the discussion continues once more, though this time focused around the lines
of reasoning the argument map depicts, and with the Military Instructor playing a significant
guiding role. The Civilian Instructor for the section, a philosophy PhD who teaches the Monday
theory lectures to a group including this section, often sits in on the class, and when she does so
she provides additional guidance at this juncture. Points that were raised in the earlier discussion
are reconsidered as to where they might impact on the argument depicted in the map, and other
issues that were discussed previously but which no longer seem relevant are analyzed to identify
the reasons they have now been discarded.
As the class time winds down to its final ten or fifteen minutes the Military Instructor brings the
discussion to a close and plays a brief video clip which presents the actual historical case on which
the scenario that was discussed was based. Following the video clip the Military Instructor segues
into an articulation of his own views on the topic, reflecting on his own experiences, offering
insights into United States Navy (USN) procedures and regulations, and sharing relevant sea
stories. Then, with time all too quickly up, the students are Midshipmen once more and must move
on to their next classes. But the discussion begun in ‘the Ward Room’ continues over meals and in
hallways across the Yard . . .
Introduction
In a direction-setting editorial statement in this journal Martin Cook and Henrik Syse rightly
point out that the idea of ‘military ethics’ is used by a wide variety of people in a wide
variety of ways, but that properly speaking military ethics is:
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Firstly and most importantly, . . . a species of the genus ‘professional ethics’. That is to say,
it exists to be of service to professionals who are not themselves specialists in ethics but
who have to carry out the tasks entrusted to the profession as honorably and correctly as
possible. It is analogous to medical ethics or legal ethics in the sense that its core function
is to assist those professions to think through the moral challenges and dilemmas
inherent in their professional activity and, by helping members of the profession better
understand the ethical demands upon them, to enable and motivate them to act
appropriately in the discharge of their professional obligations. (Cook & Syse 2010: 120)
Cook and Syse contrast this with philosophical talks and papers which are ‘wonderfully
logically developed, conceptually clear, rigorously argued � and in the end professionally
irrelevant’ (2010: 120). To those of us who claim to write on military ethics Cook and Syse
direct this challenging diagnostic question: ‘is what’s going on in this paper the sort of
thing that might be helpful in providing real-world guidance for policy-makers, military
commanders and leaders, or operational decision-making?’ (2010: 120).
While I, for one, am certainly guilty of having written papers and given talks that,
while perhaps valid academic contributions (Cook and Syse are not denigrating
philosophically focused work per se) were ‘professionally irrelevant’, I am now determined
that this Cook-Syse test should shape my writing on military ethics. But I do not think it
should end there. Given that the primary roles of the military ethicist are to do research
and to teach2, it seems pretty obvious that the Cook-Syse test should be applied equally
rigorously to the teaching of military ethics to military personnel. In the context of the
Service Academies at least, we must ask ‘Is what’s going on in this course the sort of thing
that might be helpful in providing real-world guidance for future military commanders and
leaders, or operational decision-making?’ This is not to say that there is no room in the
Service Academy curriculum for traditional philosophical ethics courses � far from it.
Courses of this kind play an important role in the intellectual development of Cadets and
Midshipmen, in the same way as courses in, say, literature do. But such courses are
peripheral to the central mission of those who teach ethics in the Service Academies. In this
context the core business is the mandatory ethics course, the goal of which is, as Cook and
Syse say about military ethics in general, ‘helping [future] members of the profession better
understand the ethical demands upon them, to enable and motivate them to act
appropriately in the discharge of their professional obligations’ (2010: 122). When looked at
in this way, it becomes very clear that the mere fact that a course investigates ethical issues
to do with armed conflict and military service is not enough for it to pass the Cook-Syse
test. A true military ethics course must in addition meet the two key criteria Cook and Syse
propose: it must be real-world and focused on decision-making. We should, therefore,
expect the true core military ethics course to differ significantly, not just in content but also
in approach, from a traditional philosophy or ethics undergraduate course in a civilian
university.
