The New NE203 Course: Ethics and Moral Reasoning for the Naval Leader

Under what conditions is the state morally justified in waging war? What are the moral responsibilities of those called upon to fight their nation's wars? This podcast introduces just war theory, a scholarly tradition that has evolved over the course of millennia as an ethical guide for the statesmen and combatants who must grapple with these difficult and enormously consequential questions.

A discussion on character, the moral virtues most relevant to aspiring military officers, and how NE203 is structured to help midshipmen learn how to develop their characters.

Moral deliberation involves the filtering and weighing (whether consciously or unconsciously) of relevant moral principles and concepts in order to determine a course of action. In this episode, we consider the novel way that NE203 teaches Moral Deliberation in order to shift our focus from theory to practice.

Moral perception is awareness of the morally relevant features of the world. Many things can get in the way of perceiving the morally salient features of a given situation, our history, our culture, our biases--even being in a hurry. In this episode, we talk about how we consider this important aspect of morality.

This podcast introduces the main reasons that counted in favor of the thorough revision of NE203 and summarizes the most important changes made to that course.