Soc 120 Final Paper
SOCMilitary Orders 1
To Obey or Not to Obey: Unethical Military Orders
Richard Cuoco
SOC 120 : Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility
Instructor : Stacey Hiles
February 27th 2012
Military Orders 2 In a military environment following orders is essentially the top priority. Insubordination is generally defined as a willful or intentional failure to obey a lawful and reasonable request of a supervisor.1 Following orders shows that the organization is well structured and disciplined. Sometimes though an order comes down from above that you may feel is not ethical or it goes against your standard thought of what is right or wrong. Here I plan to discuss my thoughts on this topic as well as supporting my claim that through the use of utilitarianism, a solution to this issue could be reached. In the recent past the image of our military has been tarnished in perspective of the public eye as a result of some officers not following ethical conduct of the force. They believe that their thoughts and ideas about what can come from their orders are the only thing that matters and what you feel shouldn’t matter because you are a subordinate and should follow orders. With that said I believe that there should be an ethical process involved when making certain decisions. I also believe that all subordinates should let their superiors know what they think of certain common situations so there is no need to question someone’s ethics when there isn’t time to do so. In the civilian workforce people are ordered by their boss do take part in unethical practices all the time. A lot of the time these people obey the order because they are in fear of losing their job or some other repercussion. There are laws that are supposed to circumvent these actions and protect the civilian worker. That be told, in the military there are certain “laws” that
Military Orders 3
govern disobeying an unethical order but most of the time no one
To Obey or Not to Obey: Unethical Military Orders
Richard Cuoco
SOC 120 : Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility
Instructor : Stacey Hiles
February 27th 2012
Military Orders 2 In a military environment following orders is essentially the top priority. Insubordination is generally defined as a willful or intentional failure to obey a lawful and reasonable request of a supervisor.1 Following orders shows that the organization is well structured and disciplined. Sometimes though an order comes down from above that you may feel is not ethical or it goes against your standard thought of what is right or wrong. Here I plan to discuss my thoughts on this topic as well as supporting my claim that through the use of utilitarianism, a solution to this issue could be reached. In the recent past the image of our military has been tarnished in perspective of the public eye as a result of some officers not following ethical conduct of the force. They believe that their thoughts and ideas about what can come from their orders are the only thing that matters and what you feel shouldn’t matter because you are a subordinate and should follow orders. With that said I believe that there should be an ethical process involved when making certain decisions. I also believe that all subordinates should let their superiors know what they think of certain common situations so there is no need to question someone’s ethics when there isn’t time to do so. In the civilian workforce people are ordered by their boss do take part in unethical practices all the time. A lot of the time these people obey the order because they are in fear of losing their job or some other repercussion. There are laws that are supposed to circumvent these actions and protect the civilian worker. That be told, in the military there are certain “laws” that
Military Orders 3
govern disobeying an unethical order but most of the time no one