The hypothetical ‘class’ outline at the beginning of this paper offers a snapshot of
the central elements of a proposal for what a core ethics course at a US Service Academy
which passes the Cook-Syse test might look like. In acknowledgement of the wide diversity
of approaches to, and understanding of, the nature of ethics education in militaries around
the world,3 I have restricted the scope of my proposal to focus on the US Service
Academies. In part this is because that is the environment with which I have in recent years
become most familiar, and it is also in part because the US Service Academies, broadly
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speaking, share a common perspective on the role and goals of core ethics courses. The
proposal is also likely to be of relevance for Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) ethics
courses, which tend to draw on, if not mirror, those offered at the Service Academies. I
hope, however, that this proposal will also be of value beyond these narrow confines, even
if only as a stimulant to further discussion and thought over what the nature and content
of military ethics education ought to be.
As Rebecca Johnson helpfully summarizes, James Rest has identified four key
prerequisites for ethical behavior:
An individual must possess moral sensitivity, defined by Rest as ‘the awareness of how
our actions affect other people’. Likewise, an individual must possess moral judgment, or
the capacity to determine which course of action is (more) morally justifiable relative to
the alternatives. Once individuals have determined the ‘right’ action, they must then
demonstrate moral motivation by prioritizing moral values over other, potentially self-
serving values. Even sound prioritization is not enough, however; individuals must finally
possess the moral character or ‘psychological toughness and strong character’ needed to
actually do the right thing (Johnson 2011: 247).
What is evident from this is that the process of developing ethical behavior is both multi-
faceted and challenging, and a core ethics course can only realistically ever be part of the
strategy. This is why the Service Academies do far more by way of moral character
development than simply requiring Cadets and Midshipmen to take a core ethics course4,
and that is as it should be. But to recognize the limitations of what can be expected of a
core military ethics course is not to denigrate the value of what can be achieved. Instead,
this recognition should help us to focus on the areas in which the core ethics course can
add the most value to the process of shaping the moral capabilities of the nation’s future
military officers. Here I think Stephen Coleman’s distinction between ethical dilemmas and
tests of integrity is an important one:
What I call an ethical dilemma (or sometimes, a test of ethics) is a situation where the
difficulty lies in knowing what the right thing to do actually is; where a person is faced
with several choices, often bad choices, and has to work out what is the right thing to do
in that particular situation. What I call a test of integrity is a situation where it is
reasonably obvious, or even perfectly obvious, what the right thing to do is, but for
whatever reason, it is difficult for the person involved to actually do the right thing
(Coleman 2009: 106).
‘Tests of integrity’ arguably correspond most closely with Rest’s categories of ‘moral
motivation’ and ‘moral character’. While there are undoubtedly aspects of the core ethics
course that can and do contribute to these aspects of moral development, existing practice
and the classroom nature of the ethics course strongly suggest that it is best suited to
developing moral sensitivity (by introducing students to ethical issues and questions that
they might otherwise have been unaware of), and, particularly, moral judgment, through
improving students’ critical thinking abilities. The shaping of a Midshipman or Cadet’s
character, such that when confronted with a test of integrity she will choose to do the right
thing even when it is hard, is widely agreed to be the product of a broad range of inputs
from coaches, leadership instructors, senior officers, upperclassmen, peers � that is, all
those who shape the moral culture of the Service Academy. Arguably, then, the core ethics
class should be considered to be something akin to a core class on operational art,
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designed to give the student the conceptual framework and mental agility to make good
decisions under difficult circumstances.
An obvious, though perhaps easy to overlook, point is that making sound ethical
judgments requires both a clear grasp of ethics and the ability to exercise critical thinking
skills effectively. While it is hard to imagine anyone mounting an argument to the effect
that we can ignore either of these aspects and still help our Midshipmen and Cadets
improve their ability to make sound ethical judgments, our practice can tend to elevate
one to the detriment of the other. As Paul Robinson points out in his helpful survey of the
practice of ethics education in Western militaries, some core ethics courses focus almost
exclusively on working through case studies with students, while other courses are more
philosophical in nature and focus mainly on understanding the relevant ethical theory
(Robinson et al. 2008: 1�14). In the former case the problem that arises is that students,
even those with good critical thinking skills, tend to lack the conceptual resources needed
to make much headway when faced with novel challenging ethical questions. Experience
arising out of the teaching of ethics at the US Naval Academy (USNA) is informative in this
regard. In the academic year 2000/1 a series of Integrity Development Seminars (IDS) were
introduced, in which the entire student body at USNA, in groups of about 20 to 25
Midshipmen, participated in faculty-facilitated group discussions of supplied case-studies.
