ABSTRACT
The author explores the reasons that might be for believing military professionals are bound by one. There are several lines of argument that might lend some support to claims that military professionals are bound by one or both of these understandings of a higher moral standard. The military profession, and the conducting of military operations, puts people in unique situations and contexts that pose unique and particularly pressing moral problems. But the application of the functional argument to the military is particularly apt, and establishes particularly strict and broad versions of a higher moral standard, for several reasons. The argument also rests on a controversial empirical claim as to the relationship between one's willingness to follow and/or support military professionals and one's beliefs about their more general moral behavior and character. The traditional professions, for example, are tethered to several important and perennial human needs and the professional roles are conditioned by the function of best providing for those needs.
