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Moral Development as Character Development in the U.S. Army

 

Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Jared L. Vineyard, U.S. Army

 

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Know thyself.

—Delphic Oracle

“Our Army’s standing task is to win the nation’s wars.”¹ This exhortation from the newly published Field Manual 1, The Army: A Primer on Our Profession of Arms, is part of the reminder that the U.S. Army is a profession with profound duties and obligations to the Nation. Part of those duties and obligations include the “verification and validation of an Army professional’s character, competence, and commitment to fulfill responsibilities and perform assigned duties with discipline and to standard.”² While units rightly focus and train on competence-related tasks, how do they train and truly evaluate their members on character? How do they actively and intentionally develop the character of the men and women within their formations? It doesn’t take long before one sees that the response is most likely haphazardly, or as one officer claims, by way of a “laissez faire institutional approach.”³ The reason for this response relates to the immense and complex nature of the U.S. Army with its inherently pluralistic operating structure that can create morally ambiguous expectations. This article proposes a professional moral expectation framework for the Army profession as well as a fourfold moral development model for Army professionals in the advancement of character development.

Moral Expectations of the Army Profession

Soldiers must be men and women of character. This premise is ensconced throughout Army doctrine. As previously noted, the Army explicitly states that soldiers must be certified in character and includes character as one of the three key attributes in its leadership requirements model.⁴ The doctrinal reason for character is nested within the idea of the military profession itself. The Army defines its own profession in Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession: “The Army profession is a trusted vocation of Soldiers and Army civilians whose collective expertise is the ethical design, generation, support, and application of land power; serving under civilian authority; and entrusted to defend the Constitution and the rights and interests of the American people.”⁵ Thus, from this definition, one can understand that it is not merely about the carrying out of warfare, or simply the application of land power, that ought to concern soldiers but also the ethical application of land power, or ethical warfare, that is the purview of Army professionals. For this to be the case, soldiers must have an ethic that guides them as well as the proper character to follow and apply that ethic.

While stating that members of the U.S. Army must be men and women of character might be publicly appreciated and professionally uncontroversial, discussing the specifics of character can be. Although the Army is both diverse and pluralistic, it does have a basic description of character. The Army describes character as “the moral and ethical qualities of the leader.”⁶ Army doctrine further states that “a person’s character affects how they lead. A leader’s character consists of their true nature guided by their conscience, which affects their moral attitudes and actions.”⁷ While these general descriptions form a baseline of what character is, it is the attributes of what character ought to be that can be more controversial. These potential specifics form “an ensemble of settled dispositions—of habitual feelings and desires” that make up who a person is.⁸ They form the ideal of who and what the model man or woman ought to be.

Over the past three decades, the Army has worked to produce a list of attributes and competencies that it desires all its soldiers “to be, know, and do.”⁹ The character attributes include “Army Values, Empathy, Warrior Ethos and Service Ethos, Discipline, and Humility.”¹⁰ And while compiling a general list of character attributes for the Army profession is noble, what is currently missing in doctrine and the operational force is the acknowledgement that individuals integrate these character attributes at different speeds and unevenly apply them in their moral understanding of a situation. The idea of moral simply being “a sense of right and wrong in principles, values and conduct.”¹¹ Thus while professional doctrine exhorts individuals to be men and women of character, what is lacking in both doctrine and practice is an echeloned approach to the moral understanding of each individual soldier. For instance, should a private with fifteen months in the Army be expected to have internalized the attributes of character to the same degree as an Army major with fifteen years of experience? The obvious answer to this question would be no; and yet, when reading doctrine, it appears that the answer is yes. The disconnect is between the ideal and reality. Within this disconnect arises the question, What ought to be the real moral expectations of Army professionals as they progress through ranks and different leadership positions? This is where having a sound moral expectation framework for Army professionals would be valuable.