Captain (USN, Ret.) Rick Rubel, currently Distinguished Military Professor of Ethics at USNA,
observes as follows:
I facilitated these for the period of time that it was done. In almost every session, I found
the response of the student not only superficial, but when asked, ‘Why did you decide on
that option?’ they were not able to explain themselves. Without any moral theory to fall
back on, they relied on their intuition. Using moral intuition may be a good start, but they
were not able to explain any moral basis for their reasoning. This eight-month exercise
showed me that we need to teach moral theory along with moral cases in order for the
students to understand why they decided what they did.5
Those who are proponents of a more ‘purely philosophical’ approach to the core
military ethics course seem to make the assumption, implicitly or explicitly, that critical
reasoning skills are a kind of by-product of formal education which emerge and develop in
the process of subject-specific learning, and that formal education itself constitutes
training in critical reasoning. That being so, the thinking goes, giving students rigorous
instruction in the relevant ethical theory should be all that’s needed to equip them for
making sound ethical judgments. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests otherwise. As
cognitive scientist Tim van Gelder points out, this ‘formal training theory’ of critical thinking
skills development is both the oldest and the ‘most thoroughly discredited’ view of how
critical thinking skills are gained. ‘It seems now so obvious that teaching Latin, chess, music
or even formal logic will have little or no impact on general critical thinking skills that it is
hard to understand now how this idea could ever have been embraced. And we also know
why it fails: it founders on the rock of transfer. Skills acquired in playing chess do not
transfer to, say, evaluating political debates. Period’ (van Gelder 2010 emphasis in original).
It seems, then, that to be maximally effective, a core military ethics course must
deliberately do both things, that is, impart a core framework of ethical theory and provide
guided practice in sound moral reasoning. In what follows I outline the central elements of
a model � reflected in the hypothetical ‘class’ at the beginning of this paper � that seeks to
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do both of these things in a way that reflects the general and particular pedagogical
challenges of a Service Academy core ethics course.
‘The Monday Morning Philosopher-Led Ethical Theory Lecture’ and‘Ethical Triangulation’
A challenge faced by Service Academies in offering a required core ethics course is one of
resources: how to offer the course to an entire class of around 1000 students per academic
year. Employing sufficient numbers of ethics or philosophy PhDs to teach the course to
small groups of midshipmen or cadets would be prohibitively expensive, while a purely
large-lecture format is not well suited to achieving the desired outcomes of such a course.
The US Naval Academy addresses this challenge using a structure that offers significant
advantages and which I take as the basic structure for this proposal.
The USNA approach is to have each section of students (between 15 and 20 in
number) co-taught by a Civilian Instructor who is a PhD in ethics or philosophy, and a
Military Instructor with significant command experience (at USNA, Military Instructors are at
or above the rank of Navy Commander or Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel). The Civilian
Instructor takes primary responsibility for teaching a weekly theory lecture to multiple
groups of three or four sections in a large-lecture format, and additionally works to ensure
that the Military Instructors for those sections have a sufficient grasp of the theory to
enable them to play their role in the course. The Military Instructors, most of whom teach a
section of the core ethics course as a ‘collateral’ duty, take primary responsibility for two
weekly classes with their section that focus primarily on case studies.6
Beyond the resourcing advantages of this model there are additional pedagogical
pluses to the involvement of the Military Instructors in the course that I will mention below.
For the moment, however, let us focus on the theory-focused part of the course.
Appropriately taught, ethical theory should offer a useful framework that the Cadet
or Midshipman can bring to bear when faced with ethical quandaries. There are, however,
challenges here. Given the theory-practice structural divide described above, the limited
number of classes available in a normal academic course, and the range of topics that need
to be covered to introduce the range of dominant Western ethical theories as well as the
ethical frameworks specific to armed conflict, little more than one lecture can be dedicated
to each theory. The danger here is that, to the Midshipman or Cadet experiencing each
week’s ‘Monday lecture’, this can seem like a kind of ‘theory of the week’ smorgasbord,
offering a bewildering array of options that students quickly become numb to. To address
this I recommend a pedagogical device that I call ‘ethical triangulation’, which formalizes
an approach some form of which I believe most ethicists employ informally in their
teaching.
