All posts by Hans Henrik Lichtenberg

Society

Moral Dilemmas Faced by Individuals in Modern Warfare

Modern warfare brings with it a myriad of challenges, not only on a tactical and strategic level but also on an individual level. One of the most profound challenges individuals face in the midst of conflict are moral dilemmas. These moral dilemmas arise due to the clash between personal ethics, the demands of warfare, and the complexity of the situations soldiers find themselves in. This essay aims to explore several examples of moral dilemmas faced by individuals in modern war, shedding light on the complexities and ethical tensions they encounter.

The Dilemma of Civilians

In modern warfare, soldiers often find themselves amidst civilian populations, blurring the line between combatants and non-combatants. This situation creates a moral dilemma where individuals must balance their duty to protect civilians with the necessity of engaging enemy combatants. Soldiers may face the challenge of distinguishing between hostile threats and innocent civilians, leading to difficult decisions and potential collateral damage.

Example: In the context of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers frequently faced the dilemma of distinguishing between insurgents hiding among civilian populations. The challenge of minimizing harm to innocent civilians while effectively combating insurgency forces created ethical complexities.

The Use of Advanced Technology

Advancements in military technology have brought both advantages and ethical dilemmas. The increasing reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, for instance, raises moral concerns regarding the targeted killing of individuals, potential civilian casualties, and the psychological impact on operators. This raises questions about the nature of warfare and the principles of just war.

Example: Drone operators may find themselves torn between following orders to eliminate a target, which they may believe poses a threat, and the potential risk of civilian casualties. They must grapple with the moral implications of remote warfare and its impact on the perception of accountability and the value of human life.

Treatment of Detainees

Another moral dilemma arises from the treatment of detainees during armed conflict. Individuals may be faced with conflicting instructions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners, which can be at odds with the pressures of gathering intelligence or preventing potential threats. This raises questions about human rights, the limits of interrogation techniques, and the prevention of torture.

Example: Soldiers may face the dilemma of whether to follow orders to use aggressive interrogation methods, such as enhanced interrogation techniques, which may violate the principles of human rights. This moral quandary becomes even more complex when detainees are suspected of possessing critical intelligence.

Ethical Use of Force

The ethical use of force is a fundamental dilemma faced by individuals in modern war. Soldiers must navigate the fine line between the legitimate use of force to protect themselves and accomplish their missions, and the risk of excessive or unnecessary violence. Upholding the principles of proportionality and discrimination becomes challenging in high-pressure combat situations.

Example: A soldier confronted with a potential threat may struggle to make a split-second decision regarding the use of force, weighing the need for self-defense against the risk of injuring or killing non-combatants. This ethical dilemma highlights the intense pressure faced by individuals in combat situations.

 

The moral dilemmas faced by individuals in modern warfare are complex and multifaceted. Civilians, advanced technology, treatment of detainees, and the ethical use of force all contribute to these ethical quandaries. Soldiers are tasked with navigating the tensions between personal ethics, operational objectives, and the demands of warfare. Addressing these dilemmas requires comprehensive training, adherence to international laws of armed conflict, and ongoing ethical reflection to mitigate the potential psychological and moral consequences on individuals involved in armed conflict.

 

Beauty, Happiness, Life, Moral Feed, Relationships, Society, Uncategorized

Excellence and Habits – what Aristotle taught us

Do you want to achieve excellence in a field? If so, this short article is for you. The topic of achieving excellence is not an esoteric one, it is all about habits that you need to incorporate in your life. We will let you know some important guidelines right here right now from the best teacher, Artistotle. This will allow you to truly understand what excellence is all about.

Excellent is a Habit

According to Aristotle (read his complete works here: link) we become what we do on a regular basis. This is something that we need to take into consideration if we want to achieve excellence in anything we do these days. If you experience a higher sense of motivation and drive in your work and life, you will reap the rewards down the line. Making a high level of productivity a habit and you will truly have the upper hand.

Falling short of your potential is not something that you should encourage in your life, and that is something that you need to keep in mind as much as you can too.

