Days 77-84 - Honesty vs. Morality

I again had the privilege of co-hosting the Complete Liberty Podcast with Wes and Brett last week. We continued our discussion of an article about necessary evil, this time venturing into the realm of religion, family, and so-called "life-boat scenarios." Additionally the issues of valid contract and kangaroo courts (governmental courts), places where the prosecutor and judge work for the same organization, were addressed as well.

I encourage you to check out Episode 76 - The Seen and Unseen of Politics, Mythologies, Life-boat Ethics, Evil, and Contract Theory. The show is available for download or online listening by clicking, or right-clicking, here for the mp3, or for free at the iTunes Store.

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My original intent for this week’s blog had been to focus on a different topic than that of “military service” as involuntary servitude; however, the nature of the many comments that were posted has led me to respond to a different aspect of this issue.

Despite a number of comments that criticized my desire to immediately and completely separate from myself from the group of individuals known as the United States Navy, no one defended my “enlistment contract” as a valid excuse for forcing my labor. Hopefully this a result of my presentation of the morally consistent definition of enforceable contract as defined by Murray Rothbard. In their comments, Jay and Nick’s recurring condemnation of my action instead seemed to be of a moral, or value-driven, nature. The following are a few examples.

From Jay:

"What N. Morris seems to and I to assert is that it becomes a matter of personal integrity. That is, be man enough to realize that you might have made a poor decision. But unless the other party is willing to renegotiate, you should stick to it."

From Nick:

“The way I figure it (with my simple infantry mind) when you make an agreement for anything weather it be legally on paper or verbally agreed upon with a spit on hand shake, a man's word is his honor.”

“My issue with what my good friend is doing has vary little to do with the legal aspect of it and everything to do with the honor and the word of the man who signed the contract. It is my belief that a man's honor bound agreement to fufill his time in the military outweighs his legal one.”

And finally, what I believe has been the most problematic but succinct statement:

“just because you suddenly see something as differnt or wrong doesn't mean you should not fufill your word.”

Many parties in this discussion, myself included, then made references to everything from the Holocaust, to the forced suicide of Roman soldiers, to the current murders committed by those collectively known as the United States Armed Forces. There is definitely value to be had in exploring the significance of these ideas in both past and present situations. However, amidst the back-and-forth barrage of analogies and opinions, it seems as though the truth of Nick’s last statement has neither been substantiated nor directly shown to be false.

Quoted below is a portion of the comment I posted in response to Nick. I had hoped, that without explicitly stating it, I could use an analogy to prompt Nick to reach his own conclusion about the disastrous implications of what he said.

“. . . would Nick have told a Nazi soldier that it didn't matter if he came to see Hitler's "Final Solution" as genocide because, after all, this soldier had given his word to be in the German Army?”

Nick’s response did not answer my question as to whether or not he would tell the German soldier to fulfill his word by obeying his orders to execute Jews. Instead, Nick wrote:

“To answer your qurry... there were many German soldiers who did their duty to their fellow soldiers and their country regardless of the fact that they knew Hitler was wrong … Just because Hitler was horribly immoral and without honor does not mean the normal German soldier out on the line was without morals or was dishonorable.”

This response completely ignores the issue of whether or not it’s right to keep your word if it involves doing what you believe is wrong. To further confound my attempts to understand his position, Nick later wrote back to B.R. Merrick that:

“I couldn't agree more with the statement "To follow orders instead of doing what you know is right is not honorable",”

To argue that one should not break one’s word (i.e. a promise to follow orders) while at the same time claiming that it would be dishonorable to follow orders if it involves doing something that you know is wrong, is essentially to advocate that one should act dishonorably (i.e. although it would be dishonorable, if you’ve given your word, one should do something that is wrong simply because one promised to do so). The other explanation is that Nick blatantly contradicted himself. Either way, it would appear that Nick and Jay place more value on keeping one’s word, than on refraining from wrong actions. This is likely due to an errant categorization of dishonesty as inherently wrong (a problem I address at the end of this blog).

At present, I have no illusions that either Jay, or Nick, as self-described members of the military, understands his actions to be wrong. That they’re sincere in this belief doesn’t justify any murders they may have committed, but it does explain why they personally would value keeping one’s word as more important than exiting a job that they don’t think inherently involves immoral actions.

What I fail to comprehend, is that if they know I believe war is immoral, and the military exists for waging war, why would they attempt to convince me, or anyone, that it would be better (in the sense of “honor”, “personal integrity”, etc.) to keep my word if it means supporting that which I believe is immoral? I cannot but assume that they somehow missed the meaning of what they said, because who would honestly argue that a contract-killer who comes to realize the evil nature of his job is still “honor-bound” to carry out his next “hit” simply because he gave his word that he would do so?

Given our similar upbringings, if Nick or Jay were to disagree with my assertion that war is immoral, that would be much more understandable to me than arguing that it’s dishonorable or not acting with integrity to do all that I can to avoid supporting actions that I believe are immoral. Humans naturally strive to avoid dissonance between belief and action. Once someone believes that an action is right or wrong, it’s to be expected that she or he will try and act, or not act, accordingly.

Even though I believe it, I have not attempted to convince anyone that they should leave the military because it would be “honorable.” Rather, I have put great effort into spreading the truth that war is immoral. I do this, because if people believe they support a just war, there is little or no hope of persuading them to change their actions. However, if they understand that war is immoral, then they will undoubtedly feel a strong internal compulsion to leave the military.

Finally, and most importantly, I believe Jay and Nick’s claims errantly equate honesty and/or keeping one’s word with morality. This is not merely a matter of semantics, but one of critical importance in deciding what is, or is not, an immoral action, and therefore, how actions should be prioritized. Properly understood, morality is proscriptive; in other words, it prohibits certain actions as wrong as opposed to prescribing actions as right. In sum, it is immoral to initiate the use of force against another human, or his or her property, and any action can be understood to be moral or immoral by this simple definition.

In this way, lying, or failing to keep a promise, cannot inherently be understood to be immoral. There are innumerable instances in which you can be dishonest, or not keep your word, and yet, you can still do so without initiating the use of force against any person, or any person’s property. For example, a man promises to be forever married to a woman; however, said woman then proceeds to regularly get drunk and beat the man. The man has made a promise, but in filing for divorce, and breaking his promise, he isn’t acting immorally, because he is not inherently initiating the use of force against the woman or her property.

This is not to say that honesty and keeping one’s word should not be valued. These behaviors are most definitely important, and they should be recognized as critical virtues of any desirable society. However, the mistake is to categorize honesty as a moral behavior. Doing so can result in committing a truly immoral action out of the desire to keep one’s word.

Consider the following: if being dishonest is immoral, then those who lied about hiding Jews, or broke promises in order to help black people escape slavery, were acting immorally. Likewise, if breaking a promise is classified as an immoral behavior, it creates the very paradox illustrated by Nick and Jay’s claims that it’s dishonorable to break one’s word, even if keeping one’s word involves committing immoral actions. While honesty and keeping promises are admirable behaviors in most daily circumstances, issues of morality rightfully trump these virtues when choosing to adhere to one standard involves failing to live up to the other.