One more link on the subject. Jason Brennan has a post on Bleeding Heart Libertarians cataloging different norms for valorizing soldiers (this post is largely a follow-up to a prior post arguing that it might be appropriate to hold even individual soldiers accountable for volunteering to serve in wars they know or should know to be unjust).
While it’s nothing particularly innovative, I think this framework is useful for understanding both the Hayes controversy and the issue more generally.
The reaction to Chris Hayes suggests that most Americans are pretty close to norm 1, or otherwise a norm 2 where it would take something shocking and extreme—like overt torture or rape—to rebut the presumption of heroic status. But the reasonable debate is where we should fall between norms 2 and 3 -- that is, to what extent soldiers should be presumed heroic vs. judged neutrally according to their actual motivations and decisions, like we would judge everyone else.
For me, the hardest issue is distinguishing what makes a war unjustified enough to blame the civilian leadership and unjustified enough to blame soldiers who volunteer to fight in it. There will of course be a gulf between these positions, and the size of that gulf is probably the biggest difference I have with Brennan (I think it’s bigger). As many here have pointed out, there’s value in having a strong presumption of heroic status, not only as an honest recognition of what subjectively motivates most soldiers, but also to provide a social incentive to keep the military consistently strong over time. But it’s still important to acknowledge the existence of this line and to question where it is, both to provide a check on unjust war itself, and to discourage soldiers from risking their lives unless it’s really necessary.
that is, to what extent soldiers should be presumed heroic vs. judged neutrally according to their actual motivations and decisions, like we would judge everyone else.
The difference between soldiers and (almost) everyone else is that the soldiers’ job involves risking one’s life.
The fatal injury rate for people in the fishing trade is 116 per 100,000 — or slightly more than 1 in 1000, per year. (If you value your life, do not go into the fishing business; and if you value other people’s lives, you might consider buying farmed rather than wild-caught fish!)
According to this Congressional Research Service report, the worst year for U.S. military deaths recently was 2007, when 1953 out of 1.6 million military FTEs died. However, 235 of these deaths were due to illness rather than injury, whereas the above figures for other occupations deal only with injury. Subtracting these, members of the military are risking their lives slightly less than the people who bring you your salmon and tuna.
If you want to make a moral difference between soldiers and other people in dangerous occupations, you might consider making it on the basis that soldiers have to deal with threats to their lives that are caused by other people’s deliberate hostile action. Humans tend to reckon risks caused by other people’s deliberate action as being morally worse than risks caused by dangerous environments. Whether this difference should be considered a bias, or part of our utility function, or both, is another issue …
If you want to make a moral difference between soldiers and other people in dangerous occupations, you might consider making it on the basis that soldiers have to deal with threats to their lives that are caused by other people’s deliberate hostile action.
Disagree. I think the relevant difference is people risking their lives providing a service that’s (at least believed to be) a public good. Notice that the two civilian jobs that are also frequently called heroes are police and firefighters and your criterion doesn’t apply to the latter.
Well, yes, I think that’s right. But even under norm 3 (neutral judgment), somebody who risks their life for a worthy cause clearly deserves praise. And if you think that most of what the military does counts as a worthy cause (or at least, is worthy enough that someone could volunteer in good faith), then norms 2 and 3 are probably going to blend together. In that case, the neutral judgment will be to presume heroism. But the more unjustified you think military actions are, the more the distinction becomes relevant, because you have to start asking what to think of soldiers who voluntarily join up with an unworthy cause.
Also, norm 3 might entail more of a distinction between risky and non-risky military roles. My general impression is that “military/non-military” matters more in how people make judgments than “combat role/non-combat role,” even though the point about “risking one’s life” only really comes in with the latter. (Yes, I’m aware that even supposedly “non-combat roles” can operate in war zones and involve substantial risk—I’m speaking in generalities.)
Of course, there may be good reasons for this approach, even just in terms of signaling cost. It’s relatively easy to see whether someone has served in the military, but harder and more awkward to ask “okay, but how much danger were you really in?” I’m just trying to explain why there might be a distinction between norms 2 and 3, even acknowledging that military service generally involves heightened risk to one’s life.