At the heart of this approach is the recognition that all of the major ethical theories
that generally appear in introductory ethics courses are built around moral intuitions that
most people recognize as valid. As Nicholas Fotion helpfully puts it, ‘More than likely each
of these approaches can tell us something interesting . . . Each major theory approaches
ethics from a different direction and so each tells us something we might not have thought
about’ (Fotion 2007: 8). So while an individual may not, for example, be convinced by
utilitarianism, it would be hard to argue that there would be nothing valuable to be gained
from considering a moral problem from a utilitarian perspective. And the same goes for the
other major ethical theories.
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Ethical triangulation formalizes this intuition by offering a method that systematically
takes cognizance of the central ideas of the central Western ethical traditions and the
ethics of armed conflict. The analogy with navigation, another core skill that Midshipmen
and Cadets learn at the Service Academies, offers a useful ‘hook’ on which students can
hang the new theories and concepts they are learning. The first step is to consider the
problem from a deontological perspective, to identify any duties or principles7 that might
be relevant to the issue at hand, and trying to establish what action or actions those duties
or principles favor in the circumstances. The next step is to examine the situation through a
consequentialist lens (primarily utilitarianism, but also, in the appropriate circumstances,
the consequentialist parts of Just War Theory). In some cases, unless one is an unequivocal
deontologist, this may alter one’s initial impression of what the right action is in the case at
hand. Finally there is what I call ‘the character check’. At this point the method requires us
to consider what a virtue-based assessment of the problem at hand would recommend. Is
the action I’m leaning toward (having completed steps one and two) what the person of
good character would do? This step is particularly valuable in forcing the decision-maker to
consider the possibility that her reasoning in steps one and two may be driven by some
personal vice (such as cowardice or pride) rather than by sound moral motives.
A final but important aspect of the ‘ethical triangulation’ method is the recognition
that, though this approach will generally be useful in identifying the key ethical features of
the situation at hand, and should therefore narrow down the range of potentially
appropriate responses to the situation, the method cannot be expected to produce moral
certainty, nor can it be expected that everyone will reach the same conclusions about the
same issue using the method. Even using sound reasoning, different people will inevitably
weigh different moral features of the situation differently, and therefore sometimes reach
different conclusions. Recognizing this, the ethical triangulation model emphasizes the
importance of practical wisdom or phronesis. This is obviously a concept that is the subject
of some debate, particularly in the context of Aristotle’s thought. Nonetheless it seems to
me that noted virtue ethicist Rosalind Hursthouse is essentially correct when she writes
that:
Aristotle makes a number of specific remarks about phronesis that are the subject of
much scholarly debate, but the (related) modern concept is best understood by thinking
of what the virtuous morally mature adult has that nice children, including nice
adolescents, lack. Both the virtuous adult and the nice child have good intentions, but
the child is much more prone to mess things up because he is ignorant of what he needs
to know in order to do what he intends. A virtuous adult is not, of course, infallible and
may also, on occasion, fail to do what she intended to do through lack of knowledge, but
only on those occasions on which the lack of knowledge is not culpable ignorance. So, for
example, children and adolescents often harm those they intend to benefit either
because they do not know how to set about securing the benefit or, more importantly,
because their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is limited and often
mistaken. Such ignorance in small children is rarely, if ever culpable, and frequently not in
adolescents, but it usually is in adults. Adults are culpable if they mess things up by being
thoughtless, insensitive, reckless, impulsive, shortsighted, and by assuming that what
suits them will suit everyone instead of taking a more objective viewpoint. They are also,
importantly, culpable if their understanding of what is beneficial and harmful is mistaken.
It is part of practical wisdom to know how to secure real benefits effectively; those who
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have practical wisdom will not make the mistake of concealing the hurtful truth from the
person who really needs to know it in the belief that they are benefiting him (Hursthouse
2003).
This emphasis on practical wisdom is, I think, a vital part of the model in that it forces the
young men and women we teach at the Service Academies to reflect on their own youth
and relative lack of experience. The hope is that this will encourage a degree of humility
and respect for older and more experienced officers that is, arguably, somewhat counter-
cultural in US culture today.
