Covert Contact 97: When You Can’t Obey

Pauline Shanks Kaurin joins me to discuss what obedience requires, when it should be challenged, and how we prepare for decisions that may carry a serious personal cost. Drawing on her book On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military, Citizenry, and Community, we look at questions that reach well beyond the military into workplaces, policing, and civic life.

We begin with civil disobedience and the protests unfolding in the summer of 2020. Pauline asks us to consider the purpose of law and order and its relationship to justice. We discuss how a movement challenges particular laws or practices, the complications introduced by participants with different aims, and the difficult questions surrounding the use of force by both protesters and police. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail provides a useful starting point for examining those tensions.

In a military setting, discipline and reliable obedience are essential, but people still need a way to raise a serious objection. We explore the British Army’s reasonable challenge approach and the professional judgment required to use it. Pauline emphasizes that a deeply held personal conviction is not enough: an objection should be explainable in terms of the shared values, obligations, and standards of the community involved. Even a well-founded objection may bring punishment or other consequences.

We also discuss the military’s response to proposals for its use during domestic protests, the importance of examining our assumptions, and the limits of relying on a leader’s personal morality to produce an ethical organization. The conversation closes with a practical argument for rehearsal. Working through difficult scenarios, including ethical war games, can build habits of reasoning and challenge before a real crisis forces a decision. Those conversations need to happen while there is still time to listen and think.