Military Obedience: Does the Answer Lie in Professionalism?

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

2002

Author

Giddy, Patrick

Journal

Professional Ethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal

Volume

10

Pages

207-230

Language

English

Publish Dates

Summer-Fall-Winter

Keywords

obedience
rights
roots (uprootedness)

Annotation

Giddy, very briefly, draws on Weil’s thought in The Need for Roots to address his larger concern: the problems created for the military in what he argues, is a larger cultural devaluation of obedience to authority. In particular, he uses Weil’s discussion of the relationship between obedience and rights to argue for the need for “a substantive (rather than simply procedural) social good, namely nationhood” to serve as the foundation for the development of a sense of ethical obedience in the military.