When victory is absent in war, people find it hard to justify letting their comrades die, especially if it was due to somebody else's (incompetent or traitorous) orders.
Just War Theory can only help alleviate PTSD and guilt due to the inability of trauma to forget memories, by preparing an adequate rationalization and justification, that people can believe in. But whether they can still believe in it when facing against the pain of actually having to get the job done, that is difficult to say.
The easiest way to justify it is to render the enemy non human, to no longer qualify to them the same limitations and benefits provided to other humans, in exchange for social cooperation and peace. Humans refrain from killing or eating other humans because people don't want to fight off other humans all the time. But once an enemy has been Classified as An Enemy of Humanity, of every human, then the gloves come off.
Catholics have a different opinion about Just War Theory, of course: that it is a set of moral guidelines derived by reason from the natural law whose author is God. It's dangerous to kill in the name of God, or even with what you believe to be God's blessing -- but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
In any case, many don't feel bad about the intentional killing at all. What bothers many is the harms they never meant to cause, or simply couldn't stop.
It's dangerous to kill in the name of God, or even with what you believe to be God's blessing -- but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
The feudal interpretation for the Knights Templar and other military holy orders was that they weren't killing for God, they were protecting Christians and testing their skills in battle, to be judged by God. The strong would survive and be blessed. The guilty or the weak, would die in battle. They would be promised the honorable death by sword at the end of life, after putting Life before Death, that is their reward. Dying of thirst or hunger in a jail, as the Muslims did to one of their own child/young Caliphs, is not an honorable or glorious death. It isn't painless either. Death by the sword is relatively merciful in those days, certainly compared to Byzantine castration/blindness or Islamic castration and FGM.
So the number of people killing for God, I don't think was as large as people now a days think. Unless we're talking about the Mohammedans, they would be different.
In any case, many don't feel bad about the intentional killing at all.
That's only in a minority of cases for most warriors that do exist. Most people are civilians, citizens, or soldiers. Thus, they didn't choose to fight, somebody ordered them to fight or they just got into a situation where it escalated.
The amount of people that think about these things ahead of time and consciously justify their pulling the trigger, is few and far between. They aren't enough to fill the army even to half capacity.
but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
In this context, the people who resolve their moral questions before the fight, using Just War or another method, would be doing the preparation before, pre rather than post.
Post hoc rationalization is what the Army hires Nidal Hasans for at Ft Hood, treat people with PTSD after it has already been crafted.
4 comments:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/21350.html
Foster's post is relevant to that.
When victory is absent in war, people find it hard to justify letting their comrades die, especially if it was due to somebody else's (incompetent or traitorous) orders.
Just War Theory can only help alleviate PTSD and guilt due to the inability of trauma to forget memories, by preparing an adequate rationalization and justification, that people can believe in. But whether they can still believe in it when facing against the pain of actually having to get the job done, that is difficult to say.
The easiest way to justify it is to render the enemy non human, to no longer qualify to them the same limitations and benefits provided to other humans, in exchange for social cooperation and peace. Humans refrain from killing or eating other humans because people don't want to fight off other humans all the time. But once an enemy has been Classified as An Enemy of Humanity, of every human, then the gloves come off.
Catholics have a different opinion about Just War Theory, of course: that it is a set of moral guidelines derived by reason from the natural law whose author is God. It's dangerous to kill in the name of God, or even with what you believe to be God's blessing -- but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
In any case, many don't feel bad about the intentional killing at all. What bothers many is the harms they never meant to cause, or simply couldn't stop.
It's dangerous to kill in the name of God, or even with what you believe to be God's blessing -- but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
The feudal interpretation for the Knights Templar and other military holy orders was that they weren't killing for God, they were protecting Christians and testing their skills in battle, to be judged by God. The strong would survive and be blessed. The guilty or the weak, would die in battle. They would be promised the honorable death by sword at the end of life, after putting Life before Death, that is their reward. Dying of thirst or hunger in a jail, as the Muslims did to one of their own child/young Caliphs, is not an honorable or glorious death. It isn't painless either. Death by the sword is relatively merciful in those days, certainly compared to Byzantine castration/blindness or Islamic castration and FGM.
So the number of people killing for God, I don't think was as large as people now a days think. Unless we're talking about the Mohammedans, they would be different.
In any case, many don't feel bad about the intentional killing at all.
That's only in a minority of cases for most warriors that do exist. Most people are civilians, citizens, or soldiers. Thus, they didn't choose to fight, somebody ordered them to fight or they just got into a situation where it escalated.
The amount of people that think about these things ahead of time and consciously justify their pulling the trigger, is few and far between. They aren't enough to fill the army even to half capacity.
but it's rather different from a post hoc rationalization made for theraputic reasons.
In this context, the people who resolve their moral questions before the fight, using Just War or another method, would be doing the preparation before, pre rather than post.
Post hoc rationalization is what the Army hires Nidal Hasans for at Ft Hood, treat people with PTSD after it has already been crafted.
Post a Comment