All leaders have a command philosophy—a way of looking at the world; beliefs on the purpose of command; a desire to see subordinates act in certain ways when their leader is not there to guide them. Some Navy commanders print command philosophies on poster board and display them throughout the command, while others publish nothing and still succeed.
“Philosophy” often is thought of as an impenetrable academic topic where “some rumpled guy in mismatched tweeds ambles up to the podium and starts lecturing on the meaning of ‘meaning.’”1 However, some of history’s most influential philosophical thinkers also had military service in their résumés. René Descartes, for example, was a military man in addition to being a foundational thinker in the Enlightenment. Socrates fought in the Peloponnesian War, and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius spent a great deal of his reign on military campaigns along the Danube.
A coherent command philosophy should keep subordinates pulling the oars together and on course, even when their leader is not present to give direction. People will listen and act on what they hear and see, so, written or unwritten, a command philosophy should contain wisdom. Philosophers have been capturing their views on wisdom in writing for millennia, so knowing where to start can be daunting. If you are commanding a military unit, you are leading a community within the larger nation of the United States. Thus, the place to start is the Enlightenment, as this nation is a product of Enlightenment thought.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was an intellectual rebellion against the establishments of the church and state and the control those institutions exercised over the lives of individuals. Today, the idea that the individual is capable of making rational choices independent of direct state or religious control is fundamental to how the United States conducts military operations. Young men and women are deployed to remote posts, standing watch at night in ships and alone in aircraft with weapons, and expected to make rational, ethical, life-and-death decisions. The fact that the vast majority of the time they do make sound decisions under the most trying circumstances seems to validate the Enlightenment ideal.
Immanuel Kant was arguably the most important figure of the Enlightenment and in the history of philosophy. If a non-philosophy professor is going to know anything about Kant, it is his categorical imperative (what one ought to do, because it is good in and of itself and conforms to reason).2 The first formulation is, “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”3 While this might sound like a noble goal—even a secular version of the Golden Rule—this formulation sets a low standard. Ultimately, leaders want those they command to take actions that go above and beyond what we could expect as a universal law. Kant’s second formulation is, “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”4 Certainly, the U.S. military’s challenges with sexual assault, hazing, and revenge porn are the result of those who treat others as a means to an end.
The challenge with both of these formulations in a military command is that when you follow the logic to its conclusion, you find “the idea of the will of every rational being as a universally legislating will.”5 As philosopher Joseph Brennan writes, “Kant’s constructed community is an enlightened philosophical anarchism.”6 Military leaders want individuals they lead to make sound decisions, but they do not want anarchy, even if it is an enlightened philosophical anarchy. The rational, ethical decisions we expect members of the military community to make must be founded on and fall within the bounds of good order and discipline and the laws of armed conflict. Further, to be considered lawful combatants, military members must be subject to military discipline, as the ideal of every rational human being making sound, ethical decisions in all cases is not borne out by experience.
The larger challenge with Enlightenment thought is the shift in focus to the individual independent of the state, which created a divergence of the value and identity of the individual as separate from and superior to the larger community. This tension can be found in the Constitution the U.S. military is sworn to protect. It begins with the words “We the people” and ends with the Bill of Rights. So, military commanders are given a group of people raised on the Declaration of Independence’s “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and in a society that increasingly views the community as existing for the purpose of enabling individual pleasure. Yet, these leaders must forge an effective organization where members must limit the size and location of their tattoos, restrain their speech and social media activities, and also swear that they are willing to give up their inalienable right to life in accordance with Article 1 of the Code of Conduct. Here is where Aristotle can help.
Aristotle: That For the Sake of Which
Granted, The Philosopher did not get everything right; however, what has endured includes brilliant insights that are fundamental to an effective military command. First is his observation that the “city which is best adapted to the fulfillment of its work is to be deemed greatest.”7 The single word that applies here is telos, the end to which something aims.8 Individuals in the U.S. military have joined and remained in the service for disparate reasons, but they all raise their hands and swear to support and defend the Constitution—that is a unifying force. Further, using authorities granted by the Constitution, the mission of each service has been defined in law as being prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of national interests. That is the telos, and it is something that everyone in the command must understand and the end to which all effort ultimately leads.
