Military Draft and Moral Response

1st Essay

Military Draft and Moral Response

Relativist: The idea behind relativism is that the assumptions about what is “right” and “wrong” have no universal truth or objective validity. The relativist also believes “right” and “wrong” are relative to each culture’s perception (which is known as cultural relativism) or to each individuals perception (known as individual relativism). Because “right” and “wrong”, according to cultural relativists, has no universal truth one can’t conclude that the issuing of a draft is either “right” nor “wrong” in every case throughout our society. One could presume that in a society where a military draft has been a past-time, the majority of the population could believe that a draft would be “right” according to cultural relativism, but each individuals perception of the draft depends on many different factors. What is the background and influences that the culture has put on the society? What have the individuals been taught to conclude whether a military draft is acceptable or not? These would be just a few examples of how one could conclude whether or not a military draft would be “right” or “wrong” in our society. In a country where communism is present, the beliefs of the people could and would be totally different on the subject of a military draft than those beliefs of a democratic society. Because of this there are no justifications for intercultural critique. Meaning that one can’t justify whether the draft would be “right” or “wrong” because of the fact that each culture, or person for that matter, could have different beliefs about a military draft; therefore, the act of issuing a draft is dependant on the culture that it is asserted towards. With this being said, because one person may believe that the draft is correct, doesn’t mean that every person within that culture would agree. Whether the fact that the draft is “right” or “wrong” would greatly differentiate between the individuals inside of each culture. I would presume that in our society there are many different views relating to the issuing of a military draft

Utilitarianism: Known as the “teleological” theory, individuals define “right” in terms of the end that human actions seek (utilitarians believe this “end” to be happiness). Happiness, according to the Utilitarian, means pleasure and absence of pain. The greatest happiness for the greatest number, or the sum total of pleasure for all those affected by the act, would be considered the “right” choice. To decide whether or not a military draft would be “right” according to a Utilitarian, one would have to look at the affects of all the other people affected by the draft, and by doing this they could calculate if it will give the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Utilitarians use the Utilitarian Calculator to calculate the happiness of different actions. By using the Utilitarian Calculator, one would have to take in affect the people that actually get drafted, the people that do not get drafted, and those that are affected by the draft even though they themselves are not in the draft pool. By doing this one can get a sense whether the decision of the draft would create the most happiness for the greatest amount of people. A problem with this way of determining whether or not issuing a military draft is “right” or not is the definition of desire in itself. Because Utilitarians believe that happiness is desirable, there is a question of knowing I do desire my own happiness and knowing I ought to desire everyone’s happiness. This could become a problem for treating some people as scapegoats or bearing unfair burdens of pain to contribute to the “greater good”. This, in affect, would be concerning the desire of my own happiness as to the happiness of others, but the utilitarian believes that desiring happiness for the greater amount would contribute to one’s own end. Meaning that if certain groups of people where only drafted, then in affect it would somehow hinder my own end or happiness. If happiness is the only end then the greatest happiness would be the end of the collection of all persons. This is saying that even though I may get drafted (putting my own end at risk), one would have to look at all the women and children