The Limits of Virtue: Moral Psychology and Military Conduct

ABSTRACT

Drawing on arguments in Doris (2002, 2022) [Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press], this essay argues that good character is typically an insufficient “bulwark” against misconduct in military organizations, for two reasons: (1) the situational sensitivity of behavior and (2) the relatively small effect sizes associated with personality variables. Additionally, what is known about moral development and education gives limited reason to think organizations are likely to have much success in inculcating reliably good character in their members. Instead, military organizations concerned to reduce misconduct should focus on developing organizational cultures structured by carefully crafted and assiduously enforced moral rules.

KEYWORDS:

• Military misconduct
• moral psychology
• effect sizes
• character
• moral rules

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Choosing a heroic US Marine for my example seemed fitting for a paper originally produced for the Naval Academy, but of course, there is no shortage of courage in the other branches, and other nations.

2 Lt. William Calley, however, did give orders to fire on civilians.

3 For a more detailed treatment of the topics in this section, see Doris (2022).

4 These are distinct: a highly significant effect could be small in size, and a large effect could fail to reach statistical significance.

5 Simple examples: there is probably no relationship between the average daily temperatures in Boston between 1800 and 1900 and the number of people watching Netflix in Spokane each evening in 2020, while the relationship between being a human being and being mortal is perfect.

6 There is a related observation in management theory, regarding disasters like airline crashes: “single cause incidents are rare” (Weick 1990, 571).

7 Think again of the aggregate effect of medical interventions: if a character trait is associated with a slight improvement in individual performance, this could cumulate to a meaningful improvement in group outcomes, especially in larger groups. This does not, of course, affect the truth of the Lotta-Little Principle, which is the crucial observation here.

8 Claims of weak parenting effects should be understood as limited to “normal environments” (Bouchard 1994; Scarr 1992; Rowe 1994, 1), not as denying that abuse and neglect adversely affect children.

9 In their survey of the literature, Berkowitz and Bier (2007, 38–39) report only whether a statistically significant effect was found, not the size of the effect, so the study does not license confident assessment of program effectiveness.

10 The quotations in this paragraph are drawn from Hersh (2004, 4 ff.).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John M. Doris

John M. Doris is Peter L. Dyson Professor of Ethics in Organizations and Life at Cornell University. He has authored Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior; Talking to Our Selves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency; and Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality, and co-edited The Moral Psychology Handbook and The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology. His work has been funded by Michigan’s Institute for the Humanities; Princeton’s University Center for Human Values; the National Humanities Center; the American Council of Learned Societies; the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; and the National Endowment for the Humanities.