# Do you believe it's immoral to willingly enlist in the military? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2019, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901 "2019-09-27T09:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GreenHell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@GreenHell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenHell)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2019, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/61 "2019-09-28T12:02:58Z")
I would say in most cases it is not immoral because morality implies an informed decision. Most who enlist do so from a sense of indoctrinated obligation, a belief that the military provides society a useful service, and ignorance of what the organization actually does. Now, if the individual was actually aware of the activities the organization was involved in, then the morality would depend on the nature of those activities and on another philosophical principle: Do ALL members of an organization bear partial responsibility for the evil done by that organization? To take the most extreme (albeit cliched) example, presumably the Nazis had accountants. Are they all evil by virtue of working for the Nazis? I’m not even talking about shady accountants, appraising stolen art or hiding funds from investigators. Just a payroll clerk, who works hard and just wants to make sure the troops all get paid correctly . . . Nazi troops, though. Look, government jobs are very stable, pay well, and doing good work in payroll keeps one out of the field. I don’t think that the U.S. Army is as bad as the S.S. was. But, I wouldn’t call dropping drones on wedding parties, training Al Quaeda, overthrowing representative democracies, trafficking heroin, and arming Islamo-fascists “ethical”. So the question is, “how large a part can you play in this kind of organization and keep you hands (and conscience) clean?”. America has pretty much decided that if you get school children to face the flag every day, recite the pledge, support the troops, and repeatedly tell them that we’re the freest people on earth, most 18 year-olds won’t answer that question, or even think to ask it. I can’t control what my grown children will do, but they are fully aware that enlistment would not have my blessing or result in any show of support or encouragement whatsoever (the exception being for my son, should he join the Foreign Legion, as he could become a citizen after five years of service). In stark contrast to the U.S. military-welfare complex, joining a military protecting a free people from actual threats is not only ethical, but honorable. ---
**Author:** ![ASGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@ASGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/62 "2019-09-29T01:25:47Z")
Not one bit. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/63 "2019-09-29T01:42:17Z")
If one is a pacifist, and rejects violence, then joining the military would be morally wrong. Others feel self-defence, and the defence of others, is a net good (but who is making strategic decisions? Surely not the raw recruit). (As for joining and then picking and choosing which theatre of operation one would be willing to serve in, as in Vietnam is bad but Sierra Leone is OK (or whatever), that’s nuts, it doesn’t work like that.) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/64 "2019-09-29T02:14:52Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > (As for joining and then picking and choosing which theatre of operation one would be willing to serve in, as in Vietnam is bad but Sierra Leone is OK (or whatever), that’s nuts, it doesn’t work like that.) A moral soldier ordered to fight in an immoral war has some options. Some are able to resign immediately. Some have to wait out their enlistment contract, and then refuse to renew. During the waiting period they should obey orders to the letter, and not do one iota more. They can look for legal options for early separation. This happened during the Iraq war, where many left in droves. Others tried to leave but were blocked by stop loss. That is moral. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/65 "2019-09-29T08:38:19Z")
Immoral, unethical, unjust? Depends, depends, depends… on the volunteer, their background and impetus, what they volunteer for and expect, and so much more. I volunteered for both US Army (end of VietNam-era; I was an undrafted 25) and National Guard later. Something like 90% of military are really civil service, not combat troops, said Robt Heinlein. In the Army I radio-clerked; in NG I worked a field hospital, mostly disaster relief. I saw no combat - but my Army artillery unit was hot-prepped for Gaza. I knew troops who sought power, money, drugs, and sadism in service. My lure: GI Bill and possible career; big change for a former vagabond. Could I have endured as a war-machine cog? Can’t say. Would I join back then, knowing what I do now? Yes. Volunteering for evil, immoral, unethical reasons makes it so. So don’t be evil. