Military Logistic and Transpotation
Draft 1: Submit proposed research topic/introduction, statement of the problem, and initial 5 references
See attachment (Literature) as an example and the SMC_DL as a guide.
During Phase 1 ~ Draft Submissions 1 & 2:
Introduction: Identify the Topic (1 page) Draft 1
Statement of the Problem (1/2 page) Draft 1
Running head: LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 1
Author has given authorization to be used for educational uses only as part of USASMA SMC-DL
Educating Ethics for the US Military (1st Draft)
Arthur Jenkins
Western Governors University
A Written Project Presented to the Faculty of the Teachers College
Of Western Governors University
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 2
Author has given authorization to be used for educational uses only as part of USASMA SMC-DL
Research Topic
The broad research topic chosen is Ethics education in the US Army. This topic relates
to the current field of leadership education that I facilitate for the US Army. Ethics is a major
concern of senior leaders in the Army and more so for the most senior leaders. The topic of
ethics consistently surface within the US Army when addressing leader behaviors. While I fully
understand that this research is not about identifying the reason behind ethical failures, it is
simply designed to take a holistic look at ethics education and determine if there may be some
causal relationships between the education and the act of coming up short on ethical decisions.
Research Problem
Despite a broad training methodology in the US Army, little is being done to prepare
senior enlisted leaders for the ethical challenges they may face when leading large organizations,
other than telling individuals to do the right thing. The problem with this mindset set is what is
the right thing and according to whom?
There is a problem in the US Army with ethical decision-making. Despite the current
training that is, occurring there still seems to be failures with leaders decision-making. This
problem continues to negatively affect the Armys profession and violates the trust established
between the American people and the US military. A possible cause of this problem is how the
US Army trains individuals on ethics rather than educating. Perhaps a qualitative study, which
investigates how the US Military trains individuals rather than educating to create a climate of
ethical leaders, could remedy the situation.
The U.S. Army has a responsibility to conduct unified land operations in an ethical
manner. The U.S. Army continually faces ethical challenges from some of its most senior
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 3
leaders charged with developing ethical organizations. While this challenge is not unique to the
army, the focus of the research allows for a focus on enlisted soldiers in the army and the quality
of the ethics training versus education.
Purpose Statement
The goal of this research is to study the current ethics training for enlisted soldiers and
determine if the approach to developing a mindset of ethics education and ethical behaviors will
change how individuals conduct decision-making. The focus of this is to gain insight on the
relationship between ethics training and a failure of ethical decision making with a goal of
showing how educating on ethical behavior theory and ethical reasoning could have a greater
impact on military leaders.
Literature Review
The United States Military is charged with deploying and conducting unified land
operations across a wide spectrum of operating environments and to return to its home location
and prepare to deploy again. As the military deploys media, outlets consistently monitor
operations of service members to help gauge whether they are conducting operations in an
ethical manner. Media outlets continue to expose unethical behavior within the US Military and
explore how the military has lapsed into questionable ethical behaviors.
There appears to be a problem within the US Army and its sister services with ethical
decision-making. Despite the current training that is geared for certain specialties and pay
grades the army does not have a system in place to conduct ethics training or education across all
ranks. Because of this shortcoming the Profession of Arms, continue to struggle maintaining the
trust of the American people. A possible cause of this problem is how the US Army trains
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 4
individuals on ethics rather than educating. After studying the available literature on ethics,
education in the military there seems to be some common themes. Themes such as the
organizational culture do not support quality training, who is responsible for teaching or
educating ethics. The following literature review will provide some insight on this issue.
Current Ethics Training
Currently, Army Regulation 350-1 dated August 2014, requires initial ethics training for
all personnel to receive ethics training no later than 90 days after entering active duty and
periodic training or annual training for a duration of one hour. In addition to this training it
requires that individuals in the Acquisition Corps to get additional training. The regulation
specifies that the training be to be completed by a qualified instructor face to face or prepared by
a qualified instructor and presented by various forms of media delivery. The question often
arises in the research is who is responsible for the training and what does the curriculum look
like or why does the military need to concentrate on ethics training for its most senior and
experienced leaders.
