Values and Virtues in the Military. Nadine Eggimann Zanetti

The subjectivists claim that values are nothing other than projections of subjective feelings and attitudes. When you evaluate a thing or action, you do not say anything about it in itself, but instead express a subjective feeling or personal attitude. Moral values can therefore be neither true nor false (Hügli & Lübcke, 2003).

      In the area of the debate about the objectivist view, axiology is described as a strict theory of values. Here certain axioms had been set up. Brentano (1838–1917) was the first to develop a classical theory of intrinsic value, which he attempted to base upon the philosophical psychology. In his essay “The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong” (1889), he presented fundamental considerations on ethical values. He thus founded the idea of “descriptive psychology” and shaped psychology as an exact science (Baumgartner & Reimherr, 2006). Specifically, he researched the criteria that relate to the question of law, custom, and order. Brentano was inspired by Aristotle’s method to decipher and decode the essence of things by analyzing their simplest components and their structural contexts. His reasoning is based on the assumption that even for ethical problems, rational criteria of assessment and a justifiable ranking of values can be found (Brentano, 1889, as cited in Chisholm, 1986). By carrying out the possibility of such gradation, he presents a concept of value ethics. In doing so, he distinguished three fundamental categories of consciousness: imagining, judging (whether right or wrong), and emotional states (emotions that are good or bad, in the form of loving or hating). He thus presented a theory of values of the inner world and sought a way to place judgments of subjective feeling on a rational basis. Brentano recognized the origin of the concepts of truth or falsity, or of the good and the bad. “True” is something when the recognition referenced to it is appropriate, and “good” is something when the related love is correct. He also presupposed that universal and immutable moral laws exist for all humans. In addition, the following axioms were defined: the existence of a positive value is itself a positive value; the existence of a negative value is itself a negative value; the nonexistence of a negative value is a positive value, the nonexistence of a positive value is a negative value; the same value cannot be positive and negative at the same time; and it is impossible to maintain the same value for positive and negative (Brentano, 1889, as cited in Chisholm, 1986). According to the theory of Brentano, judgments based on reasoned criteria can be verified or falsified. Brentano was thus the first to create a foundation for the assessment of intrinsic values to relate to the subjective individual view, and at the same time to maintain an objective mindset.

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      The primary lessons learned from this historical excursion into the field of philosophy are the following:

      – Values and virtues had been understood early in history as separate concepts;

      – The concern of the greatest philosophers since antiquity has been with the question of “What are the most important values and virtues for humans?”

      – There is variability across history, cultures, and intellectual tradition in terms of what values and virtues are worth striving for, but convergence can be found in the usually hierarchical listing and organizing of values and virtues;

      – Plato stated that the good is the foundation of all values and derived the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, self-restraint, and justice;

      – Aristotle significantly shaped the notion of a virtue and assumed that virtues are moral qualities attributable to individual reasoning behavior, formulating a list of virtues including the original four cardinal virtues and a number of other virtues;

      – Aquinas added three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) to the original four cardinal virtues, resulting in a categorization very similar to Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) understanding of six core virtues; and

      – Bretano developed a classical theory of intrinsic value and founded the rational basis for judgments of subjective feeling on values.

      Interestingly, many of the central ideas of these philosophical thinkers later reappeared and contributed to psychological approaches towards values and virtues. Therefore, it is essential to consider the historic perspective on value and virtues, when interpreting current and future research findings. Subsequently, in the description of the theories on universal values and virtues below, the two concepts are discussed in separate chapters.

3.2 Universal values: Definitions and theories

      Scholl-Schaaf (1975) defined three types of values: (a) value defined as a guiding principle, (b) value as a norm, and (c) value as a goal. The first definition, value as a guiding principle, is the basis of this research; however, all three definitions are given consideration. A value refers to the individual importance and relevance of a particular subject: “It is of great value to me,” meaning “It is of importance to me and I will stand up for it.”

      According to Bilsky (2005), the attempt to agree on a unified definition of values has been unsuccessful. This implies that comparing and interpreting research results has its limitation in terms of precision and reproducibility, ←54 | 55→unless a particular value has a common lexical definition. Nevertheless, there are predominant factors of commonality when reference is made to values. Hitlin and Piliavin (2004, p. 362) described the domain of values as an “internal moral compass.” A more general definition of value is given by the lexicon of Dorsch (2016, 18th edition, p. 1790):

      With reference to individual values by Kluckhohn (1951), values are defined as explicit or implicit conceptions of the desirable, both in the context of an individual and a group, impacting the choice between available types, means and goals of actions. This often criticized conceptual formulation (Graumann & Willig, 1983) has not been substituted in literature through a more agreeable definition (Rohan, 2000).

      In alignment with the definition above, there is consensus within research, that in the context of values “there is a relatively limited number of concepts or descriptions, which correspond to desirable behaviors or goals (or mental states)” (Bilsky, 2005, p. 300). Moreover, it is assumed that values are valid across situations, imposing guidance towards choice and appraisal of behaviors and circumstances. In line with this understanding, Rokeach (1973b, p. 5) defined values as “enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” He was interested in a full set of values as “guiding principles” (p. 358) to describe an individual view, and implemented two distinct lists of 18 instrumental values (describing modes of conduct as forms of behavior) and 18 terminal values (describing end-states of existence as lifetime goals). Similarly, Schwartz (1992, 1994, 1999) focused on the motivational power of values and defined them as desirable goals that vary in importance across situations and that guide the way social actors (e.g., individual persons such as military leaders) choose actions and evaluate people and events. He derived his definition of values from the understanding of Rokeach and conceived values likewise as “cognitive representations of desirable, abstract, trans-situational goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives” (cited according to Corr and Matthews, 2009, p. 593). Unlike Hofstede (1980) or Schwartz (1994, 1999) who were interested in values as they manifested themselves at a sociocultural level, Rokeach studied values as interindividual differences. As an overview, Schwartz and Bilsky (1987) concluded on five formal features of values, which are usually addressed in definitions: “According to the literature, values are (i) concepts or beliefs, (ii) about desirable end states or behaviors, (iii) that transcend specific situations, (iv) guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and (v) are ordered by relative importance” (p. 551).

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      The above definitions of values illustrate that the application of the concept of values implies individual, social, and organizational aspects. In situations where individual values take preference, the corresponding research is assigned to personality psychology, while research on social values align with social psychology. In concrete, personality psychology concentrates on:

      – measuring personal values as interindividual differences;

      – distinguishing a set of