Moral Development

Before diving into the proposed structure, it is first helpful to think about the general concept of moral development. Although dialogue on moral development is ancient, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that a holistic structure was emphasized with the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg took the previous work of many thinkers and conducted his own international research looking at the theme of adolescent moral development. After years of study and research, Kohlberg created a cognitive moral development structure. He based his investigation on what he defined as a moral action, stating, “We have concluded at this point that the definition of moral action would have to include the actor’s conception of right action and would have to consider his or her judgement of responsibility to perform the action.”¹² The moral development structure that he created consisted of six separate stages of moral development. These stages correlated to why people made the decisions that they made—that is, their moral reasoning. The stages can be simplified:

Stage 1: I do what is right because I want to avoid punishment.

Stage 2: I do what is right because I want to get a reward.

Stage 3: I do what is right because I want to be seen as a good person.

Stage 4: I do what is right because the rules say so.

Stage 5: I do what is right because I want to maintain order.

Stage 6: I do what is right because I understand why it is right.¹³

Each of these stages presupposes the stage before it, and while individuals generally move up the scale as they grow and mature, they can still make a specific decision based on reasoning from another stage. That is, a person who is generally at a moral development “stage four” may make a “stage two” decision at times. Again, each of these stages are based on the moral reasoning that the individual chose to make.

So how does this adolescent moral development structure relate to Army professionals? It is the argument of this article that it can be directly applied to the Army rank structure as a source of assistance regarding moral expectations.¹⁴ New recruits are inducted into the Army and are looked at as infants with regard to the profession of arms. Trainees learn foundational skills in basic training and the follow-on advanced individual training. In this phase of Army life, young soldiers are expected to learn and follow the rules. While some come into the Army with advanced moral education based on family background, faith background, previous life experiences, and a host of other considerations, many do not have a deep moral well from which to make proper decisions. This moral disparity between new soldiers creates a potential recipe for moral chaos regarding professional expectations. The moral chaos is notable after the new soldiers leave the controlled environment of basic and advanced individual training and are scattered across the Army to fill personnel gaps throughout the force.¹⁵ These new soldiers are put into teams and squads of existing units with the general moral expectation that they will act like good soldiers. While these young soldiers who fill the enlisted ranks, grades E-1 through E-4, are expected to make the right decisions, Army leaders should not expect them to have inculcated the deep standards of the Army Values or Army Ethic by this point in their career. Therefore, their level of moral development, from a military standpoint, ought to be considered between stages one to three.¹⁶ Soldiers in these three categories would act rightly because they don’t want to get in trouble (stage one), or have a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours mentality” (stage two), or they want to be seen as a good person (stage three).¹⁷ The reason that this matters is that leadership should not morally expect more from these young soldiers.¹⁸ While it is true that all soldiers should be men and women of character, these young soldiers are in the professional apprenticeship phase of their military career. Thus, while a high standard ought to be set, a high level of moral training ought to be conducted.

As soldiers progress in rank, they ought to progress in moral development, just like the adolescent model displays. Before a soldier is promoted from specialist (E-4) to sergeant (E-5) and enters the ranks of the NCO Corps, a transformation ought to happen. These soldiers are now not just responsible for their own good conduct but must lead others well. These NCOs ought to display a higher level of moral leadership as they lead squads at the E-5 and E-6 ranks. Soldiers at this level must enter stage four in moral development because of the moral responsibility that they carry on their shoulders.

Stage four of the Kohlberg model is the key for soldiers attaining the status of Army professional in moral reasoning terminology. Previously, motivated to obey looked like “obey the rules to avoid punishment, conform to obtain rewards, [or] conform to avoid disapproval”; however, it now should relate to “conform to avoid censure by legitimate authorities and resultant guilt.”¹⁹ The movement between stage three to stage four development inculcates what Kohlberg calls moving from a “concrete individual perspective” to “a member-of-society perspective.”²⁰ The Army profession, in this case, acts as the overall society. Stage four moral development ought to be standard for NCOs as well as the baseline for all officers in the Army.²¹ The reason is that squad- and platoon-level leadership has direct authority over the lower enlisted personnel in the Army.²² Squad and platoon leadership is tasked with the physical leadership and training of their organization as well as the moral leadership and training. Leaders can only develop their subordinates to the moral level they are at; thus, stage four leadership would encourage and challenge all lower-level leaders to strive toward stage four professional moral development.²³

