It is impossible for military organizations to succeed in their mission if they cannot rely on the obedience of their personnel. What is the nature and limits of this obedience? Do subordinates owe their leaders unqualitied loyalty? Is the obedience required, by necessity, blind obedience--that is, is there any room to question orders or to think critically about about whether a given command is morally permissible? 

Answers to some of these concerns are obvious. Military personnel know that they are obligated to disobey unlawful orders--that's to say, their loyalty to moral norms is higher than their loyalty to their commanding officers. How that plays out in the din of battle or even in peacetime service is not always easy to discern. 

READ THIS

“Is Obedience a Virtue?”  Jessica Wolfendale,

"Humility as Freedom," Robert C. Roberts

WATCH THIS (Optional)

Excerpt from Kenneth Branagh's Henry V

Donovan Campbell, author of Joker One, on how the Marines taught him about humility

Consider:

1. What is the proper role of obedience in a military context?
2. When questioning whether an order is lawful, what resources can you use to judge between the moral fitness of your view versus the one giving the order?
3. When you have doubts about the legality or moral probity of an order but have no conclusive evidence one way or the other, is obeying the order simply a matter of blind obedience? Why or why not? If not, what accounts for the difference?