In graphic form, the ethical triangulation model appears as follows:
The point of this approach is certainly not to prevent a student from following her moral
conscience in becoming a thoroughgoing Kantian, or utilitarian, or Aristotelian. But for
those students, who I suspect will normally represent the majority, who find some appeal
in all or most of the major ethical theories, the ethical triangulation offers the advantage of
giving them a single common way of approaching challenging ethical questions.
Given that I have acknowledged that some version of this approach is employed
implicitly by most teaching ethicists, it may well be asked why formalizing this approach as
ethical triangulation is necessary at all. There are, I think, a number of advantages to
making the method explicit.
First, because the basic idea of the ethical triangulation method is easy to
understand, it can be applied when considering case studies from the very beginning of
the course. As the course wears on and more theory is imparted the student will have a
growing range of questions to consider when applying the method, but the method itself
will remain essentially unchanged, allowing for the cumulative value of repeated practice.
Because the different theories can only be taught in sequence, not having the ethical
triangulation model or something similar to hand will unnecessarily restrict the student to
considering case studies from only the perspective of those theories she has learned up to
that point.
Second, ethical triangulation, if employed explicitly and repeatedly throughout the
course, offers a limited but potentially valuable antidote to the end of course ‘information
FIGURE 1
Ethical Triangulation
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dump’: the well-known phenomenon in which students pour all they know into the final
examination and promptly forget most of what they’ve learned through the course.
Third, formalizing the procedure of ethical decision-making is a way to counter bias
and ethical blind spots. Many of us are more comfortable with either a broadly
deontological or consequentialist way of thinking about ethics. A device like ethical
triangulation that forces us to explicitly consider theories within the other main ‘stream’ of
ethics can ensure that we do not overlook ethically important aspects of the situation at
hand. In addition, the ‘character check’ aspect of ethical triangulation forces us to routinely
do something that is uncomfortable (and therefore tempting to avoid) but important:
consider our own personal shortcomings and biases.
Finally, a pedagogical method that stresses the application of a model rather than
simply relying on intuition could help to overcome some of the many well-established
shortcomings of intuitive decision-making in complex circumstances. Nobel prizewinning
psychologist Daniel Kahnemann describes our cognitive processes as being usefully
understood in terms of two separate ‘systems’:
System 2 is the only one that can follow rules, compare objects on several attributes, and
make deliberate choices between options. The automatic System 1 does not have these
capabilities. System 1 detects simple relations (‘they are all alike’, ‘the son is much taller
than the father’) and excels at integrating information about one thing, but it does not
deal with multiple topics at once, nor is it adept at using purely statistical information
(Kahnemann 2011: 36)
On the whole, this division of labor works pretty well for us. Unfortunately, it is also the
source of a range of cognitive biases and other breakdowns in rationality � Kahnemann’s
book Thinking Fast and Slow details literally dozens of these. The trouble is that deliberate
rational thought is demanding, which leads System 2 � which Kahnemann describes as ‘the
lazy controller’ (2011: 39) � often to leave important decisions in the hands of heuristic-
driven, conclusion-jumping System 1. This is exacerbated in circumstances where we are
physically tired or facing cognitively demanding circumstances (both of which result in
what is referred to as ‘ego depletion’) � precisely the sorts of circumstances in which
military personnel make many of their most challenging ethical decisions. All is not lost,
however. As Kahnemann points out, ‘A crucial capability of System 2 is the adoption of
‘‘task sets’’: it can program memory to obey an instruction that overrides habitual
responses’ (2011: 39). Repeated deliberate practice using a formal framework like ethical
triangulation can help the future military officers we are teaching to avoid falling foul of
the cognitive biases and leaps of logic that might lead to ethical failure.
The ‘Ward Room’ of the ‘USS Luce’
As Paul Robinson’s survey shows, there is a widespread preference for the employment of
case studies, and particularly historical case studies (as opposed to fictional case studies),
as a method for teaching military ethics (Robinson et al. 2008: 1�14). This is in all likelihood
because, as Kenneth Pimple rightly points out, ‘discussing case studies is an effective way
to get students involved in the issues’ and ‘An in-depth discussion of a case is the closest
approximation to actually confronting an ethical problem that can easily be set up in a
classroom’ (Pimple 2004: 1). Historical case studies are particularly favored because ‘they
are real, not made up, and students cannot [easily] dismiss them’ (Pimple 2004: 5).
