"Just following orders"

What do we think about this defense?

Obviously I'm referring to the concept that individual man is forgiven carrying out immoral and/or illegal actions if he was only following orders.

Is there any time where this would hold water?

Off the top of my dome, I'm wondering about if the person would be placing their own life in jeopardy by failing to carry out the order... but even that I'm not confident about.

nzlockie: A tough excuse. My first thoughts are "He didn't have a choice", but then again, he did, and that's when he enlisted. All decisions that involve being armed with a gun need to be taken seriously.

nzlockie: I think it would hold water if a person were really, really dumb and unable to think for themselves.

admin: You act like they have a choice when that time comes.
Some situations don't allow for such flexibility.

Blackflag: Define "choice"

admin: an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.
Sometimes the only choice is their way or a bullet in the head.

Blackflag: That's still a choice though by that definition.

admin: And you still act like they have flexibility.
Maybe their life is excuse enough for their actions?

Blackflag: This is why I said it's worth reading Archibald Baxter's book.

My grandfather deliberately flunked physical tests to avoid being drafted in Germany, World War 2. He was sent away by the nazis and was extremely lucky to survive the war. His brother was in a wheelchair and yet still passed the physical tests by making an extraordinary effort (to be fair, he had been conditioned to do this to avoid action T4). He was one of the first to die in the battle of Berlin.

Not only do I not concede the dichotomy you mention is accurate, but I don't empathize much with selfishness. Throughout history, true heroes have died saving the lives of others.

admin: Agreed, as said in my first post, the man did have a choice, although situations aren't as morally gray as "fighting" for the nazis.
All I can say is that there is a degree of flexibility, and when coupled with moral decisions, it isn't always super clear.
Sometimes "following orders" can be a good idea, depending on the circumstances and illegal action being committed .

Not everyone has the same idea of what is unjust and what should be illegal either.
There are many stories of soldiers making tough decisions, and I'm not completely certain they were wrong in their actions either.

If you've ever seen the movie brothers, the main character was forced to kill a taliban prisoner on video, and if he chose not to oblige, they would kill him both.
Now in his shoes, I couldn't of done it, as a Christian and as a Nationalist, but not everyone is so allured by "God" and "Nationalism".

I think we take a lot of things for granted, and in an age when most people have never seen combat or understand the realities of what happens in combat. Take for example a typical response that our young Soldiers struggling with PTSD are dealing with: Ordered to open fire on an approaching target that could be a car bomber or could be someone in need of help? Officer orders the shooting, and when the 'target' is examined it winds up being a family of innocent people. Who bears the responsibility for the deaths here? The officer ordering the shooting, or the Soldier who pulls the trigger? The answer for the Soldier is that it was not his or her choice to make. The officer made the decision when he gave the order to open fire. This is one of the key concepts of military discipline, that we will follow the orders of our lawfully appointed officers. Please bear in mind, the flip side here is that the car could very well have been loaded with explosives and had the Soldier refused ... many of his friends could have been killed or seriously wounded.

Its quite easy to say that we should not, but that discipline is the bedrock of military formations. It is not something that can be tossed aside with ease. Yet in the example above, that is a common theme I have encountered in dealing with Soldiers who struggle with PTSD.

What makes it even possible to NOT follow orders, at least in the US military, is a legal system that requires it and a constant flow of guidance and ethical training that encourages it with explicitly spelled out behavior to avoid and report. It one thing to say what is clearly wrong in our everyday lives, but when you are placed into a situation where killing is common, happening all around you, and asking people to be able to delineate between lawful and unlawful killing? This is problematic at best. What happens in the absence of such teaching? When the system instead rewards illegal killing? When it encourages it? When it empowers it?

Concentration camps far removed from the battlefield are one thing, a clear case of abuse of authority, one in which we should not, the Nazis deliberately recruited sociopaths to man and carry out this duty. As we get closer to the realities of combat, the lines become very gray between following order lawfully and following orders unlawfully.