One more link on the subject. Jason Brennan has a post on Bleeding Heart Libertarians cataloging different norms for valorizing soldiers (this post is largely a follow-up to a prior post arguing that it might be appropriate to hold even individual soldiers accountable for volunteering to serve in wars they know or should know to be unjust). While it’s nothing particularly innovative, I think this framework is useful for understanding both the Hayes controversy and the issue more generally.
The reaction to Chris Hayes suggests that most Americans are pretty close to norm 1, or otherwise a norm 2 where it would take something shocking and extreme—like overt torture or rape—to rebut the presumption of heroic status. But the reasonable debate is where we should fall between norms 2 and 3 -- that is, to what extent soldiers should be presumed heroic vs. judged neutrally according to their actual motivations and decisions, like we would judge everyone else.
For me, the hardest issue is distinguishing what makes a war unjustified enough to blame the civilian leadership and unjustified enough to blame soldiers who volunteer to fight in it. There will of course be a gulf between these positions, and the size of that gulf is probably the biggest difference I have with Brennan (I think it’s bigger). As many here have pointed out, there’s value in having a strong presumption of heroic status, not only as an honest recognition of what subjectively motivates most soldiers, but also to provide a social incentive to keep the military consistently strong over time. But it’s still important to acknowledge the existence of this line and to question where it is, both to provide a check on unjust war itself, and to discourage soldiers from risking their lives unless it’s really necessary.
The difference between soldiers and (almost) everyone else is that the soldiers’ job involves risking one’s life.
According to the 2010 National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, the jobs with the highest fatal injury rate per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in the U.S. were:
Fishers and related fishing workers
Logging workers
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers
Farmers and ranchers
Mining machine operators
The fatal injury rate for people in the fishing trade is 116 per 100,000 — or slightly more than 1 in 1000, per year. (If you value your life, do not go into the fishing business; and if you value other people’s lives, you might consider buying farmed rather than wild-caught fish!)
According to this Congressional Research Service report, the worst year for U.S. military deaths recently was 2007, when 1953 out of 1.6 million military FTEs died. However, 235 of these deaths were due to illness rather than injury, whereas the above figures for other occupations deal only with injury. Subtracting these, members of the military are risking their lives slightly less than the people who bring you your salmon and tuna.
If you want to make a moral difference between soldiers and other people in dangerous occupations, you might consider making it on the basis that soldiers have to deal with threats to their lives that are caused by other people’s deliberate hostile action. Humans tend to reckon risks caused by other people’s deliberate action as being morally worse than risks caused by dangerous environments. Whether this difference should be considered a bias, or part of our utility function, or both, is another issue …
What about infantry v. armor? Or helicopter pilots v. people piloting drones from a base in Nevada? “Military” isn’t too homogeneous a category.
Disagree. I think the relevant difference is people risking their lives providing a service that’s (at least believed to be) a public good. Notice that the two civilian jobs that are also frequently called heroes are police and firefighters and your criterion doesn’t apply to the latter.
Well, yes, I think that’s right. But even under norm 3 (neutral judgment), somebody who risks their life for a worthy cause clearly deserves praise. And if you think that most of what the military does counts as a worthy cause (or at least, is worthy enough that someone could volunteer in good faith), then norms 2 and 3 are probably going to blend together. In that case, the neutral judgment will be to presume heroism. But the more unjustified you think military actions are, the more the distinction becomes relevant, because you have to start asking what to think of soldiers who voluntarily join up with an unworthy cause.
Also, norm 3 might entail more of a distinction between risky and non-risky military roles. My general impression is that “military/non-military” matters more in how people make judgments than “combat role/non-combat role,” even though the point about “risking one’s life” only really comes in with the latter. (Yes, I’m aware that even supposedly “non-combat roles” can operate in war zones and involve substantial risk—I’m speaking in generalities.)
Of course, there may be good reasons for this approach, even just in terms of signaling cost. It’s relatively easy to see whether someone has served in the military, but harder and more awkward to ask “okay, but how much danger were you really in?” I’m just trying to explain why there might be a distinction between norms 2 and 3, even acknowledging that military service generally involves heightened risk to one’s life.