Warrior Code of Ethics

History

One of the most central parts of the warrior's code, cross-culturally, is the honesty and frugality of warriors. Nearly all warrior codes have this. The historical significance is that without a code, there is really nothing to keep warriors from becoming military dictators of society. Societies designed warrior codes, from Medieval Gaul to Bushido in Japan, to keep some civilian control over the military forces.

Cross-culturally, martial skill and bravery are, naturally enough, the basis of warrior's ethics. In addition, nearly all warrior codes include certain non-martial virtues, such as generosity and love of faith and fatherland, to keep the warrior in his place. Most warrior codes are religious, as if warriors are on a mission for an ideal that is beyond human interests, but derives from the heavens themselves.

According to Professor Shannon French, professor of leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy, the primary function of a warrior code is to protect the warrior from serious psychological damage. The concept that the warrior does not kill from sociopathic reasons, but for the legitimate defense of the homeland against barbarism, is what defends his mind again the unpleasant killing of war. A warrior needs to keep the barbarians out without becoming a barbarian himself.

All societies have or had a warrior class. This is necessary for social survival. In the early medieval Germanic code, warriors were to be heroic, and three things were the basis of this heroism: strength of both a moral and physical kind, a strong sense of enterprise, sometimes bordering on the rash, and lastly, a liberality in giving. The warrior is not in it for himself. The warrior defends hearth and home from all those who hold it in contempt, whether externally or internally based. The warrior differs from a brigand in that he is self-controlled, gives generously and fights for the idea of social peace, rather than a sense of personal gain.

The purpose of a code of ethics in this context is for the population, the "civilians," to feel protected and secure. This is never the case with organized crime groups, which can be well organized, generous and restrained. The sense here is that the state, that entity that has the legitimate rule bearing power, is in charge and can restrain the passions of the warrior elite.