Michael Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser

Michael Robillard is a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut and a former research fellow for the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. He works primarily on issues concerning exploitation, just war theory, military ethics, and bioethics.

Dr. Bradley J. Strawser is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He works primarily on the ethics of war, just war theory, and military ethics.

Entries written by Michael Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser

Blog

Are Soldiers Morally Exploited?

By Michael Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser

Embed from Getty Images

The idea of soldiers as an exploited group is hardly anything new. Throughout much of human history, wars serving the interests of the ‘haves’ have largely been fought by the ‘have nots,’ with members of the latter group finding themselves opting into military service from a place of pronounced vulnerability and minimal alternatives. As Thomas Hardy puts it, in his poem ‘The Man He Killed’,