The answer to why the military should concentrate on ethics training lies with research
conducted by Ludwig and Longenecker on a syndrome known as The Bathsheba Syndrome. In
their research, they suggest that ethical violations are a byproduct of success and not of
competitive pressures (Ludwig & Longenecker, 1993). Their research introduces four areas that
success leaders often succumb to ethical failures:
(1) success often allows managers to become complacent and to lose focus and divert
attention elsewhere (2) success, often leads to privileged access to information, people or
objects (3) with success (increased responsibility) usually comes increasingly
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 5
unrestrained control of organizational resources (4) success can inflate a manager’s belief
in his or her personal ability to manipulate outcomes. (Ludwig & Longenecker, 1993)
They offer several methods to work through this syndrome. The first is a method that the
US Army Sergeants Major Academy has done for about two years and that is to educate leaders
on this syndrome. The second and probably the most effective is that they warned leaders that
anyone with a highly developed moral sense could be challenged by the above-mentioned
dynamics. Their research does offer some proposed approaches to combatting this syndrome
such as living a balanced life (family, relationships, and interest must be cultivated), leaders of
organizations need to stay strategically focused and avoid becoming complacent and
understanding that the privilege and status granted is designed to enhance the leaders strategic
vision. The understanding of this syndrome should resonate with many leaders because it should
help broaden their understanding of why successful and principled individuals succumb to
ethical challenges. While this syndrome is not new, the military must take a hard look at its
current directives on ethics training, change the mindset, and develop a new approach to ethics to
ensure that leaders do no lose their way.
Consequently, George (2011) wrote a similar article titled Why Leaders Lose their way,
and he discussed how powerful people lose their moral bearings and in order for executives
(leaders) to stay grounded they must prepare to confront the complexities that come with
increased responsibility. This preparation would prove beneficial to the military as it develops
the senior enlisted leaders for increasing roles within the operational environment. George
stresses leaders develop coping mechanisms to deal with the stressors associated with increased
roles. This article suggests that individuals seek out people who can influence them and this may
not necessarily be the spouse. These individuals should be reliable and entirely honest and help
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 6
those develop an action plan to deal with the challenges. This approach to developing an ethical
leader would benefit the army and it supports the Bathsheba Syndrome on helping leaders avoid
the pitfalls associated with the syndrome. George suggests a support group known as True North
with whom individuals can share their life experiences, hopes fears and challenges, a program of
this scope incorporated within the military would possibly be beneficial to senior enlisted
leaders. After many leave the Sergeants major Academy they are placed in roles that requires
leaders to perform at the highest level of ethical conduct and the education that they receive is
not preparing them for the challenges they receive.
According to Bolgiano, DeRemer, & Edward (2012) they that ethics can be taught, their
work examines the current curriculum taught at the Senior Services Colleges (SSC) and they
suggest that the colleges reconsider how critical thinking is taught and ethical reasoning. The
authors argue that the SSCs must strengthen their curriculum focusing on ethical reasoning and
critical thinking. The authors highlight that only six hours of the Army War College curriculum
are dedicated to teaching ethical reasoning and philosophy. This is also apparent in the senior
noncommissioned officer training at the Sergeants Major Academy where students are given
lessons consisting of approximately 4.5 hours of instruction in ethics and then write a paper.
Leaders need additional training and education in ethics and this should become part of the
armys culture.
Several researchers looked at this and proposed that the Army changes it methodology to
ethics training. Behn (2016) addressed in her research article that when the army conducts ethics
training there are three fundamental questions that need answering when teaching ethics to senior
military officers, those questions are: (a) what are the desired outcomes of ethics education? (b)
how should the curriculum be structured to achieve those outcomes? (c) what is the correct
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facility composition to develop and deliver the curriculum? Behn conducted this research by
addressing the three questions by looking at the current War College programs to assess the
strengths and weakness of her research.
The rationale behind this research coincides with the problem addressed in this work
based upon a published white paper by the former Chief of Staff of the Army reminding
individuals on their responsibility for the Profession of Arms. Behn (2016) noted that a report
submitted to the Secretary of Defense indicated that ethics training needed to start earlier in an
officers career and reinforced over the course of the officers career. This research would
findings from the report would suggest that the current regulation as dated still is not adequate
for training and teaching ethics to the military. While this report focused primarily on the officer
corps, there is no current research on enlisted soldiers and ethics education.
The question at hand on ethics education still relies on what is the curriculum and who
should teach it. Theodore Roosevelt once said that to To educate a man in mind and not in
morals is to educate a menace to society. This quote by Roosevelt continues to prove why this
is an important endeavor and the military should continually look at its current state of ethics
training. Behns research questioned what should some of the curriculum look like and there are
several proposed strategies that an institution could incorporate into its programs.
