Lone Survivor Ethical Analysis

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.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher that believed that decisions in life should not be solely based on consequences that provided the most utility - a popular philosophy of its time termed Utilitarianism (Anscombe).

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

imperative.
These Kantian principles lay the foundation for guiding a decision on how to treat civilians on the battlefield. If one considers killing the non-combatant, one would also imply that killing civilians is a universally acceptable maxim and extends to all individuals. This would justify the enemy in killing civilians back in the United States, which was the entire reason we went to war to begin with. This cannot be universally acceptable because we, as a collective, are not willing to recognize killing civilians as morally just - The Law of Armed Conflict and the articles of the Geneva Convention are two primary examples of global thought toward the issue. To murder a civilian, even in the soldiers’ area of operation, would create an exception to this maxim. Kantian ethics states that exceptions cannot exist, so the soldiers are not justified to kill the civilian (Anscombe).
If one examines the situation under the scope of Utilitarianism, then one would attempt to find the course of action that led to the most utility. In this scenario, believing that the civilian would inform the Taliban fighters of their presence in the area, they may reasonable believe that the enemy would pursue them in an effort to thwart American operations. This means that all of the SEALs have unlimited utility to lose – the loss of their lives – by letting the civilian go free. To maximize their utility and accomplish the mission, the SEALs should kill the civilian. To accept this however, would be to accept that the murder of non-combatants is acceptable when it benefits U.S. interests. As this violates the soldiers’ rules of engagement, we know this statement is false and therefore we cannot view the situation under the scope of Utilitarianism.
Many different thoughts of philosophy exist to shape our actions throughout life. While Kantian ethics are not the sole basis of U.S. military ethics, it certainly influenced much of our doctrine. There are many objectively wrong actions that are condemned by the military regardless of any incentive they bring, such as promoting needless suffering. Murdering the civilian, even if it helps the mission, is one of these condemned actions and cannot be considered a possible course of action. Since the murder of the civilian during a military operation is not a universally accepted maxim and cannot be adopted everywhere, the only course of action is to let the civilian go free.