New Habits

It is somewhat difficult for some people to develop new habits. You need to get out of your comfort zone as soon as you can so you can move to the next level in your life. Doing this will allow you to truly get a lot of rewards down the line. Make excellence a habit. Incorporate it into your daily habits, and you will see wonderful things happening in your life right away too.

Try to do the best job that you can do every single day of the day, and you will experience amazing things in your career.

Doing the Action

You have to work hard to incorporate excellence into your daily routines. Action is what will create what you want. If you want to become a generous person, practice that. If you want to save money so you can invest in your future, do that as soon as possible. Do not even think that you are going to become an excellent musician if you do not practice on a regular basis. You might sing very well today but tomorrow that might not be the case. You have to understand this if you are to become a successful musician, for instance.

Excellence is Life

Moral virtue is the first step to living a life of excellence. Your ethics and morals must be excellent so you can build your life over the best possible foundation. Do not believe anyone who says that morals are not something important in your life. Happiness is an important part of your life, and that is something that you need to achieve. Do not forget to mix experience and theory with your habits. If you want to become the best golf player, you have to study the best books about it and practice like crazy.

We have talked about what excellence entails so you can truly know a thing or two about it. Aristotle said that you have to incorporate this habit into your daily life so you can see what you can do. This habit can truly become something great for you. We cannot stress enough the fact that excellence is a habit. There is something that you need to bear in mind when it comes to excellence. The first thing is that you need to develop this habit yourself. You should do it yourself because no one else will do it for you. Action is an important part of developing the habit of excellence in your life. Do this and you can change your life for the better down the line. Make excellence an important part of your life and you will see something beautiful each day.

Books, Life, Moral Feed

Practical Morality

Practical Morality with the subtitle: Or, a guide to men and manners. This is Jordan B. Peterson style moral advice for the youth back in 1848. It was written by Lord Chesterfield as advice to his son on how to behave in the world, and certainly on how not to behave. A large part of the book is amusing descriptions of bad behavior, bad habits, and sorry situations people will get entangled in when not knowing correct manners. Here is some from the chapter of the book on awkwardness:

When an awkward fellow first comes into a room, it is highly probable that his sword gets between his legs and throws him down, or makes him stumble at least; when he has recovered this accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of the whole room where he should not; there he soon lets his hat fall down, and in taking it up again, throws down his cane; in recovering his cane his hat falls the second time; so that he is a quarter of an hour before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or coffee, he certainly scalds his mouth and lets either the cup or the saucer fall and spills the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner his awkwardness distinguishes itself particularly, as he has more to do; there he holds his knife, fork, and spoon, differently from other people; eats with his knife to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth with his fork, and puts his spoon, which has been in his throat, twenty times, into the dishes again.

The book has a second part Maxims and Moral Reflections written by Duke De La Rochefoucault. This part is a collection of many short verses, such as:

Had we no faults ourselves, we should take less
pleasure in observing those of others.

Envy is destroyed by true friendship and coquetry
by true love.

Download the free PDF e-book here (291 pages/17MB):

 Practical Morality

Books, Moral Feed

Book: Morality and War

On august 27, 1928, a number of the largest and most powerful nations signed a pact that declared that they condemned recourse to war for the settlement of international differences, and renounced it as an instrument of national policy. The world had just witnessed the horrors of the WWI and it was clear that war would never lead to anything. In this book by Gerald Vann published in 1939, modern warfare is described as stripped of all its romantic glamour. With the flow of information through modern communication, the horrors of war will make it increasingly difficult to initiate war, the author reasons. The disadvantages of going to war will be so overwhelming, that overthrowing one’s own warmongering leader will always be preferable.

