General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Edward Snowden is a man without honor. [View all]primavera
(5,191 posts)As some have already posted in this thread, certain (hopefully) rare circumstances would seem to dictate breaking one's word, or, at the very least, mitigate having done so. I'm sincerely curious to hear your opinion, MineralMan, on this topic. Of course, keeping one's word is always desirable, but what if doing so conflicts with another oath and/or visceral commitment? Say I've taken a nondisclosure oath, but have also taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and I become privy to information that I sincerely believe cannot be kept under wraps without violating my oath to protect and defend the Constitution? If two oaths conflict, which oath counts more? Alternatively, it seems to me that an oath is, from a certain point of view, a form of contract. A person takes an oath predicated upon a certain understanding of the conditions under which the oath is offered. If I take an oath of obedience, it may be with the explicit or implied understanding that persons with authority over me will not abuse their authority and give me commands that are illegal. It's a well established principle of law that the "just following orders" defense is not a valid defense. So, if a superior orders me to torture and murder some civilian, am I an oath breaker if I refuse to comply? Has not the superior, in essence, breached our contract by ordering me to do something illegal? Doesn't that make the "contract" null and void? Again, I agree that an oath is a thing to not be discounted lightly, but, on the flip side, I don't think it is the sole, ultimate, absolute imperative, against which everything else is insignificant. To view it uncritically as an inviolable absolute I think does not reflect honor. Honor requires doing the right thing, even when doing so is painful or entails difficult moral choices. And in very rare circumstances, doing the right thing may conceivably require setting aside one oath in order to honor a different one.