Ethics Comparison Between the Military and Business Professional: Does Society Hold the Military Professional to a Higher Standard

摘要

Every individual possesses a morality compass. A morality compass is an individual s inner voice that provides guidance whenever an ethical dilemma presents itself. I firmly believe that an individual s morality compass is calibrated through innate knowledge, personal experiences, personal values, and organizational affiliations. In this research paper, I will focus on the organizational affiliation aspect. Society employs a set of ethical standards that it expects all individuals to follow. The question that this paper attempts to address is whether or not society s baseline standard is equally applied to all elements of society, or does society single out certain groups and hold those groups to a higher ethical standard. In an effort to present sound background information on the military s standard of ethics, I have reviewed the work of numerous authors in the area of military ethics. I have performed the same actions to gain knowledge of standard business ethics and standard society ethics. I intend to present the findings of the various authors and also interject my personal beliefs in order to lay the foundation for the overall discussion. The overall discussion will outline the ethical standards for the military and business professional, along with the ethical standard for society. The discussion will then detail the comparison of the military and business professional ethical standards to those of society in general. This comparison will highlight certain facts that show that while the military professional does not perceive himself to be of a higher moral caliber than the business professional or general society, the military professional is held to a higher ethical standard. The conclusions presented in this paper were reached through the objective review of researched material, along with the author s opinions that were formed through personal experiences.