A Proposed Approach
There is quite a bit of research on how to conduct ethics training however much of this
also equates to who is qualified to teach it and at what should the curriculum look like. Most
research on ethics education focuses on virtues and this is unquestionably a valid area of
curriculum there is an additional area that need addressing prior to virtues and that is Character
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 8
Strengths, this area in a component of Positive Psychology and there has been extensive
research in this area. The Norwegian Military conducted research on this area to determine what
are the most important character strengths to officers and determined that leadership, integrity,
persistence, bravery, citizenship, open-mindedness, social intelligence, self-regulation and
creativity, in addition, perspective, fairness, and love of learning were chosen by the military
group, totaling 12 (Boe, Bang, & Nilsen, 2015). These character strengths are universal across
all societies and if individuals could further develop these strengths theoretically, they are better
prepared to deal with the ethical challenges they may face.
They focused their problem on understanding that Norwegian military officers can be
deployed and serve in leading roles in international military operations. The focus of the study
was to select the most important character strengths for development. Of particular note in their
study, they noted Doty and Snowden (2009) work arguing that integrating the development of
character in all training is important and that freestanding classes in ethics are ineffective. The
approach of developing character in military members to include moral development typically
lead to high performing organizations. The key to this is developing and determining what this
training should look like and how those behaviors are modeled for individuals to emulate. One
such approach of ethics education and training could be from virtues based versus the current
rules based or a combination.
Virtues Based Approach. Cox (2016) proposed that the Army change its approach to ethics
training from a values and rules based approach to incorporating virtues approach incorporating
the ethical decision making process. In the article, Cox makes note of how the Army places little
emphasis on ethical decision-making training.
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 9
Cox discusses the Army’s approach to ethics training from a values and rules based
perspective and argues that the Army must incorporate a virtues approach or incorporating the
ethical decision making process. This is currently the greatest challenge based upon experience
of a small group of 16 students there may be one student who have heard of the ethical lenses
and how to apply them in the decision making process. Coxs argument is that the Army must
get away from knowledge-based ethics training because it does not provide decision-makers with
the appropriate skills necessary to make ethical decisions. Cox believes that specific training on
ethical decision making throughout an individuals career will influence individual actions. This
thought goes in line with the saying in the Army do the right thing”, when no one really
addresses the right thing. Cox introduces a strategy which she coined PRICE which stands for
progressive, reflective, integrated, comprehensive and experiential. She advocates a qualitative
shift in the way ethics training is presented, versus a quantitative increase in the hours spent.
Cox is summarily calling for a paradigm shift in how the Army currently trains on ethics. The
interesting portion of Coxs study is that this approach of quantitative training is seen throughout
the enlisted corps in the army. Many of the future senior experienced leaders who rotate through
the US Army Sergeants Major Academy are introduced to the ethical decision making process
for the first time and many of them wonder why arent they introduced to this process early in
their career. The work discussed in this article is supported by additional woks that relates to the
quality of training on ethics in the military. Many of the articles focus on educating the officer
corps while ignoring the largest population of the military, which is the enlisted corps. Coxs
strategy goes in line with the literature written on the Teaching the Law of Wrongs without
Searching for What is Right.
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 10
In this article Albert, Reynolds, & Turan, 2015 discuss how ethical-decision-making is
rooted in a cognitive perspective emphasizing moral judgement. They discussed the research
that ethics evolves around and individuals perceptions and views of others and concluded that
ethical behavior is a complicated phenomenon given the complexity that an ethical issue can
entail. While their research has validity and showed how ethical decision making has a lot to do
with a cognitive process the Army continues to struggle with this understanding and how best to
educate its force on ethics.
In Hennesseys (2016) work, the Rock of Transfer, which he uses as a metaphor for
learning transfer, purposes that military cadet ethics education the ethical processing model of
rules, virtues and outcomes. This author provides insight into three different models that he
purposes to change the curriculum for cadets to gain a better understanding of ethics. His article
address how the possibility of a 21-year-old second lieutenant freshly graduated from West Point
could be faced making a poor decision and the repercussions for the military. This scenario
presented has great merit and further implications than just having a young officer leading a
platoon often times this young officer may have an enlisted counterpart not much older and is
facing the same dilemma. These leaders must be able to think outside of the box and make
difficult decisions with farther reaching consequences. The challenges that the military faces
when educating individuals on ethics is that there is no focus on developing the enlisted soldiers
other than when they arrive at the US Army Sergeants Major Academy (USASMA). Enlisted
soldiers need this focus early in their careers to help shape a culture of ethical awareness through
rules, virtues and outcomes. This study continues to support the various articles and research
findings on incorporating a values and principal based approach to ethics education. This report
helps validate the importance of the ethical processing model whereby senior enlisted leaders
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 11
only receive this training in the final stage of their Professional Military Education and they
make of over 80 percent of the force. One would think that with such a large percent of the force
there would be a greater emphasis on their education and how to incorporate a program or
culture of virtues based ethics.