Morality and War describes a moral foundation for conflict solving in the modern world – just before the world went into a even more terrifying war. From the book:

There is nothing romantic about war to-day; and it is evidence alike of the power of propaganda and of the ability of human beings to close their eyes to realities that it should still be possible to think that there is. For the civilized man, war is simply the last repellent resort when all civilized means have failed. He will accept it therefore as he would accept any other unwelcome but necessary task ; hut he will refuse to shroud its realities in a mist of false pageantry ; and he will refuse to surrender his personality to the depersonalizing influences which it may unleash. Civilized society will not admit the notion that war is a biological necessity. To be civilized means precisely to have achieved control of the instincts. The aggressive instincts which may indeed find an outlet in war, need not do so ; and it is part of the evolution of the human personality to ensure that they shall not. War is only permissible, we remind ourselves, as an instrument rationally employed for the enforcing of law ; that result cannot be achieved by a war which is simply a sub-human surrender to uncontrolled biological urges. The days have gone by when war might be extolled as the sport of kings.

Download the free PDF e-book here (83 pages/4.4MB):

 Morality And War

Books

Time and The Child

Time and The Child with the subtitle A Study of Morality and Reality is a peculiar work by E. Graham Howe, published in 1934 after being delivered as five lectures at the Home and School Council of Great Britain. I have a weakness for the independent thinkers, the ones who associates freely and draws on any experiences life have dealt them. E. Graham Howe is such a one. This book is about the children and how to train them for life, but it is so much more. It is about time, philosophy, the nature of reality and morality. Moreover, the book is illustrated with some interesting infographics to make the concepts more understandable. This is from the introduction to the book:

The unbiased study of reality is a hard matter and a difficult discipline, but it should not be beyond us. It would seem

to be the criterion of all teaching, if it is to be good, that it should set itself to understand and obey the law which is behind and within all the movement of life’s experience. Rightly understood, this is the whole purpose of the scientific method. However honest we may be in the way in which we carry out this method, the fact remains that in the end we must certainly fail to gain any completeness of understanding. But this itself is good for our discipline. By teaching us the lesson of humility, it may further serve to prove that in life we are engaged in the service of a mystery, rather than an act of mastery.

Download the free PDF e-book here (235 pages/9.99MB):

 Time and The Child

 

 

Books

An Introduction to Ethics

An Introduction to Ethics by William Lillie was first published in 1948 and is now in the Public Domain. An Introduction to Ethics is thorough textbook on moral and ethical philosophy for both laymen and students, meaning it can be read by non-scholars. The main theme is the 20th Century moralists, their contribution to the discussions of moral and ethic philosophy. From the book:

Ethics is primarily a part of the quest for truth and the motive for studying it is the desire for knowledge. In this respect it is more akin to philosophical subjects than the natural sciences where the practical applications are many and attractive. We naturally want to know the truth about things, and ethics aims at finding out the truth about something that is both interesting and important-the rightness and wrongness of human conduct. There is no guarantee that the man who understands by means of ethical study the difference between right and wrong will necessarily follow the right. A theatre audience is always amused at the unlettered man in a modern comedy who tries to save his scholarly brother from  choosing evil  courses by reminding him that he won a university prize in moral philosophy ! In spite of the teaching of Socrates that knowledge is virtue it is commonly recognized that a mere knowledge of ethical principles is not sufficient to keep anyone in the paths of virtue. It has already been said that the example of good men’s lives and the training of practical experience are likely to be more effective influer.ces in producing good conduct.

Download the free PDF e-book here (386 pages/8MB):

 An Introduction to Ethics

Books, Moral Feed, Society

The Third Morality

The Third Morality is a work by Gerald Heard, first published in 1937, now in the Public Domain.  Heard was a modern philosopher and author of more than 20 books. He was a close friend of Aldous Huxley and a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Heard, among other spectacular activities, formed an informal research group to look into developing group-mindedness or group communications. The members of this group later became some early developers of the computer industry in California. One of Gerald Heard main interests was morality and The Third Morality is his take on modern morality. From the book:

This book is called the third Morality because in man’s history he has had three main moralities, three general ideas of conduct based on the three world-pictures he has so far made. The first world-picture, and its resultant morality, was Anthropomorphism, the belief that the universe was the expression of individual persons, and then of one such supreme person. The second world-picture was Mechanomorphism, the belief that the universe could be explained as a huge machine. Men have tried to act on that-for as you believe things to be, so you must try to behave but it has never worked. You cannot make a true morality from the belief that the universe is nothing but a machine.

