ABSTRACT
Within liberal democratic countries, demands that the ethics of public office be formally codified are becoming ever louder. ‘Ethics committees’ and the like are a growth industry. This is especially true in the militaries of the Western world, where the work of the armed forces is held up to unprecedented public scrutiny. Furthermore, many military missions are now justified in humanitarian terms, using the language of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the ‘responsibility to protect’. The British armed forces, for instance, claim that their mission is to be ‘a force for good’. Clearly, if such claims are to be more than self-serving rhetoric, military personnel must uphold the highest ethical standards. This in turn means that military institutions must pay increasing attention to the ethical education of their members.