Finally, stages five and six moral development should be the standard for all military professionals in the senior ranks, including senior-level NCOs (grades E-8 and E-9) and officers (ideally O-3 and above). This moral development level is a shift in thinking “from conventional to postconventional thinking. Kohlberg proposed that one of the major social cognitive developments in adolescence and young adulthood is the growing awareness of how people interrelate to each other through laws, rules, roles, and institutions—the ‘system’ of society.”²⁴ Again, while not dealing with children and society at large, the analogy would apply to soldiers in the Army profession. In following this logic, Kohlberg believed, “Whereas at Stage 4 the morally right is whatever the law says, at Stages 5 and 6 what is morally right is that which best furthers the principle.”²⁵ This is a stage where leaders are deep moral thinkers and do not simply follow laws because they are laws but reflect about the moral principles that undergird those laws. This type of thinking is necessary for soldiers leading other soldiers in potentially morally ambiguous situations such as combat. These two stages ultimately relate to leaders’ decision-making because they want “to maintain the respect of the impartial spectator judging in terms of community welfare” and “to avoid self-condemnation.”²⁶ This type of moral thinking is needed not only at the tactical level but at the operational and strategic levels as well (see figure 1).

Today, the Army profession has a standard for character but no language to verbalize the expectations of that standard by way of rank or development. While there may be critics of Kohlberg’s cognitive moral development model, the model gives a useful and practical way of visualizing moral expectations at echelon, which allows leaders a realistic moral perspective of their formation. In addition, this framework assists leaders in understanding their moral responsibility to train their soldiers. Thus, leaders have the have freedom to demand high moral standards from some while identifying potential moral gaps in others. Knowing the individual moral health of one’s soldiers is the beginning of knowing the overall moral health of the unit. As one author notes, “The health and well-being of an organization is in many ways an overflow of the health of its members and leaders.”²⁷ And just as healthy individuals create healthy organizations, “thriving organizations contribute to flourishing humans.”²⁸ Since soldiers are expected to be men and women of character, having realistic moral expectations are vital.

A Moral Development Principle

Merely having a moral expectation framework, while helpful, will not intentionally develop soldiers and leaders. The question becomes, How does one move up the moral development stages? The answer to this question lies in an ancient Greek word gumnazo. This word means “to train, [or] undergo discipline.”²⁹ It is the root word for where the present-day word gymnasium, or gym, comes from. An example of its ancient use can be found in a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a younger pastor and mentee named Timothy. Paul wrote, “Train yourself for godliness,” gumnazo being translated as train.³⁰ Thus, the mentor writes to the mentee telling him to mentally and spiritually train, or work out. To metaphorically go to the gym and strive because training was necessary for life at the next level. And while godliness implies more than moral development, it does not imply less. Therefore, moral development and thus character development involves training. From a philosophical perspective, Aristotle, when discussing virtue, writes, “It is plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature … rather we are adapted by nature to receive them and are made perfect by habit.”³¹ The insight that ought to be understood from this thought is that effort and training is required for life at the next moral level. Moral passivity will only lead to moral downfall, while actively pursuing morality and virtue is necessary for moral or character development. Thus, one can argue that moral development, that is moving from one stage to the next, involves training.

A Moral Development Model

Training is a term that most people are familiar with, particularly in the realm of physical fitness. When trying to get physically fit, certain overarching principles apply and are self-evident. For instance, if a person endeavors to get in shape, they must have the right nutritional input and process it well. They must also incorporate an aspect of output or exercise that coincides with the training. Finally, the environment, which could include the ideas of culture and climate, matters because the physical environment can either help or hinder the individual who desires to get into shape.

Putting the previous ideas together, if physical training has fundamental principles, and these principles can be applied to enhance physical fitness, then moral development could implement these fundamentals to increase moral fitness. Therefore, it matters what our moral diet consists of, that is what we intentionally put into our minds and hearts. It matters how our moral processing occurs, how we digest what we morally consume. It matters that a person exercises their moral fitness muscles, having the proper moral output or actions. And finally, the moral environment or climate that a person surrounds themselves with matters with regard to moral development (see figure 2). Let us now investigate each of these four areas a bit closer to better understand how they can assist with moral development.

