Military Ethics and the Situationist Critique

Many contributors to military ethics from diverse locations and philosophical perspectives maintain that virtues are central to martial theory and practice. Yet several contemporary philosophers and psychologists have recently challenged the empirical adequacy of this perspective. Their challenge is known as the situationist critique, a version of which asserts that: (a) situational features rather than character traits such as virtues cause and explain human behavior, and (b) ethical theories and development programs are empirically inadequate to the extent that they incorporate virtues. In this paper, I assess the merit of this critique and consider some implications of my assessment for military practitioners and theorists.     

Rethinking Military Virtue Ethics in an Age of Unmanned Weapons

Although most styles of military ethics are hybrids that draw on multiple ethical theories, they are usually based primarily on the model of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is well-suited for regulating the conduct of soldiers who have to make quick decisions on the battlefield, but its applicability to military personnel is threatened by the growing use of unmanned weapon systems. These weapons disrupt virtue ethics’ institutional and cultural basis by changing what it means to display virtue and transforming the roles soldiers perform and the nature of the military profession itself. I argue that in light of these challenges to virtue ethics, at least as it is traditionally understood within the armed forces, soldiers operating unmanned weapons require a more heavily rule-based approach to military ethics.     

试论“以德治国”的基本方略

江泽民总书记提出了"以德治国"的重要思想."以德治国"有利于全社会正确估量道德的社会作用,进一步增强全党全国重视道德建设的自觉意识;有利于加强科学正确的人生观、价值观、道德观的教育和塑造;有利于改善党风和社会风气,清除消极腐败现象,有利于塑造正确的人生观、价值观、道德观.     

以师德学风建设为着力点 深入开展创先争优活动

师德学风建设在教育教学工作中对提高教学质量、激励学生奋进、潜移默化影响学生、促进学生健康成长起着重要的作用。本文分析了大中专院校师德学风的现状,并以师德学风建设为出发点,对开展创先争优活动提了几条举措。     

Transformation of Military Ethics During the Zhou Dynasty in Ancient China

ABSTRACT

The transformation of the governance model from a rule of virtue to political realism in China has been a topic of great interest to scholars. In this study, I examine military culture during the Zhou Dynasty and investigate the changes in ethics based on factors such as cultural values, social customs, and political structure to understand the process by which moral values have changed as the governance model transformed from rule of virtue to political realism. I found that military ethics have changed from governance through the use of rituals during the Western Zhou Dynasty to what was called “deception makes an army” during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.     

基于虚拟样机技术的某型高射机枪惯性子动力学仿真分析

基于机械系统动力学软件ADAMS建立某型高射机枪虚拟样机，并对其进行四连发射击仿真，验证所建虚拟样机的可信性。然后对该高射机枪惯性子和枪机框进行动力学性能分析，实验表明在平射情况下，惯性子对枪机框反跳位移和速度都有一定的抑制作用，惯性子作为防反跳装置有一定效果。     

Comparable deterrence – target,criteria and purpose

The last decade has seen several advances in the study of deterrence. These advances have sparked some strong disagreements regarding interpretation of the models and what their contributions signify. This paper appraises the discussions from a model theoretic perspective. It is argued that when comparing rivalling models three aspects; (i) target, (ii) criteria and (iii) type of purpose should be taken into account in order to make a proper appraisal. Informed by these aspects it is evident that the three deterrence models analysed address different aspects, in different ways and to different ends. From this perspective, the so-called Perfect Deterrence model must be recognised as a clear advancement in the research field. Model comparison will always be context relative and a plurality of models should be viewed favourably.     