The second useful idea from Aristotle is: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”9
The third is what is known as the “Golden Mean”: “Virtue . . . is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.” For example, courage, according to Aristotle, is a mean between rashness and cowardice.10 What is most challenging about seeking this mean is that it is not fixed; the point of excellence moves based on the circumstances presented. When making the decision to engage a potential enemy based on hostile intent, leaders are seeking the mean between the extremes of being too aggressive, thereby starting an unnecessary fight, and being too passive and absorbing the first blow. Daily business at a command also is driven by extremes. Is the hazardous materials program run so tight that your sailors can’t efficiently get the materials they need to do the required maintenance, or is it so loose that the safety of the crew is endangered?
With Aristotle, the purpose of a command—the telos—is what defines excellence, and the best command relentlessly and consistently pursues its reason for being.
This is critical for all members of the command to understand. The perpetual striving for excellence—not just supporting and defending the Constitution, but living up to its ideals; following the laws of armed conflict, not just preparing for prompt and sustained combat operations; meeting the ideals of honor, courage, and commitment, not just the technicalities of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice—is how one moves the command, as well as the individuals in it, to reach the Kantian ideal, “that a free will and a will subject to moral laws is one and the same.”11 It’s how leaders develop young men and women so they are able to make rational, ethical choices when alone on a remote post or on watch late at night in the combat information center.
King or Kingdom?
Several years ago, while commanding a deployed destroyer, I was asked by an Air Force colonel, “What’s it like to be king?” While one might dispute the idea that a ship’s captain is a king, a warship captain at sea does have a great deal of legally sanctioned power. Thus it’s a fair question. I answered him with a quote from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius:
Reflect what multitudes there are who are ignorant of your very name; how many more will have speedily forgotten it; how many, perhaps praising you now, who will soon enough be abusing you; and that therefore remembrance, glory, and all else together are things of no worth.12
In addition to being a brilliant Stoic thinker, Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor during many of Rome’s military campaigns, so he knew a thing or two about being a king. His Meditations have endured because he was right. The king must remember that it is just not about him or her. This is hard. It is hard to remember when you hear yourself rung on board a ship or see your name on the sign in front of headquarters. It also is hard when answering pointed questions from the boss about the command’s failings or reading negative comments in the command climate survey.
Kings and queens come and go, but well-ruled kingdoms endure. Again, to Aristotle, the community that is greater is that which is adapted to its purpose, and the purpose of the command, any command, is not the commanding officer but the accomplishment of the command’s mission, the telos—the reason the command exists.
This might all seem a tad stale and uninspiring to any generation of military-age men and women, and a philosophical frontal assault on a crew with group discussions of John Stuart Mill probably is not the best tactic. Rather, a leader’s pursuit of excellence will, in time, quietly lead those in his or her command to realize what Viktor Frankl asserted in Man’s Search for Meaning—that success and happiness cannot be pursued; they ensue as “the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”13 Thus, if done well, the philosophy a leader practices while in command can produce warfighting excellence and happiness.
1. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), 4.
2. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, translated by T. K. Abbott, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), 41–42.
3. Kant, Fundamental Principles, 49.
4. Kant, Fundamental Principles, 58.
5. Kant, Fundamental Principles, 61.
6. Joseph Gerard Brennan, Foundations of Moral Obligations (Novato, CA:
Presidio Press, 1994), 93.
7. Aristotle, Politics, from The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon ed. (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 1,293.
8. Brennan, Foundations of Moral Obligations, 69.
9. That famous quote is not Aristotle’s, but a summation of some of his thoughts in his Nichomachean Ethics by historian Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers. Frank Herron, “It’s a MUCH More Effective Quotation to Attribute It to Aristotle, Rather than to Will Durant” (University of Massachusetts, Boston: 2013).
10. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, from The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon, ed. (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 959.
11. Kant, Fundamental Principles, 78
12. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated by Maxwell Staniforth (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 145.
13. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992), xiv–xv.