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7 - War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2014

Alan Page Fiske
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Tage Shakti Rai
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
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Summary

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be … Duty, Honor, Country: The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice. In battle, and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind… Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be: Duty, Honor, Country.

General Douglas MacArthur (1962)

It is not only warrior cultures, honor cultures, or street gangs that require men to be violent: in war, people in most cultures and subcultures deem it a moral duty to kill the enemy – and in many cases soldiers feel that they should kill, enslave, torture, rape, or starve enemy captives or civilians. Philosophers and religious leaders often exhort men (and sometimes women) to fight, extolling the noble virtues of warfare. In the twentieth century, soldiers killed approximately 140 million people and wounded far more; in most cases they were morally motivated to do so out of solidarity in support of fellow soldiers, obedience to officers, military honor, or patriotism (Leitenberg, 2006; this number includes deaths in German and Japanese concentration camps).

Type
Chapter
Information
Virtuous Violence
Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End, and Honor Social Relationships
, pp. 93 - 106
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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  • War
  • Alan Page Fiske, University of California, Los Angeles, Tage Shakti Rai, Northwestern University, Illinois
  • Foreword by Steven Pinker
  • Book: Virtuous Violence
  • Online publication: 05 December 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316104668.010
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  • War
  • Alan Page Fiske, University of California, Los Angeles, Tage Shakti Rai, Northwestern University, Illinois
  • Foreword by Steven Pinker
  • Book: Virtuous Violence
  • Online publication: 05 December 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316104668.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • War
  • Alan Page Fiske, University of California, Los Angeles, Tage Shakti Rai, Northwestern University, Illinois
  • Foreword by Steven Pinker
  • Book: Virtuous Violence
  • Online publication: 05 December 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316104668.010
Available formats
×