James Spence

This article discusses the theoretical implications of Emmanuel Levinas‟s philosophy upon traditional military ethics of service. Throughout the discussion Japanese Bushido is used as an example to provide a specific, practical characterization of such an ethic upon which to apply a Levinasian analysis. Levinas‟s phenomenology and his idea of “ethics as first philosophy” are briefly outlined, and then a comparison is made between these ideas and more traditional ethics relating to the military such as Bushido and the Just War tradition. The conclusion is reached that a traditional ethic of service that requires a soldier to perpetrate acts of violence against others on command is profoundly unethical in Levinasian terms, but that Levinasian ethics leaves open the possibility of a soldier as one who defends others rather than operates as a living weapon on the orders of a state