Moral Input

Moral input matters. If one is going to develop greater moral character, then intentional moral habits regarding input must occur. This makes sense from the very definition of morals. The word morals “comes to us from the Latin mos, which means ‘custom’ or ‘habit.’”³² Two basic habits that relate to our moral diet include moral study and personal moral accountability. Both habits, or practices, can assist one in moving to the next level of moral development.

With regard to studying, the words that people read, the sights that people see, and the sounds that people hear matter. To increase moral development, there must be an intentional focus on inputting the right things and shunning the wrong things. Moral diet will directly relate to one’s moral fitness level—that is, one’s level of moral development. The reason that input matters is that what is read, seen, and heard enters the person’s mind as information and becomes knowledge. Going back to ancient times, Plato believed, “Knowledge is always a prerequisite of virtue, just as ignorance always leads us into evil.”³³ One cannot be expected to do the right thing if one does not know the right thing. Knowing what is right implies that one has studied or been taught what is right. In physical terms, one cannot be physically fueled without proper nutrition, and a person cannot fuel knowing without proper moral input. This concept applies both personally and professionally to an individual.

While studying is necessary, it alone will not guarantee moral development. As the authors of Designed to Lead remind us, “Knowledge alone will not develop a leader.”³⁴ They go on to say, “Knowledge includes information, but it is much more than knowing facts … [it is] head, heart, and hands.”³⁵ These authors agree that the proper input leads to the proper processing and exercising of the information, implying there is accountability for the moral study that one is conducting. Moral accountability is essential to moral development. David Brooks, author of The Road to Character, reminds his readers why this is the case when he states, “Self-control is like a muscle … you get tired.”³⁶ People feel the urge to take in unhealthy things when it comes to a moral diet just as those holding to a healthy physical diet will feel the urge to indulge in decadent treats. Getting tired requires checkups and check-ins with others, which makes accountability with others an important aspect of moral input. Both study and accountability are habits of moral input that individuals can intentionally develop to increase their moral development stage. Army leaders can apply these two principles of moral input at their echelon to further the moral development of their subordinates.

Additionally, Army units can endorse these personal habits organizationally to increase overall unit moral development. For example, commanders can promote a character-based, leader professional development program within their organizations. This might include quarterly readings and associated training events, podcasts, or guest speakers to increase moral knowledge and awareness. Also, moral accountability within a unit will increase with greater emphasis on the already mandatory monthly and quarterly counseling sessions. This should include regular inspection of counseling packets, which is yet another accountability step. In addition, units that do not currently have an active mentoring program could initiate this voluntary but powerful tool of accountability. For soldiers to morally develop, intentional moral input must occur at both the individual and organizational levels.

Moral Processing

Simply taking in moral information is not useful unless it is properly processed and synthesized because moral digestion matters. Just as physical nutrition must be digested for the bodily use, so must moral information. Two habits that are necessary for proper moral digestion include self-reflection and intentional ethical decision-making. These two habits prepare a person of character to make morally significant decisions and can raise their level of moral development.

“In the oft repeated words attributed to educator John Dewey, ‘We don’t learn from experience, we learn by reflecting on experience.’”³⁷ Self-reflection is a habit that can expand to take many forms such a deep thinking, meditation, and prayer. Self-reflection forces one to slow down outwardly and speed up inwardly. It forces a person to think about oneself, one’s circumstances, or one’s situation in a meaningful and purposeful way. The authors of The Leader’s Journey: Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation write, “Inside-out change is first about being and then about doing.”³⁸ Part of the being is processing and reflecting from one’s moral diet. Self-reflection is rightly associated with good emotional intelligence. “In their podcast The Leader’s Journey, Jim Herrington and Trisha Taylor define emotional intelligence with four attributes: self-awareness, self-mastery, social awareness, and relationship management.”³⁹ When thinking about each of these four categories, it seems impossible to attain any of them without consistent and regular times of self-reflection. If a soldier is going to intentionally move to the next stage or moral development, then self-reflection is a vital habit.