Comment: Why “an identified systemic model of the democracy‐peace nexus” does not persuade*

In their article in this journal, James, Solberg and Wolfson (1999) challenge our findings that two states are more likely to have peaceful relations if they are both democratic. They claim to develop a simultaneous system of two equations showing that peace and democracy foster each other, and that the effect of peace in encouraging democracy is stronger than that of democracy on peace. Their analysis, however, is flawed. Their research design employs measures of dispute and joint democracy that are inferior to those now common in the literature, and their equation for predicting peace is not properly specified. These problems distort their results. Even so, their results provide evidence of the pacific benefits of democracy. Analyses we conduct with a more completely specified model reveal stronger support for the democratic “ peace. Furthermore, a test of the effect of interstate conflict on democracy should be done at the national (or monadic) level of analysis; but James et al. perform a dyadic analysis. In a monadic test using vector autoregression, we find that disputes make no contribution to explaining the character of regimes. Even with their dyadic method, their finding that peace promotes democracy is not robust Including a crucial control variable, the ratio of militarily relevant national capabilities, that James et al. omitted, dramatically alters their findings.     

What you should know about approximate dynamic programming

Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) is a broad umbrella for a modeling and algorithmic strategy for solving problems that are sometimes large and complex, and are usually (but not always) stochastic. It is most often presented as a method for overcoming the classic curse of dimensionality that is well‐known to plague the use of Bellman's equation. For many problems, there are actually up to three curses of dimensionality. But the richer message of approximate dynamic programming is learning what to learn, and how to learn it, to make better decisions over time. This article provides a brief review of approximate dynamic programming, without intending to be a complete tutorial. Instead, our goal is to provide a broader perspective of ADP and how it should be approached from the perspective of different problem classes. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

British intelligence and the Soviet atomic bomb, 1945–1950

With relations with the Soviet Union growing ever ‘hotter’, it became essential for the British to comprehend Soviet atomic development. However, British intelligence had to rely on more overt methods of intelligence collection, which provided an inadequate basis from which to proceed. This was further hindered by the interpretation of such information on the basis of Anglo-American development and by the 1946 McMahon Act. Accordingly the first Soviet atomic bomb in August 1949 was not accurately predicted by the British. Meanwhile British war planning centred on the year 1957, based – it was argued – on strategic forecasts. Yet the impact of recently released intelligence material throws this into question, and instead reveals that the date reflected British war readiness, rather than when British intelligence predicted the Soviet Union would have achieved the nuclear capability to wage a successful war.     

论网络时代高校学生思想政治教育工作的创新

网络正以惊人的速度深刻地影响着社会进程和人类的未来，改变着人们的学习、生活、工作与思维方式，影响着高校学生的行为模式、价值取向、心理发展和道德观念，使高校思想政治教育工作面临新的机遇和挑战。如何充分利用网络等现代传媒手段，不断创新网络时代高校学生思想政治教育工作的新方法、新途径、新机制和新模式，是高校亟需解决的重大问题。     

Economic sanctions and official ethnic discrimination in target countries, 1950–2003

Conventional studies on the consequences of sanctions tend to focus on the target society as a whole without specifying how foreign economic pressures might affect the well-being of vulnerable groups within target countries – the same groups who often disproportionately bear the burden of sanctions. This study explores the extent to which sanctions increase the likelihood of discriminatory government practices against one of the globally most vulnerable groups, ethnic groups. It is argued that sanctions contribute to the rise of official ethnic-based economic and political discrimination through contracting the economy and creating incentives for the target government to employ ethnic-based discriminatory policies. Using data on over 900 ethnic groups from 1950 to 2003, the results lend support for the theoretical claim that sanctions prompt the government to pursue ethnic-based discriminatory economic and political practices in multiethnic countries. The findings also indicate that multilateral sanctions are likely to be more harmful to the well-being of ethnic groups than sanctions levied by individual countries. Further, the negative effect of comprehensive sanctions appears to be greater than that of sanctions with moderate and limited impact on the target economy. The regime type of the target state, on the other hand, appears to have a significant role only in conditioning the hypothesized effect of sanctions on economic discrimination. Overall, this study’s focus on a vulnerable segment of the target society – ethnic groups – offers a greater understanding of the consequences of sanctions. It also provides additional insight as to how, in multiethnic countries, political elites might domestically respond to external pressures to retain power.     

