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
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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
He feels Yanagi’s pain through the connection but he does not draw attention to it. To be in the heat of a powerplay game such as the one boiling over in Konoha right now is a moment of extreme delicacy and ruthlessness; attachments are withheld, persons numbed down. The rampant mentality is this: eliminate those who are likely to get in one’s way, even if they are friends, or valuable allies. Nobody who lived through the Warring States Era would be unfamiliar with this tenet: do what must be done. And if Tobirama was forced to choose among the Yamanaka twins, he would keep Yanagi alive, simply because she is now the more valuable of the two, even though Yanagi herself and most definitely, not Osamu, would admit it. For to dabble in politics is to know who has value, worth and utility, and who do not.
Virtue ethics is a theory of ethics in moral philosophy in which it emphasizes that the notion of virtue is key to a
“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” ~ Bertrand Russell. The famous quote from Bertrand Russell describes the reality of war. War only lets the powerful and the wealthy side win and not the righteous side. On an average 378,000 people die each year at war while 1,450,000 people died in the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war started on 1 November 1955 and lasted until 30 April 1975. The war was fought between the North Vietnamese Communist government and the South Vietnamese Communist rebels known as the Viet Cong against the non-Communist South Vietnamese government and their ally U.S.A. The war destroyed the life of both, the North and South Vietnamese along with the other nations that took part in it. More than 1 million people were killed including civilians and over 3 million injured. Thousand were wives were left widows and hundreds of kids orphans. After consistent protests by the Americans, U.S.A withdrew from the later stages of war. The Vietnam War is a depiction that wars are murky and filthy and should be circumvented as they bring agony and desolation to the people. To show this I used three different mediums which are - Political Cartoon “Name a
Others believe that if you fight in a war and you win then you will forever be remembered and honored, also that you should fight for your rights. The quote “Those who have died fighting for freedom are remembered” explains how you shouldn’t let people tell you what to do and if you fighting a war you will be honored and remembered. I reject this because, for the people who lose, nothing would happen to them. They wouldn’t be remembered, they would’ve died and the other side wouldn’t care. Therefore I disagree with the aggressive action.
As communism began to spread steadily and gain more and more attention, Americans became immensely concerned in what most saw as a detrimental threat. President Eisenhower only added to the hysteria by outlining the Domino Theory: the theory that a political event, in this case referring to the spread communism, in one country will cause a similar turn of events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino that causes an entire row to fall down. Although the Vietnam War is seen by many as the only option to try to end the spread of communism, the specious outcome of the war was not effective enough to justify the amount of unethical decisions and situations that were allowed to take place. In 1961, under President Kennedy, 100 Special Forces troops were sent to South Vietnam and by 1963, just two years later, U.S military advisors and Special Forces had increased to 21,000 troops. We will soon see that this is just the beginning and in my paper I will outline the full record of events all the way to the end of the war, including the reasons for U.S involvement, unethical decisions that were made, America 's effort to end the war, and the lasting impact the war had on the United States.
The Anti-war movement started during the 1960s and shaped America’s public opinion on conflicts for years to come. As in all American conflicts, the will of the people controls the actions of the military. Without Homefront support, the American war machine dies. American pop culture during the 60s and 70s, sought to change public opinion against the Vietnam War. Through blatant Anti-war lyrics to their actions, the popular artists and musicians of the era changed the mindset of a generation to oppose the military actions in Vietnam.
In the 1960s, America found itself divided among various social matters. Conformity, civil rights, and the Vietnam war. While the older generations viewed fighting in the war as a civic duty and a true testament to what it meant to be an “American”, the counterculture did not share this belief. Regardless of how anyone felt about the war, it had escalated to epic proportions and as one citizen put it, “It was on our mind every single hour of the day” (PBS CITE). Vietnam was the first war ever to be televised, and with that came constant coverage and a growing concern from young Americans. In addition, the military draft made matters worse by forced the youth America to fight. “By 1968, the war in Vietnam had claimed over 15,000 American lives”(CITE PBS). Between the draft and the growing American casualties, greater tension in the US was created. Young Americans had to ask themselves if the war was worth fighting.
I do agree with you and soldiers must set aside their personal beliefs and values if they want to survive. If someone is joining the military they must know that they may have to kill or be exposed to very violent situations. Knowing this will assist you in the situation that I discussed and with the training that you completed you will make a decision whether it is to kill or not to kill. Either way you have went against some form of your virtues. While in the military you are taught certain virtues such as honor and integrity. If you’re personal virtues are against killing you will know that you must kill as it will protect your honor and could save lives. Either way you must either go against your personal virtues or your military virtues.
