Lone Survivor Ethical Analysis

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Kantian Ethics in Warfare Combat often presents extraordinary conditions that necessitate decisive and innovative actions. Many times, those decisions are lasting and irrevocable. The film Lone Survivor depicts one such circumstance involving four Navy SEALs and their encounter with a civilian who wanders into their operating environment (Berg, Luttrell, & Robinson, "Lone survivor"). The civilian, likely sympathetic to Taliban forces, could easily disclose the location of the soldiers if allowed to go free. Conversely, as the civilian is a non-combatant, any harm to the individual would violate the rules of engagement. Using the principles of Kantian ethics, if faced with a similar situation, I would let the civilian go free because injuring a non-combatant is not a universally acceptable maxim. …show more content…

Rather, Kant believed that life holds certain categorical imperatives that one must not violate. An example of a categorical imperative would be not to murder. Regardless of any incentive one may have to murder another individual, one must unconditionally follow this imperative (Anscombe). Kant arrived at these categorical imperatives by describing the formula of universal law (Anscombe). In this, Kant states that one may only act upon a maxim that could extend to the entirety of the universe; any action could be followed by any other individual without exception or repercussion (Anscombe). Thus, if an individual were to murder someone, that individual would accept their own murder to be morally permissible. Since this maxim cannot be universally adopted by our society, murder is classified as a categorical

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