Most of the decisions you make in the fleet, as in life, will be clearly prescribed in rules and regulations. You will  typically have to rely on your own wisdom, the counsel of others, and your basic understanding of fairness in order to deal justly with others. This will be true in everyday matters of little immediate consequence--but in which your decisions can, over time, have a significant impact on morale, readiness, and force effectivness--as well as in situations in which consequences are more immediate. 

READ THIS

•  "Fairness and Injury" Jonathan Shay

Additional Resources:

• Justice or Mercy: Captain’s Mast-NJP

WATCH THIS (Additional Resources)

Clip from Billy Budd (1962) Background: The H.M.S. Avenger is headed into battle against the French fleet during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dark shadow of two recent mutinies in the English fleet concern Captain Vere (Sir Peter Ustinov). He relies on his cruel and often sadistic Master-at-Arms John Claggert to maintain what he believes to be tenuous order and discipline aboard the ship. When a new seaman, Billy Budd (Terence Stamp), is pressed into service from a passing merchantman, his innocent, happy-go-lucky attitude quickly endears him to his messmates as well as the ship's officers. However, his charismatic naivete seems to bother Claggert, whose perverse depravity makes him resent Billy's good-natured purity. The satanic Claggert unfairly plots to put him on report and ultimately perjures himself when he accuses Billy of conspiring to mutiny. Billy accidentally kills Claggert and is put on trial. 

Consider the following before class:

1. Does the application of the strict letter of rules or laws ever seem to conflict with what the "spirit" of that law would appear to be? 
   1. How should you apply the law in such situations? 
2.  In the Billy Budd clip, the declaration is made that in passing judgment, the naval officers "do not deal with justice here, but the law." One of the other officers insists, "Was not the one conceived to serve the other?" How do you evaluate the case?