But simply thinking deeply about moral issues is not going to help solve moral dilemmas. While it is true that self-reflection may assist in indicating a moral dilemma or identifying a moral gap, an intentional ethical decision-making framework is necessary to fully process and make a proper decision. This means that there must be some predecided criteria for what is right and what is wrong. Fortunately, the U.S. Army already requires a minimum of three criteria to contemplate when confronted with a dilemma. The current leadership regulation, Army Profession and Leadership Policy, defines a right decision as “ethical, effective, and efficient.”⁴⁰ Therefore, when confronted with a dilemma, all Army soldiers and leaders must consider each of these three areas that form a decision-making framework for all Army professionals to continue to process and digest what they have been morally served.

While self-reflection and utilizing an ethical decision-making framework are inherently individually focused, units can, and in some cases already do, incorporate these principles organizationally. The principles of self-reflection are already present in the after action reviews that units conduct after large training events. This principle could be organizationally expanded into the weekly training meetings or command-and-staff meetings at echelon for building greater organizational moral knowledge management and distribution. Additionally, ensuring that the organization is intentionally training ethical decision-making is necessary for proper expectations regarding ethical conduct. This could be accomplished through injecting ethically ambiguous scenarios and vignettes into the preplanned training. It would include intentionally teaching a framework, such as the “three e’s” listed above, so that all soldiers know them to utilize them at the proper time. It would include talking about the moral implications of training as well as the ethical outcome of training events in addition to the already discussed mission accomplishment criteria. Every Army professional must individually digest what they are morally served and then must assist their organizations to process moral decisions well.

Moral Output

Moral output is the “moral doing” that flows from the “moral knowing.” Moral output is the proper application of the previously discussed moral input and digestion. Just as proper physical exercise builds physical muscles, so moral exercise builds our moral muscles. Therefore, moral output matters. And to properly build our moral muscles, the habits of moral discipline and outward accountability are necessary.

Moral discipline is key because it lends consistency to moral input and processing. Thinking and acting morally is not a “one-and-done” activity and not just for the extremely tough scenarios. Moral action is required when the context is easy, such as in a garrison or a nondeployed environment, as well as when the context is hard, such as in combat. Stated differently, if one is disciplined to make moral decisions in small areas, then this habit will likely extend to larger areas as well. To extend the physical analogy, if a person cannot lift a fifty-pound weight in his home gym, he is not going to be able to lift a one-hundred-pound weight in a public gym. Moral leadership and development require moral discipline. And “disciplined people lead to disciplined thought which leads to disciplined action.”⁴¹ Moral discipline matters.

In addition to discipline, moral output requires outward accountability. This is different from the previous section’s accountability, which could be called inward accountability. While that version of accountability emphasized the need for others to hold one accountable, this accountability is focused on one’s action toward holding others accountable. This two-fold concept can be seen in Saint Augustine’s Sermon 340, when he wrote, “For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian.”⁴² Augustine relays that he must be accountable to others as he holds others accountable from his position of leadership. This concept of mutual accountability is essential in the Army. Soldiers and leaders throughout the formation must not only have an openness to being held accountable, but they must also actually hold each other accountable. “Military ethicist Paul Robinson’s thoughts on ethics training should guide leaders on the way ahead: ‘Ethics training should not be substitute for moral leadership. Even the best instruction, conducted according to the best thought out principles, will count for nothing if soldiers can see that their commanders do not value what they say they value.’”⁴³ This assumes that leaders are going to practice what is preached and to put into action what is held as a standard. To increase moral development, individuals must exercise their moral muscles through disciplining themselves to do what is right as well as holding others accountable to do what is right.

Organizationally, the principle of discipline in Army units is easily comprehended because the difference between high- and low-discipline units is visibly evident. Discipline can be assessed in the grooming and physical fitness standards of the soldiers. It can be assessed in the tidiness and neatness of the office and motor vehicle areas of the unit, whether the physical spaces are clean and have a proper military appearance or not. And it can be assessed in the timeliness of soldiers to formation or reports that are turned in. There is something to the phrase attributed to Gen. George Washington when he said, “Discipline is the soul of an Army.”⁴⁴ This principle applies individually and organizationally.

