The Warrior Code

Continuing in Prof. Howard's series of mind-blowing classes, I took The Ethical Analyst. During the course of this class, I made a presentation on Military Ethics: The Kshatriya Code. Although I didn't conclude anything meaningful in that presentation, Prof. Howard's penetrating questions made me think really hard about what military ethics might be and how it would help me make decisions, if I were a Nazi officer asked to engage in horrible crimes.

Here's an attempt to address this issue, by looking at the Kshatriya code of warfare in ancient India, through three ethical violations in the Mahabharat War. The following discussion requires the viewing of this presentation.

The warrior code is the military version of the maxim, "Peaceful honest people have the right to be left alone." The military maxim might look like, "He who lives by the code, dies by the code." -- or, if a warrior does not live by the code, then he won't be killed according to the code.

In the Mahabharat war, Karna broke the code by killing 16-year old Abhimanyu with deceit. Therefore, the code ceased to protect him, and when his chariot wheel sunk, Arjuna decided not to honor the code for a violator. The beauty of the code is, its voluntary. If all the Kshatriyas start breaking the code, they're responsible for what follows, their imminent destruction. Therefore, it is in their interest to not break the code at will.

I am thinking this fits in nicely with the maxim society idea (see previous blog entry). If there must be an army, then it is in their interest to formulate such a code.

Now, I can use this idea to answer Prof. Howard's question on the Nazi example (everything seems to boil down to the Nazis - what would we do if we were a Nazi officer and asked to engage in horrible acts). If I were a soldier, I would have voluntarily followed this code. Like Drona (the teacher who massacred 25,000 soldiers,... before being killed through a lie about his son), if my commander told me to do something that violated this code, I would know for sure that it would be wrong. I would then have free will to go ahead or not. Personally, I would not go ahead. But if I did, I wouldn't expect the code to protect the way I die (i.e. honorably).

This is like Arjuna being asked to kill his teacher Drona on the other side - only he had the capability, and for sure, he had the orders. He refused, as it was against his personal ethic.

If I were a Nazi doctor, then a very different ethic would be in place. The allegiance notion would not apply - duty is first to the patient and then to anyone else - so its a different code.

I think this code is not about what should be, rather its an expression of what has been in most societies. The English knights, the French musketeers, the Japanese samurai and of course, the Chinese warriors all had some form of a warrior code, that prevented indiscriminate killing. There is this whole notion of a "good death," followed by the Buddhist Japanese and is expressed beautifully in the movie, "The Last Samurai," which captures some of these ideas.

What do you think? I would value your comment (click below).