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However, historical case studies, even if well selected, are not without their
problems. In general, there is the problem that, as Pimple points out, ‘some students
will view historical cases as settled and over with; the very fact that they have been written
up can seem to imply that the issues raised have all be solved’ (2004: 5). In the military
context there is the added challenge that, unless they reflect fairly recent events, historical
cases can seem to young Cadets and Midshipmen to belong to a previous era of warfare
that has little to do with the contemporary conflict environment. An ongoing challenge in
all courses, and particularly in a required non-major course, is keeping students’ attention �the moment students doubt the relevance of what they are learning to their own future
circumstances, their attention is likely to wane considerably.
Arguably the biggest challenge inherent in the use of historical case studies is that
those that are usually studied in ethics courses are predominantly negative � that is, they
are more often than not cases of ethical wrongdoing. While it is obviously useful to
illustrate to students how things can go wrong, and for them to consider why things might
have gone wrong, an overall focus on negative cases can shape a course in an unhelpful
direction by majoring on what not to do while not giving students sufficient opportunity to
consider and practice what they should do. This problem is exacerbated by the well-
documented phenomenon of ‘hindsight bias’. As Kahneman points out,
Hindsight bias has pernicious effects on the evaluations of decision makers. It leads
observers to assess the quality of a decision not by whether the process was sound but by
whether its outcome was good or bad. . . .Hindsight is particularly unkind to decision
makers who act as agents for others � physicians, financial advisers, third-base coaches,
CEO’s, social workers, diplomats, politicians. We are prone to blame decision makers for
good decisions that worked out badly and to give them too little credit for successful
moves that appear obvious only after the fact. There is a clear outcome bias. When the
outcomes are bad, the clients often blame their agents for not seeing the handwriting on
the wall � forgetting that it was written in invisible ink that became legible only
afterward. Action that seemed prudent in foresight can look irresponsibly negligent in
hindsight (2011: 203).
For Midshipmen and Cadets learning military ethics through the medium of historical
case studies, hindsight bias combined with the fact that they are analyzing decisions made
by others rather than making decisions of their own, can lead to an unhelpful complacency
and overconfidence � ‘I would never do that.’
My proposal here is to avoid these problems but retain the advantages of historical
case studies by not using the cases directly. Instead, as illustrated in the hypothetical ‘class’
described at the beginning of the paper, I propose to use historical case studies as the
basis for creating ethical simulations that the students must negotiate. Because no
outcome is provided up front (as in the historic case study), but must instead be decided
by the student herself, this allows for the decisions made to be the ethically correct (or
better) of the available options, thereby reducing or avoiding the problem of the
predominance of negative cases. The problem of perceived relevance can also be
overcome using this approach, by adapting the original facts to fit the contemporary
environment, and the open-ended nature of the simulation avoids the problem of students
viewing the issue as ‘settled and over with’. Keeping the historic case studies as the basis of
the simulations (rather than simply making up simulations from scratch) allows the
instructor running the simulation to reveal the details of the historic case (what actually
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happened) after the simulation has run its course, as a means to ‘ground’ and illustrate the
seriousness and reality of the issue that has been under consideration.
The hypothetical ‘class’ described at the beginning of this paper illustrates another
aspect of this case-based scenario approach, namely the potential to weave together the
scenarios into a single overarching narrative. While challenging to achieve, this narrative
could (if well designed) add to the students’ sense of the relevance of the course material. It
would offer the potential to have the effects of ethical decision-making echo through future
scenarios, by such devices as participants being ‘killed’ � transferred to other classes � and
the like. This expands the learning potential inherent in the case-based scenarios, as well as
offering a way to grip the imagination of the Midshipmen and Cadets engaged in the
course (a vital part of learning effectiveness).8
The After-Action Review using Computer-Assisted Argument Mapping(CAAM)
We need not review the research literature to agree that there is much to be gained
through peer discussion of the kinds of challenging issues that are likely to be posed in the
kinds of case-based simulations discussed above. Discussion alone, however, has its
limitations. For one thing, while humans are notoriously weak at following complex
arguments expressed in print, we are worse still at doing this when the medium is verbal.