Moral Climate

For many people, working out is easier in a gym, with all the proper equipment, than at home without it. Seeing others lifting weights and running is often a good motivator to exercise, especially when one does not feel like doing it. The physical environment matters when discussing physical fitness, just as the moral environment matters with regard to moral development. The moral climate of the organization is part of the overall organizational climate, which is nurtured and enforced by rewarding proper moral behavior in its individuals while at the same time punishing morally inappropriate behavior when necessary. In the article “Bad Apples in Bad Barrels,” the authors state, “Ethical and unethical behavior in organizations is viewed as a consequence of both organizational and individual influences.”⁴⁵ That is, the climate is both a result as well as a cause of both the individuals within the organization as well as the organization itself. The authors further state that the “ethical decision-making behavior in organizations appears to be a complex phenomenon influenced by the interplay of individual differences, how individuals think about ethical decisions, and how organizations manage rewards and punishments.”⁴⁶ But organizations must begin with proper expectations before doling out rewards and punishments. The moral expectations with regard to climate must be understood by all within the formation. As another author states, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”⁴⁷ Army leadership doctrine reminds leaders that “it is an Army professional’s duty to prevent misconduct, enforce the standards of the profession, and take action to stop unethical practices.”⁴⁸ Maintaining a proper moral climate is both an individual and organizational responsibility; it can either facilitate and motivate moral development or stimy and discourage it.

Conclusion

While the U.S. Army is an immense and complex organization, its moral purpose of ethically applying land power must be maintained. This is accomplished by developing the character of those serving within the Army profession. This article argued that to better develop character within the Army profession, Army professionals must use Kohlberg’s stages of moral development to have a proper moral expectation framework for soldiers at all echelons. Once the proper expectations are established, the Army could then use an intentional fourfold moral development model to increase the moral development of Army professionals and uphold the organizational character of the Army profession. If character matters, then having accurate expectations for character matters as well as an intentional plan to develop character within the profession for the benefit of the Army today and into the future.

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Notes

• Epigraph. Gianpiero Andrenacci, “Know Thyself—A Journey to Self-Discovery: The Delphi Oracle of Our Modern Age,” Medium, 15 December 2023, https://medium.com/existential-kitchen/know-yourself-ce441a35a3be.

