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Originally Posted by jason taylor  This has to be short as I have to get ready to go. Hopefully I can do better latter.
I would say a soldier is responsible for what he has an ability to be responsible for.
It is in the nature of every state that it needs coercive power. As even a tyrannical regime serves the necessary purpose of doing justice and protecting the weak("the police of this land are theives but at least they allow no competition"-Kim, Rudyard Kipling), it is not necessarily wrong to serve such a regime in this capacity. But it can become so. And it is often safest to avoid what one can in such circumstances.
A soldier is seldom told blatantly that he is fighting unjustly. And his limited knowledge of the situation allows him no way of judging it. And in most circumstances it is better to obey as the obedience of those who bear arms to society is usually more important then the possibility that he might be fighting unjustly. However a soldier can tell if a specific order is wrong. For instance a German soldier may not be able to tell that it is wrong to attack Russia. He should know at least that it is wrong to shoot Russian children out of hand.
Being a soldier is like being a lawyer. A lawyer is obliged to assume his client is right in the absence of proof to the contrary. However if such proof does arrive problems do arrive. As that seldom happens, Shakespeare was partially right-but only partially. |
As an addition, St. Thomas Aquinas once pointed out that the right attitude toward authority was to think of it as "for want of something better". That is if you have no way of knowing it might be better to obey as you cannot rebuild civilization every generation. But when more evidence comes the situation changes. In other words authority should be a springboard not a prison.
This is of course regarding philosophy. But it has adaptations to what I said. The need for soldiers to obey is pressing. Therefore soldiers should obey until there is a greater reason to disobey.