RETHINKING AFRICAN STATES

Understanding the nature of armed conflict in Africa requires more than a political and military analysis of forms of warfare such as the employment of children as fighters. Children are seldom only instruments for other causes but can actively support their own agenda through the choices they make. Problems of governance, resource use and social organisation also need to be considered. There arc often no clear lines between civilians and militaries and a simplistic ‘oppressor vs victim’ dichotomy is of limited use. The political character of youths can be better understood by considering the factors that shape their consciousness, as well as the predisposition of the society to care for them. Society has failed to offer youth protection from the adult consequences of immediate involvement in economy and politics. This has been a dynamic process rather than a static set of political and economic circumstances favourable to the outbreak of revolution.     

Urban violence and the militarisation of security: Brazilian ‘peacekeeping’ in Rio de Janeiro and Port-au-Prince

Despite problems of violence domestically, Brazil has played a key leadership role as part of MINUSTAH peacekeeping operations in Haiti since 2004. This article addresses how Brazil's international military engagement is shaping domestic approaches to urban security, and what may be the implications of the use of military strategies, operations, and norms to address issues of public security in Brazilian cities. It is argued that current approaches toward urban security employing military-trained peacekeepers actually represent a continuation of old paradigms, yet these recent militarised approaches are likely evolving into newer and potentially more accountable forms by constraining indiscriminate use of force and establishing a positive state presence in marginal urban areas. As such, the article connects long-established issues of dealing with urban violence in Latin America with ongoing debates in the United States and beyond about post-counterinsurgency approaches to increasingly urban conflict settings. It reflects on potential lessons to be learned from the Latin American perspective, while showing also how these have changed over the last decade. The article concludes that despite the potential utility of force in some urban conflict settings, this approach could entail a normative shift towards legitimising forceful containment of violence, and hinder democratic consolidation in Brazil.     

教育：传承着诸神的事业——康德《教育学导论》发微

康德是一个理想主义者,他深受古典,尤其柏拉图思想的影响。与后者一样,他并不认为美好的理想就是脱离实际的空中楼阁。它只是一种经验里尚未存在的完善性理念。康德肯定了完美共和国实现的可能,但他并未将这一工作交由命运,而是肯定了人的能力,他用历史的进步作为抵达这一理念的通路。康德也把“统治艺术”与“教育艺术”作为人类最艰难的两项发明。“美德是否可教”的问题贯穿于苏格拉底与普罗塔戈拉的对话之中,《普罗塔戈拉》没有给出答案,康德则延续了对该问题的思考。     

关公人物形象的多角度阐释

本文在运用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义研究关公人物形象的同时，也用“二律背反”的哲学观点观照他，历史并辩证地剖析了关公思想及行为中均可以论证但又相互背反的三对命题，从而对关公人物形象有了更加立体、丰富的审美剖析，并从哲学的角度提出了关公悲剧诞生的根本原因。     

The Ethics of Cyber Attack: Pursuing Legitimate Security and the Common Good in Contemporary Conflict Scenarios

ABSTRACT

Cyber attack against Critical National Infrastructure is a developing capability in state arsenals. The onset of this new instrument in national security has implications for conflict thresholds and military ethics. To serve as a legitimate tool of policy, cyber attack must operate in accordance with moral concerns. To test the viability of cyber attack, this paper provides a new perspective on cyber ethics. Cyber attack is tested against the criteria of the common good. This involves identifying the four core components of the common good from a conflict perspective: respect for the person; social wellbeing; peace and security; and solidarity. The fate of these components is assessed in relation to the six key characteristics of cyber attack from a moral standpoint: security; the role or absence of violence; discrimination; proportionality; cyberharm; and the threshold of conflict. It is concluded that the common good must be incorporated into developing state cyber strategies.     

Single-period inventory models with demand uncertainty and quantity discounts: Behavioral implications and a new solution procedure

Quantity discounts are considered in the context of the single-period inventory model known as “the newsboy problem.” It is argued that the behavioral implications of the all-units discount schedule are more complex and interesting than the literature has suggested. Consideration of this behavior and the use of marginal analysis lead to a new method for solving this problem that is both conceptually simpler and more efficient than the traditional approach. This marginal-cost solution procedure is described graphically, an algorithm is presented, and an example is used to demonstrate that this solution procedure can be extended easily to handle complex discount schedules, such as some combined (simultaneously applied) purchasing and transportation cost discount schedules.