1. Field Manual 1, The Army: A Primer to Our Profession of Arms (U.S. Government Publishing Office [GPO], May 2025), 27.
2. Army Regulation (AR) 600-100, Army Profession and Leadership Policy (U.S. GPO, March 2025), 5.
3. Brian Michelson, “Character Development of U.S. Army Leaders: The Laissez-Faire Approach,” Military Review 93, no. 5 (September-October 2013): 31.
4. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession (U.S. GPO, July 2019), 1-15. The Army’s leadership requirements model consists of three attributes (character, presence, and intellect) along with three competencies (leads, develops, and achieves). The model is used by the Army for its annual leadership evaluations.
5. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 1-2.
6. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 1-16.
7. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 2-1.
8. David Brooks, The Road to Character (Random House, 2015), 57.
9. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, xi.
10. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 2-1. These attributes are part of the basic moral foundation for all soldiers in the Army. The Army Values include seven specific values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. (ADP 6-22, 2-2). The Warrior Ethos (for soldiers) and related Service Ethos (for Department of the Army civilians) are “internal shared attitudes and beliefs that embody the spirit of the Army profession” (ADP 6-22, 2-12).
11. The statement goes on to say that “Federal law recognizes the moral responsibility of every Army leader stating: ‘All commanders and others in authority in the Army are required to be vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who are placed under their command, guard against and suppress all dissolute and immoral practices, and to correct, according to the laws and regulations of the Army, all persons who are guilty of them.’ (See Title 10, United States Code, 7233 (10 USC 7233)).” Department of the Army Pamphlet 165-19, Moral Leadership (U.S. GPO, November 2020), 2.
12. Lawrence Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages, vol. II (Harper & Row Publishers, 1984), 518.
13. This list was modified from the work of James Rest, “Background: Theory and Research,” in Moral Development in the Professions, ed. James R. Rest and Darcia Narvaez (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994), 5. His list included Stage 1—The morality of obedience: Do what you’re told; Stage 2—The morality of instrumental egoism and simple exchange: Let’s make a deal; Stage 3—The morality of interpersonal concordance: Be considerate, nice, and kind: you’ll make friends; Stage 4—The morality of law and duty to social order: Everyone in society is obligated to and protected by the law; Stage 5—The morality of consensus-building procedures: You are obligated by the arrangements that are agreed to by due process procedures; and Stage 6—The morality of nonarbitrary social cooperation: Morality is defined by how rational and impartial people would ideally organize cooperation.
14. Lt. Col. Nathan Branen (director, Center for Army Leadership), in discussions with the author, November–December 2024.
15. This fact is self-evident to anyone who has served in the military based on unit serious incident reports. These reports document when a moral or legal infraction occurs, and these infractions are overwhelmingly committed by junior soldiers, who also make up much of the overall force.
16. This is a mere expectation. Leaders of young soldiers may quickly ascertain that the moral development of a young soldier is robust. The ultimate understanding of the attributes and abilities of each soldier can and should be learned by their first-line supervisors forged by in their daily relationship with each other.
17. Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development, 17–18.
18. See, for example, Jim Frederick, Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death (Crown, February 2011). Frederick’s book provides an example of giving soldiers more moral responsibility than they ought to have, a part of the premise of the book. He describes how young soldiers were given too much moral responsibility, which on top of the constant stress of combat, led to a horrific outcome.
19. Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development, 19.
20. Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development, 177.
21. All commissioned line officers’ ought to work through their first three levels of moral development at their respective commissioning source (U.S. Military Academy, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or Officer Candidate School). Doctors, lawyers, and chaplains form another special category of officer entry in their specific branches.
22. In addition, I would include the first two grades of warrant officers, W-1 and W-2, in this stage, while I would suggest the other three warrant officer grades be grouped with the next stages of moral development, stages five and six.
23. Kohlberg affirms this idea when he writes, “Children comprehend all lower stages than their own, and often comprehend the stage one higher than their own, and occasionally two stages higher, although they cannot actively express these higher stages of thought.” Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development, 46. Again, one can only morally train a person to their level of moral development.
24. James Rest et al., Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach (Psychology Press, 1999), 2.
25. Rest et al., Moral Development in the Professions, 7.
26. Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development, 19.
27. Justin Irving, Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations: Creating Contexts Where People Flourish (Baker Academic, 2023), 41.
28. Irving, Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations, 33.
29. Walter Bauer and Frederick Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 208.
30. 1 Tim 4:7b (English Standard Version).
31. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, ed. Lesley Brown (Oxford University Press, 2009), 23.
32. John Hare, Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life (Wipf and Stock, 2002), 18.
33. Arthur Herman, The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014), 23.
34. Eric Geiger and Kevin Peck, Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development (B & H Books, 2016), 161.
35. Geiger and Peck, Designed to Lead, 170.
36. Brooks, The Road to Character, 173.
37. Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change (InterVarsity Press, 2020), 81.
38. Jim Herrington et al., The Leader’s Journey: Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic, 2020), 79.
39. Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience, 65.
40. AR 600-900, Army Profession and Leadership Policy, 20.
41. Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t (Harper Business, 2001), 127.
42. Edward L. Smither, Augustine as Mentor: A Model for Preparing Spiritual Leaders (B & H Academic, 2009), 16.
43. Jason Davis, “Start with How: Improving Army Ethics Training” (strategy research project, U.S. Army War College, 2018), 12.
44. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 2-10.
45. Linda Klebe Trevino and Stuart A. Youngblood, “Bad Apples in Bad Barrels: A Causal Analysis of Ethical Decision-Making Behavior,” Journal of Applied Psychology 75, no. 4 (1990): 378.
46. Trevino and Youngblood, “Bad Apples in Bad Barrels,” 384.
47. Brene Brown, Dare to Lead (Random House, 2018), 44.
48. ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, 1-3.

 

 

 

 

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March-April 2026