Nevertheless, until this generation, Mechanomorphism has been the accepted world-picture, even among the religious, and the majority of men today are trying still to act in accordance with that picture, because they are sure that it is true. This attempt so to act-however inconsistent and however unethical must then be classified as the Second Morality. It is a Morality which has never really succeeded in functioning, but it must be recognized as a phase. The Third Morality is the gradually defining impress which is to-day beginning to be made by the third world-picture, that world-picture which is now taking the place of Mechanomorphism. The following essay attempts to trace in outline the conduct indicated to us by this third world-picture, that conduct which must finally take form as the Third Morality.

Download the free PDF e-book here:

 The Third Morality

Listen to Gerald Heard here:

Explorations with Gerald Heard

 

Books, Happiness, Life, Moral Feed, Relationships, Society

Free book: The New Morality

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The New Morality is written by Durant Drake and published back in 1929. For long I have thought about posting Public Domain books here on the ethic and moral topics. I have collected a small library of books of high quality, and here is the first one on the series.

Durant Drake was concerned about the problem of happiness and morality. He understood “the new morality” as the consciously aim to secure the maximum of attainable happiness for mankind, much as other philosophers defines utilitarianism. In this book he outlines “the new morality” has been a concept in the entire history of ideas, but only espoused by a few since the great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Morever, Drake draws lines to our genetics and the animal kingdom to find the roots for our moral behavior. From the book:

Why should we be moral? What is the good of morality? No questions that could be asked touch us more closely. And while few have been given more confused and confliaing replies, few are really capable of simpler and more certain answer. The first point to note is the discovery by genetic psychology that human morality has its roots far back in the lives of our pre-human ancestors. It is the product, as are our instincts and bodily organs, of millions of years of natural selection. And since this stern process results, in general, in the survival of the fittest structures, and types of behaviour, we may be pretty sure, a priori, that morality, like our various bodily organs, has survived, persisted, developed because of its usefulness.

Download the free PDF e-book here (375 pages/15.2MB):

 The New Morality

 

Beauty, Happiness, Life, Moral Feed, Relationships, Society, Uncategorized

Morality in Buddhism

The Buddhist believe in Karma as a guiding principle. Morality in Buddhism is derived from the Karma-law that describes that your every action has an invisible karmic attachment that will affect you in the future.

Morality in Buddhism: According to the Buddhist moral worldview, your actions will stick to you like glue, and it will do so for all your incarnations. This is the reason some are born in unfortunate situations. Dalai Lama was once asked why he meditated.

He replied with a laughter: ” To avoid being reborn as a pig.”

For the Buddhist morality is the way to handle karma in daily life. Different sects have their different guidelines, but in general morality in Buddhism is connected to the idea that all life is connected, and that the faith of life is same no matter if you are a butterfly, a tree or a monk.
This faith is connected to the concept of non-duality (advaita) which states that the feeling we all have that we are separate, individual beings is at a more divine level just an illusion. We actually all are the same, we are one.

Once this concept is accepted it is easy to understand the behaviour of devoted Buddhist’s. They are acting nice to you, not to please a God or because they fear the laws, but because they see themselves as being inseparable from what you are in your essence. Hurting someone, stealing, lying etc. is essentially harming yourself.

The Noble Eightfold Path

However, having experienced this full insight in your own life is not for everybody. It takes practice, devotion, and meditation. For the layman Buddhist, there is a set of eight rules to follow. The rules are called the Noble Eightfold Path:

  1. Right View
  2. Right Intention
  3. Right Speech
  4. Right Conduct
  5. Right Livelihood
  6. Right Effort
  7. Right Mindfulness
  8. Right Samadhi or meditation

Practicing this will lead to the end of all suffering and the end the cycle of rebirths, which is equal to attaining Nirvana. The virtues 3, 4 and 5 are sometimes called the Moral Virtues since they describe how to behave in everyday life.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the basis of a number of other concepts typically associated with Buddhism. For instance, non-violence (ahimsa) and vegetarianism.