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/66 "2019-09-29T21:00:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Well, continuity matters if we’re talking about whether the US Army can be credited with winning our independence from the British, which I thought was what we were talking about. A lack of continuity would mean it would make as much sense to for the NFL to claim the credit. > > And even _with_ continuity, it comes off like a fifty year old man bragging about his high school football career. After a certain point, if you have to dig back centuries to find things you’re proud of, you don’t have anything to be proud of. > > (Not that the army lacking proud accomplishments makes joining it _immoral_, mind you.) I’m still not sure why the continuity matters; you said\* “I don’t think that the military deserves credit for our freedoms, such as they are.”\*, which is the part I took issue with. And my point is that “the military” in the broad sense of the armed forces of this country, not necessarily today’s military, or some sort of military in continuous existence, were the muscle that let things like the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation be effective, because the British and Confederates sure weren’t going to obey otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/67 "2019-09-29T21:23:29Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/68 "2019-09-30T20:35:46Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m still not sure why the continuity matters; you said\* “I don’t think that the military deserves credit for our freedoms, such as they are.”\*, which is the part I took issue with. > > And my point is that “the military” in the broad sense of the armed forces of this country, not necessarily today’s military, or some sort of military in continuous existence, were the muscle that let things like the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation be effective, because the British and Confederates sure weren’t going to obey otherwise. To be very succinct, continuity matters because despite the most tenuous of connections (and they do appear to be tenuous), the continental army was not the same organization as the US military and your attempts to dump them in the same bucket make me reject your thesis out of hand as being factually false. Hell, _ **I** _ could claim credit for winning the war of independence, the civil war, and the fight against the aliens in Independence Day. If we’re not going to bother with worrying about which organization is which, why shouldn’t I personally claim credit? And to bring this back to the subject of the thread a bit, I don’t think it makes a lick of sense to equate (for example) the US military of 1940 with the US military of today, not in a thread about the morality of joining it. It’s the same military in the sense that I’m the same person as I was when I was two years old. Times have changed, I have changed, the world has changed, the military’s guiding powers’ motivations have changed, everything has changed. You’re arguing one side of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment; I’m noticing that the ship of Theseus has changed from a canoe into a battleship and thus am arguing the other. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/69 "2019-10-01T13:55:16Z")
I think the premise of Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers” could be boiled down to “anyone who would voluntarily join the military is a sadomasochist Nazi”. Bit of a slanted view there… ---
**Author:** ![phxjcc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phxjcc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phxjcc)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/70 "2019-10-02T04:29:48Z")
Who the he(( does the OP think forced desegregation in the south during the sixties? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/71 "2019-10-02T12:33:34Z")
> [@phxjcc](#): > > Who the he(( does the OP think forced desegregation in the south during the sixties? Possible topic for another thread: Why wasn’t the Civil Rights movement answered by massive armed resistance in the South? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/72 "2019-10-02T13:13:56Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > No, the military serves a vital purpose in democracies, and service can be an honorable and important choice. And for practical purposes a stint in the military can mature a person, teach them skills, and prepare them for a career elsewhere. > > There can be countries where enlisting is much more questionable, but not for the examples you gave. This, basically. All countries require a national defense of some sort, and signing up to defend one’s country is not immoral as a general rule. There are certainly circumstances where joining up (or an individual’s motivations for joining up) are immoral - for example, if you join up because you want to summarily execute unarmed civilians crossing the border - but those are extraordinary circumstances. Mostly I focus on the way in which the military is used by the political powers that be when making moral judgments. Sending troops into harm’s way just to get re-elected or to make a profit would be grossly immoral, but in those cases it’s not the soldiers that are to blame. And I too think the US has gone way overboard on its worship of the military. I don’t know how some people stand I - one or two “thank you for your service” comments is nice but a constant stream of them day after day would drive me postal. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/73 "2019-10-02T14:11:20Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I’m surprised at how seldom I see sentiment similar to the portion I BOLDED, and with which I wholeheartedly agree. Not saying I expect it would be the majority point of view, but I’d expect to see it at least somewhat more frequently than I do. I didn’t directly quote what you responded to because I don’t see the need for that kind of crudity in expressing the general idea. I don’t go along in general with the idea that crude language makes you sound more ‘genuine’. Still, and not left leaning here, I think you can reasonably debate about whether the image of the US military has gone too far in one direction because the ‘right’ and ‘left’ don’t pull against each other on that point. They pull against each other too much on other issues IMO, sometimes to the point of ‘I don’t know what they proposed but if it was them proposing it, I disagree’. But in this case the right did get the better of the left in the wake of Vietnam as to most Americans’ impression that elements of the left went overboard blaming the military or even individual people who happened to be in the military at low levels and never did anything illegal. The left realized that, and since then there’s not been enough check and balance, give and take, IMO on critically assessing the US military. Not that I think it’s ‘immoral’ to join: it’s IMO obviously not and that’s a borderline ridiculous question. I mean more in the military’s performance in subsequent wars, its true readiness for likely future ones, how wisely defense money gets spent, etc. Civilian politicians are ultimately responsible for all those things in the US system and those of comparable countries. In legitimate rule of law democracies civilian politicians and therefore the public can’t really blame ‘the military’ in the long run. They create and control the military. They can still critically examine results though to see what they, voters and politicians, should do differently wrt the military. I agree that that discussion in the US can still be hampered by the political fallout from the anti-war left’s sometimes extreme positions and rhetoric about the military during the Vietnam War. ---
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/74 "2019-10-03T11:49:10Z")
The only militaries I would not join on pain of death are the rapist/mercenarized/jihadi-influenced ones (such as Pakistan’s). Any other professional military, absolutely no problem. It is one thing to fight honorably for your motherland (even in a misguided/unnecessary war) and entirely another to rape/subjugate entire populations because you are in the military and have the power to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/75 "2019-10-03T13:46:28Z")
I don’t think it is immoral at all to join the military. Maybe being drafted into military and being forced to be a combatant against your will is immoral. But there are lots of things you can do in the military besides handling weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/76 "2019-10-03T13:50:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And I too think the US has gone way overboard on its worship of the military. And the size. Biggest employer in the world, and that’s direct jobs only (source: newspaper article in Spanish, don’t have it handy). ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/77 "2019-10-03T17:21:04Z")
> [@Translucent\_Daydream](#): > > But there are lots of things you can do in the military besides handling weapons. Doesn’t make a difference. The military is a team. Whatever the team does, every member has a greater or lesser share in the credit or the blame. In a war, I don’t see any moral distinction between a front line soldier and a paper pusher several thousand miles from the action. They are both participants in killing. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/78 "2019-10-03T17:51:12Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Doesn’t make a difference. The military is a team. Whatever the team does, every member has a greater or lesser share in the credit or the blame. In a war, I don’t see any moral distinction between a front line soldier and a paper pusher several thousand miles from the action. They are both participants in killing. I’m still not sure how you draw the line at the military, no at the taxpayer. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/79 "2019-10-03T18:53:18Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > I’m still not sure how you draw the line at the military, no at the taxpayer. It crosses my mind that taxpayers don’t have a choice. It’s one thing to knowingly and voluntarily drive a mass shooter to a school, and rather different to do it only because he has one of his many guns to your head. I figure similar logic can be applied to people who voluntarily join the military - they _choose_ to be part of the killin’ team, for one reason or another. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901/80 "2019-10-03T19:21:15Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > It crosses my mind that taxpayers don’t have a choice. It’s one thing to knowingly and voluntarily drive a mass shooter to a school, and rather different to do it only because he has one of his many guns to your head. I figure similar logic can be applied to people who voluntarily join the military - they _choose_ to be part of the killin’ team, for one reason or another. What if: 1. Your country legitimately is under attack. This happens from time to time. Do you just get invaded and roll over? 2. Your military career isn’t something you chose. You were drafted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-immoral-to-willingly-enlist-in-the-military/840901.md?page=5)