Even with the most competent facilitator, when complex questions are discussed, all too
often the discussion goes off track, important points get lost, and conclusions are not
reached. The pedagogical approach I am proposing here addresses these challenges
through the implementation of ‘after-action reviews’ employing Computer Aided
Argument Mapping (CAAM).
The ‘after-action review’ that draws together the discussion in the ‘wardroom’
centers on a decision. This is important, as it gives a focal point to the class discussion (it
forces a conclusion), as well as giving deliberate guided practice in ethical decision-making
to the student whose turn it is to be the decision-maker. The bulk of the after-action review
is dedicated to expressing and assessing the reasons given for the decision that has been
made. Computer Aided Argument Mapping offers an excellent means by which to visually
represent the reasoning concerned. As Tim van Gelder explains,
Argument mapping is diagramming the structure of argument, construed broadly to
include any kind of argumentative activity such as reasoning, inferences, debates, and
cases. . . . Typically an argument map is a ‘box and arrow’ diagram with boxes
corresponding to propositions and arrows corresponding to relationships such as
evidential support. Argument mapping is similar to other mapping activities such as
mind mapping and concept mapping, but focuses on the logical, evidential or inferential
relationships among propositions. Argument mapping is concerned with informal
reasoning and ‘real world’ argumentation and thus contrasts with the use of diagram-
matic techniques in formal logic such as Venn diagrams. (van Gelder 2013)
Visual representation of arguments in the form of argument maps shows significant
potential to enhance group deliberation. Van Gelder points out that in repeated
experience ‘a task � identifying the presented reasoning � which was difficult, time-
consuming and almost always fails in the standard prose format is easy, fast and almost
completely reliable in the argument mapping format.’ Van Gelder offers a range of reasons
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for understanding why this might be: prose requires interpretation; prose neglects
representational resources; prose is sequential, arguments are not; and prose cannot
visually display metaphors (van Gelder 2002: 100�102).
In addition to the value of argument mapping in enhancing group deliberation,
there is preliminary research that suggests that regular practice in argument mapping can
significantly enhance critical thinking skills.9 I am not, however, proposing that the Service
Academies’ core ethics courses should become critical reasoning courses using CAAM.
Nonetheless one might hope that incorporating CAAM into core ethics courses will
contribute to the improvement of Cadets’ and Midshipmen’s reasoning skills, which, as I
have argued, is a vital part of improving their ability to make good ethical judgments.
Using CAAM as a platform for an ‘after-action review’ of students’ handling of the case-
based ethical simulations discussed in the previous section will, in addition, provide a
means by which to detach the argument from the individual who proposed it. This enables
a more objective discussion in which individual students are less likely to feel defensive
and personally attacked.
The Military Instructor, Wisdom, and ‘Sea Stories’
As mentioned in my discussion of the ethical triangulation model, it is a critical part of what
I propose here that students see the importance of practical wisdom in the development of
good moral reasoning skills. Of course simply teaching students about phronesis would
make a purely theoretical point, but virtue theorists since Aristotle have been quick to
emphasize that theory alone is inadequate. As Nafsika Athanassoulis points out in her
discussion of virtue ethics, as conceptualized in this framework, ‘[m]oral development, at
least in its early stages, relies on the availability of good role models. The virtuous agent
acts as a role model and the student of virtue emulates his or her example’ (Athanassoulis
2010). In recognition of the importance of role models, it is a critical part of the pedagogical
approach I am proposing here that the students have the opportunity to absorb the
perspectives of experienced senior officers10 on the issues being addressed. For many
students it is these senior mentors’ ‘sea stories’ that will be the most memorable aspect of
the course, and which will bring home the lessons being taught. The described structure is
such that it does not require the Military Instructor to become an expert in moral theory,
but it allows them to ground discussions in the real-world context of the military, a context
with which the civilian instructor is likely to have limited or no experience. This helps
enormously with ‘selling’ students on the relevance of the course. Experience at USNA has
shown that students consistently rank their opportunity to interact on an extended basis
with experienced senior military officers as among the highlights of the course.