Wortel & Bosch (2011) in their research on ethics education argued that it is important to
base an ethics program on virtue ethics, the Socratic attitude and the process of ‘living learning’.
Their article illustrates how military personnel encounter moral dilemmas on deployments and in
their work environments at home and proposes a method to strengthen an individuals moral
character. This strengthening of moral competence is best defined as the ability and willingness
to carry out tasks adequately and carefully, with due regard for all of the affected interest, based
on a reasonably analysis of the relevant facts (Wortel & Bosch, 2011, p. 17).
Throughout their work, they stress the difference between schooling and education,
whereby according to their research, schooling is concerned with learning objectives that are
achieved by the end of a course and with education, one is concerned with a permanent learning
process that continues well after the course ends. This process of education according to Wortel
& Bosh (2011) calls for developing ethics education with development objectives rather than
learning objectives. This process of development objectives could prove beneficial for the US
Army as it looks at methods of educating its force on ethics and more so focusing on the
development of its Non-commissioned officers (NCOs). They propose that to educate in ethics
individuals need to begin by working on the moral competence from a virtue ethic, the Socratic
attitude and implementing a process of living learning.
Additional, research conducted by Robinson (2007) discussed the value of ethics training
and tying it to core warrior values and professional military values and the importance of
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disciplined, professional conduct in combat. All US Military branches have a set of core values
that all members know, the challenge for many leaders there is a land a lack of coherence, and
lack of a deeper understanding of how these values apply to the individual in everyday life.
Robinsons article makes a point that soldiers will undergo ethics training but who says that the
soldiers will learn the right lesson. He looked at various national militaries and noted that there
is no uniformity of approach to ethics training. Looking at the one lingering question would be
is ethics training necessary for military members and why does it matter. In his article, he
mentioned a quote by the late General Maxwell Taylor who saw no moral problems in serving
with a combat ready officer who is loyal to his superiors and his profession but disloyal to his
wife (Robinson, 2007, p. 5). The questions here is this the type of leader that the Army wants
leading troops? Leaders today would argue that this mindset still perpetuates in the Army and
often times these leaders will resort to behaviors that are displayed in the civilian sector to
rationalize that those behaviors should be accepted today. However, in Robinsons work he
mentions a survey conducted in 2003 whereby military members said they think that they have a
higher moral standard than the nation that they serve (2007). The moral high ground that some
members take could be detrimental to the good order and discipline as noted by a former
commander for the German leadership Development Center who argued that the goal of ethics
education is to ensure that the ethics of soldiers align as best as possible with the society they
serve (Robinson, 2007). Robinsons article strongly implies that the military should relook how
this program is taught.
Reevaluating Ethics
One such approach that could help the army is to introduce behavioral ethics theory in the
education of its forces. Authors to Bolgiano, DeRemer, & Edward (2012) introduce the concept
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of behavioral ethics and argue that teaching this can have a positive impact and they discuss the
materials that can be used to teach the concepts and additionally they address action-research
approaches to assessing the effectiveness of the instruction. This article highlights how the term
behavioral ethics has come about as a new study and research on ethics. This new theory
surfaced through the study of how people make ethical and unethical decisions. While the theory
is relatively new their currently is no accepted way of teaching this program and they offer some
suggested techniques that would prove beneficial for the military as it reevaluates its programs.
The authors argue there is no strong research that current training to be moral philosophers will
improve individual actions. They argue that there is evidence that teaching behavioral ethics can
have a beneficial impact on an organization and it heightens moral awareness. This study helps
with the understanding of the Bathsheba Syndrome and when leaders understand the syndrome
they should easily gains a new perspective of how behavioral ethics effects decision-making.
The other areas that could provide greater decision making is that the Army look at the
moral development of its forces. Thomas (n.d.) discusses the four stages of moral development
and how the development of the moral element of military leaders is often ignored in the
professional military education and training and of military officers and non-commissioned
officers. The author premises that if ethics is a symbol of moral and values then moral
development is the quest to learn right from wrong. The research shows the importance of moral
development and its link to ethics. The study discusses the four stages of moral development as
compliance (changing behaviors), moral maturity (reevaluating your moral beliefs), moral
ambition (self-actualization or the pursuit of virtues behavior) and moral understanding. This
research provides the understanding of how to develop moral leaders through a process of
education and training. The moral development of our nations leaders should begin at the entry
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 14
level of all enlistees and continually developed over the course of a career. The focus should
encompass all cohorts (enlisted and officer) unfortunately when it comes to the ethical and moral
education of enlisted leaders there seems to lack research on this areas where by the majority of
research focuses on the officer development as seen in Heyworths work.