When it comes to any war, soldiers are placed in dangerous situations based on the orders given to them. They are forced to make quick decisions, usually out of their control, to defend their country against its said enemy. The act of killing is in no way ethical, but when done under the circumstances of war, military duty and survival, the wrongness of it can be debated. Consequently, the act of not killing can be unethical as well, since the outcome can be the sacrifice of a fellow comrade. The process of ethical reasoning cannot be used when faced with these kinds of decision because soldiers of war are unable to see all sides of the story, making it impossible to weigh the outcomes.
There are truths, lies, half truths, and bullshit - but more concerning still, there are situations where an unambiguous truth is found, and simply ignored or suppressed due to the work it would create if it were widely known. This sort of 'suppression through inaction' is nowhere more common than in the large institutions and bureaucracies tasked with carrying out the functions of the state. Do these political and military institutions have an ethical obligation to seek the truth, even without publicly publishing this information outside of their institution? Is it wrong when any organization, when granted the power to legally employ lethal force, chooses to suppress information within the institution that contradicts the opinions and sensibilities of the leadership?
War may seem like a heroic ideal, but the mountain is very steep. George Washington had us settle at Valley Forge in December 1777. Washington had mostly six and nine-month men that are debating to not reenlist. Reenlisting means to stay at Valley Forge and fight in the war, but I am considering to not reenlist. I will not reenlist due to the amount of deaths, lack of money, and the amount of exposure to the harsh elements.
The Vietnam War began, because of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) being conquered by the Japanese, in 1941. This led to the creation of the Vietnamese nationalist movement, formed by Ho Chi Minh to resist the Japanese. The Vietnamese national movement also known as the Vietminh, was a communist front organization. To stop the spread of communism through Asia, the United States intervened. The war lasted for 19-20 years, and involved countries such as South Vietnam, North Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand, Khmer Republic, Laos and the Republic of China. The war was known as a guerrilla war, which meant the use of tactics such as ambush, sabotage and petty warfare. Guerrilla warfare is a very unconventional style of warfare. It is when small groups of soldiers use stealthy tactics to inflict damage on the target. The casualties suffered by both sides were immense however, the Communists had the upper hand throughout the majority of the war. Not only was it their home turf, they also had the support of a large percentage of the civilian population. The effective use of guerrilla tactics by the Viet Cong played a very important role on the outcome of the war, and is also the primary reason why the United States lost. The following essay will outline the reasons why the guerrilla tactics used by the Viet Cong played a very important role on the outcome of the Vietnam War. The first paragraph will
The movie Platoon tells the story of a platoon of soldiers during their time serving in the Vietnam War. The soldiers find themselves in a variety of ethically challenging situations, and many make decisions with massive ethical ramifications. The situations vary, from searching a village for enemy activity to deciding whether to save a fellow soldier, and the soldiers are forced to choose between varieties of less than ideal options. The movie’s ethical spectrum ranges from individuals concerned only with accomplishing their mission at all costs to those who express concern for the lives of all people they interact with. The two ends of this spectrum are represented in the movie by Sergeant Barnes as the soldier who values only completing his mission contrasted with Sergeant Elias who attempts to preserve the life and humanity of the Vietnamese people he encounters when possible (Kopelson, 1986). I believe that the decisions exemplified by Elias represent a better way of conducting warfare, while those of Barnes represent a descent into understanding only the immediate objective at the expense of winning the overall war. The following key ethical decision points from the movie demonstrate the superiority of the decisions made by Elias
“Teaching the Vietnam War makes one realize how the shape of a narrative determines, and is determined by, its content” (Franklin 246). The Vietnam War was one of America’s most controversial wars. Many of its aspects are still plagued with great uncertainty. Those aspects of the Vietnam War are argued and debated about, they were argued during the time of the war and the arguing has continued. The Vietnam War was indeed a time of confusion. Why did the war start? What was the United States’ real reason for getting involved? What was the objective of the war? What were the American soldiers really fighting, or in reality, dying for? How do you explain a war to someone who has not experienced firsthand, especially if you were not
Virtue ethics is a theory that focuses on character development and what virtues one should obtain to be who they are supposed to be, as oppose to actions. An example of virtue ethics would be someone who is patient, kind, loving, generous, temperance, courage and flourishing as oppose to a person who lies, cheats, and