Conclusion
The formal classroom teaching of ethics at the US Service Academies and similar
institutions around the world is still a relatively recent development. While much has
been learned in this regard in recent years, and while significant strides have most certainly
been made, we must not rest on our laurels. The ‘Cook-Syse Test’ outlined at the beginning
of this paper represents an excellent way of assessing our progress in this regard. The
increasingly complex operational environments in which today’s military personnel find
themselves engaged bring with them a range of increasingly complex ethical challenges,
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and we must do all we can to enable those we send out to deal with those challenges. It is
hoped that the ideas set forward in this paper will stimulate further thought and discussion
in how we can continually improve our ability to do that.
NOTES
1. Barring some final editing, this paper was written while I was teaching in the Department
of Leadership, Ethics, and Law at the US Naval Academy. I am grateful to colleagues there
for shaping my experience of teaching military ethics in a military context, and for
comments that helped shape the paper. I am also grateful to two anonymous Journal of
Military Ethics referees whose comments enabled me to better communicate my
proposal. I now teach military ethics to Australian Defence Force Cadets and Midshipmen
on the campus of the Australian Defence Force Academy, for which my employer, the
University of New South Wales, is the academic service provider.
2. Unlike medical ethicists and legal ethicists, military ethicists are not yet much employed in
guiding on-the-ground operational decisions, though perhaps this will come in time.
3. For a very interesting set of accounts and critiques of several of these different
approaches, see Robinson et al. 2008.
4. Martin Cook (2008) gives an account of the range of activities the Air Force Academy employs
to develop Cadets’ moral character (broadly typical of what is done in all of the US Service
Academies).
5. CAPT (USN, Ret.) Rick Rubel, e-mail communication, 3 February 2011.
6. In practice some Military Instructors take on more than one section, but I have kept it to
one section per Military Instructor in this description for the sake of clarity.
7. I recognize that I am using the notion of a principle in a specifically deontological manner,
when of course other approaches to ethics such as utilitarianism can also be considered
as ‘principled’ (in the sense that, say, moral particularists use that term). In my defense, it
is my experience that the everyday use of the term ‘principle’ with respect to morality is
generally meant deontologically, and has the advantage of not imposing unnecessary
philosophical jargon.
8. In the described hypothetical ‘class’ that overarching narrative centers on the fictional
Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the USS Luce (named for Luce Hall, the building at USNA that
houses the ethics program). Littoral Combat Ships are slated to become the most
numerous of the US Navy’s combatants, and are therefore likely to be of direct relevance
to a significant number of Midshipmen. Using the LCS as a vehicle has added benefits in
that the LCS is a multi-mission platform, opening up a range of ethically challenging
circumstances and roles that could be included in the narrative, and is ‘lean-manned’,
which makes the small ‘wardroom’ in the fictional narrative as well as a high degree of
responsibility on those who make up the USS Luce’s ‘wardroom’ believable.
9. In a meta-analysis of the impact of critical thinking courses Claudia Ortiz found that
standardly-taught critical thinking courses produce an average increase of 0.34 Standard
Deviations in critical thinking ability over that produced by undergraduate courses in
general, and CAAM-based critical thinking courses produced about twice as much
improvement as standardly-taught critical thinking courses (Ortiz 2007). Current
indications are, therefore, that CAAM-based critical thinking courses are at least seven
times more effective than what can reasonably be expected to result from a standard
undergraduate education. The potential value of argument mapping in increasing critical
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thinking skill � along with such techniques as Keller’s Personalized System of Instruction
(PSI), which is aimed at individual students’ mastery of the material, and Mazur’s Peer
Instruction (PI), which is aimed at class-wide mastery � is currently the subject of a major
IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency)-funded research project being
led by Dr Neil Thomason of the University of Melbourne.
10. Obviously not all senior officers will make good role models, much as we might wish that
that were so. Selection is important here, just as it is with civilian instructors.
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Deane-Peter Baker holds a PhD from Macquarie University. He teaches military ethics to
Australian Defence Force Cadets and Midshipmen on the campus of the Australian
Defence Force Academy, for which the University of New South Wales is the academic
service provider. He is also a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the
University of Johannesburg. His most recent book is Just Warriors, Inc? Armed
Contractors and the Ethics of War (London: Continuum, 2010). Correspondence Address:
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra, the Australian Defence
Force Academy, PO Box 7916, Canberra BC 2610, Australia.
E-mail: [email protected]
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