Heyworth (2014) noted the ethical and moral issues confronting the U.S. Navy and it
cites studies by the Naval Inspector General (NAVIG), which showed that promoting moral
conduct should be taught very early in training. This article shows quantitative evidence of
officers relieved for cause and stresses to exercise leadership through personal example, moral
responsibility and in order to achieve a positive, dominant influence on the performance of
persons in the Department of the Navy. While this may not be the all solution, the education and
training must, come from the commanding officer at all levels of leadership. The evidence in
this article from the NAVIG offered suggestions to improve selection process and officer
training such as a 360-degree assessment. The Navy and many branches acknowledge the
importance of this feedback mechanism could provide enlisted soldiers a tremendous opportunity
for growth yet many are not introduced to this tool until late in their career.
Regardless of the approach to ethics, training one should understand that ethics education
can be taught according to Mumford, Steele, & Watts (2015) there is a need for systematic
evaluation of ethics education programs being taught and they propose a meta-analytic
framework to identify best practices in ethics education. The authors research covers the
responsible conduct of research (RCR) and denoted the following: they indicate that RCR
education as it is typically conducted is not especially effective. Second, they indicate that more
intensive coursescourses that are face-to-face, analyze cases, and present role-playsare
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 15
substantially more effective. According to the authors, their research aligns with findings that
recommend with emerging discussions from the domain of educational psychology.
A common saying in the army is because an act is legal does not always make it ethical
and this very nature is a reason that the army should look at the ethics education program to
determine what is the current state of ethics training in the US Army. Once this is accomplished,
the army can then determine what should be done to improve ethics training or education to
create leaders who consistently weigh the consequences of their actions.
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 16
References
Albert, L. S., Reynolds, S. J., & Turan, B. (2015). Turning inward or focusing out? Navigating
theoriesof interpersonal and ethical cognitions to understand ethical decision-making.
Journal Of Business Ethics, 130(2), 467-484. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s105551-014-
2236-2
Behn, B. (2016). The stakes are high: Ethics education at US War Colleges. Retrieved from
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/education/jpme_papers/behn_b.pdf
Boe, O., Bang, H., & Nilsen, F. (2015, July 25). Selecting the Most Relevant Character Strengths
for Norwegian Army Officers: An Educational Tool. 7th World Conference on
Educational Sciences, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.188
Bolgiano, D., DeRemer, L., & Edward, A. (2012, December). Ethics can be taught. US Naval
Institute: Proceedings Magazine, 138/12/1318. Retrieved from
http://www.cgscfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Bolgiano-DeRemer-Major-
EthicsCanBeTaught.pdf
Cox, J. (2016). Proposing a new strategy for Army ethics training. Military Law Review, 224(2),
541-589.
Drumwright, M., Prentice, R., & Biasucci, C. (2015, July). Behavioral Ethics and teaching
ethicaldecision making. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 13(3), 431-
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George, B. (2011). Why leaders lose their way. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-
leaders-lose-their-way
LIT REVIEW: EDUCATING ETHICS FOR THE US MILITARY 17
Headquarters Department of the Army. (2014). Army Regulation 350-1 Army Training and
Leader Development. In Army Training and Leader Development. Washington DC:
Goverment Printing Office.
Hennessey, M. J. (2016). The rock of transfer: A synthesis of ethics education in higher
education through the lens of the United States Military Academies. Journal of Mason
Graduate Research, 3(1), 40-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.13021/G8O598
Ludwig, D. C., & Longenecker, C. O. (1993). The Bathsheba Syndrome: The ethicalfailure of
successful leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 12(4), 265-273.
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60. Retrieved from
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30_art012.pdf
Mumford, M., Steele, D., & Watts, L. (2015). Evaluating ethics education programs: A
multilevel approach. Ethics & Behavior, 12(4), 265-273.
Robinson, P. (2007, Spring). Ethics training and development in the military. Parameters, 23-36.
Retrieved from
http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/Articles/07spring/robinson.pdf
Thomas, J. J. (n.d.). The four stages of moral development in military leaders. The ADM James
B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, UNites States Naval Academy. Retrieved
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elopment%20Thomas.pdf
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Wortel, E., & Bosch, J. (2011). Strengthening the moral competence: A train the trainer course
on military ethics. Journal of Military Ethics, 10(1), 17-35.
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