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The Role Of Virtue Ethics In The Vietnam War

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Rick: That is a great claim for virtue ethics. As a pacifist, how can I ever condone war for any cause if that means violating the virtues of our soldiers?
Becky: How is that virtue ethics?
Lisa: Virtue ethics comes from the understanding that repeated actions over time create virtue. Constantly putting our soldiers into wars solely to prevent the spread of communism would create a culture that believes killing others in the name of capitalism is an ethically good virtue. Even right actions done for the wrong reasons can create a negative virtue in our soldiers.
Becky: It’s hard to keep a promise of a good war to our soldiers if we enter into it for the wrong reasons. My brother is dealing with that right now. He’s been to Afghanistan twice as a combat engineer. The few stories he could tell me about are scary and depressing for …show more content…

This included women, children, and men regardless of whether a bomb was visible or not. It sounds like their commanding officers used a teleological explanation that either it’s one person who dies or a platoon of their comrades. The hard part for my brother and others was when someone, with no weapon of any kind, ignored the warnings shouted by a translator and continued toward the base, leaving my brother no alternative but to shoot them. I told him what Dr. Pressler mentioned in class regarding the commandment of thou shalt not kill. It really says murder, as in killing someone without just cause. So killing someone in early Judea was acceptable during times of war. The only problem with using that argument is when he killed someone who did not have a weapon and was not part of an Islamic extremist group. Those facts did not come to his attention until after the person was dead though. These situations leave a lasting mark on his personal virtue ethics, I’ll

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