In the harrowing scene of lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell together with his three colleague SEALs from America going for a revenge war in a remote village in Afghanistan are confronted with a challenging ethical dilemma in which they have to come up with an ethical decision by opting for one of the two possible decisions. In either case, the two decisions pose a situation of moral incorrectness hence making their decision-making attempts difficult. In their quest to kill an officer of a dangerous Taliban by name Ben Sharmak, they come across a group of defenseless goatherds. They can either 1) choose to kill the defenseless and innocent goatherds so that their presence may remain unknown to the Taliban or, 2) they could let the goatherds go, which would most likely lead to the Taliban’s realization of their presence, worsening their safety and security. Their dilemma is worsened about their two perspectives about war: war as a savagery engagement in which any action is justified and war as a morally-directed systematic endeavor which should be guided by discipline and engagement rules. Luttrell is of the first perspective. However, because of his understanding of the rules of engagements, he votes alongside other SEALs to let go the goatherds, a decision he comes to regret over after his SEALS are eliminated by the Taliban (Marcus Luttrell, 2013).
Moral Analysis of the Situation
Ethical Egoism
Ethical egoism holds the view that normative agents ought to act in accordance with what is in their own self interest. Therefore, actions that will result in outcomes that are beneficial to the doer irrespective of how other parties involved will experience the outcomes are ethically correct (Machan, 2015). Further according to this theory of ethical egoism, what is not in the best interest of the doer is not right decision to take. Therefore, in the presented scenario of the Marcus Luttrell and his fellow SEALs, acting in accordance with the theory of Ethical Egoism would mean killing the innocent goatherds to preserve their own cover. However, they decided not to kill the goatherds on the grounds that they were innocent and that is how they ended up messing up their own selves. Their decision was not in their own self interest and therefore not morally upright hence they failed to conform to the principles of ethical egoism.
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Utilitarianism
This theory regards the right and wrong in terms of consequences or outcomes and the extent to which these outcomes benefit all the parties or participants in a particular scenario. The scope of interest goes beyond that of benefiting one individual or party (the doer of an action) and considers the interests of all those involved in an action or a scenario ( Mill, 2016 ). Therefore, according to utilitarianism, what is in the best interest of many is ethically and morally correct. Further according to this theory, the best action is the one which maximizes utility. Utility in this sense refers to the sum total of all the positive outcomes of an action minus all the negative outcomes of an action. In the context of the lone soldier, killing the goatherds would have increased the benefits of all the soldiers and would have been in the best interest of all the SEALs. However, they chose not to kill the goatherds because they were innocent, a decision that came to haunt them. They ended up failing to achieve the goals of their mission. Therefore, their decision was not in line with utilitarianism.
Deontology
Deontology is a normative theory that judges actions based on the requirements of the established rules to which everyone has an obligation to abide. What is deontological is what consistent with the existing rules which, to the extreme end, are final and unquestionable under all conditions ( Sacco et al. 2017) . There are two rules in the military which would have guided the SEALs. The first rule was that they act savagely because they are soldiers and that all the actions of soldiers are justified. The second rule was that they be systematic, rational and thoughtful in their actions to abide to the rules of engagement. What they did was in accordance with the rules of engagement and was therefore, ethically correct according to deontology. They followed the rules and were justified according to deontological view of morality.
Virtue ethics
This normative ethical theory emphasizes on the role of virtue in decision-making. The virtues are informed by the mind and character. Application of virtues is further informed by the manner in which they are rooted in human nature and in the contexts of one’s culture ( Van Hooft, 2014). This means that virtues can differ depending on the cultural dictates. In the situation of the Lone Survivor and the SEALs, virtue ethics entailed doing what an American soldier could do to benefit his country. It would have entailed killing the goatherds to preserve their cover. However, they opted to do otherwise-to let the goatherds go because they were innocent. Giving this explanation to their seniors back in America would not justify their actions, meaning that it was they did was contrary to their ideal virtues.
Moral/Ethical Judgment
According to me, the most ethically and morally correct thing to do in this scenario would have killing the goatherds to preserve the SEALs’ own cover. This is because the decision would have been consistent with the ideals and norms of the US military and would have been judged in accordance with the expectations of the mission on which they had come. Going back to explain how innocent the goatherds were to be let free only to lead to the death of the SEALs sounds absurd and in direct conflict with the norms and values of military as a profession and military in the context of the US. Additionally, had they found an opportunity to kill members of the Afghanistan Taliban without actually hurting the goatherds, it would not have gone down well with the goatherds hence whichever their actions, they were destined to hurt the goatherds. Killing them to prevent their own death and to achieve the goals of their mission was the right thing they would have chosen to do.
In my own judgment of the situation, I would subscribe to the Virtue ethics as the most relevant normative theory applicable in this scenario. This is because virtue ethics judges an action in the context of the cultural norms and values of the doer of an action. It therefore takes into consideration not just the doer’s interests but is holistic in the sense that it covers the doer and its contexts.
Conclusion
In the ethical scenario presented above, there are two conflicting options that the SEAL would have taken, each one of which would have a devastating repercussion. The decision they made was seemingly the right one at the beginning only to turn out as a worse decision that forever haunts Marcus Luttrell the leader of the SEAL. Looking at the scenario from different normative ethical perspectives, one would easily judge the decision made as either wrong or right. However, viewing the scenario in the lens of Virtue ethics renders the decision that was considered wrong. From the perspective of Value ethics, the right decision would be killing the goatherds to preserve their presence in Afghanistan.
References
Machan, T. R. (2015). Egoism, Psychological Egoism, and Ethical Egoism. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management , 1-4.
Marcus Luttrell (2013). Lone Survivor Ethical Analysis Clip. Vimeo. Retrieved July 27, 2018 from https://vimeo.com/125719973
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Sacco, D. F., Brown, M., Lustgraaf, C. J., & Hugenberg, K. (2017). The adaptive utility of deontology: Deontological moral decision-making fosters perceptions of trust and likeability. Evolutionary Psychological Science , 3 (2), 125-132.
Van Hooft, S. (2014). Understanding virtue ethics . Routledge.
