The moral domain of war: a view from the cockpit

OCLC Number: 53293040 Excerpt: ... Chapter 1 Introduction Man's innate fascination with flight - movement in the third dimension - remains insatiate. Even after Capt Charles E. " Chuck " Yeager conquered the transonic demons on 14 October 1947 when he broke the sound bar-1 rier and after the historic Apollo 11 spaceflight of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin " Buzz " Aldrin on 20 July 1969 successfully placed 2 men on the moon, this fascination continues. Yet, though the air envi-ronment allures and captures the imagination with its mystique, surpris-ingly the necessary factors relating to combat in this arena remain rela-tively obscure. What enables a pilot to endure combat? Do the same combat factors that cause stress in ground soldiers affect pilots in a sim-ilar manner? Many questions such as these remain inadequately an-swered. Since the inclusion of the airplane in war, few have investigated more complete answers. This work seeks to rectify this problem. This study uses original research in an attempt to analytically deter-mine the moral domain of war factors that enable a pilot to fly in combat. In chapter 2 a more complete definition of the moral domain appears; however, for now let it suffice to say that the moral domain consists of the motivation forces originating from within a person's heart and soul. Most combat motivation literature focuses on war from the soldier's perspec-tive. This study deviates from this standard treatment and views motiva-tion in war from the pilot's perspective. This emphasis shift gives insights that indicate a fundamentally different set of motivation factors operating on the pilot than generally assumed from projecting ground-combatant 3 motivation factors on airmen. Specifically, this study argues that the combat motivation factors affecting pilot behavior in combat adhere to a pattern emanating from the moral domain of war. Since the pilot's com-bat environment radically differs from that of the soldier, the...