The Moral Leader

1
The Moral Leader

• Topic 14 / Lesson 13

2
The Moral Leader

• Reading Assignment
• Ethics for the Military Leader
• pages 473-501 / 2nd edition
• Fundamentals of Naval Leadership
• pages 21-17 to 21-22 and 24-1 to 24-4

3
The Moral Leader

• Reading Assignment (continued)
• Ethics and Moral Reasoning for Military Leaders
• Lesson 28, pages 28-10 through 28-30
• Case StudyTBD
• Naval Leadership Voice of Experience
• pages 482-486

4
The Moral Leader

• Who is Epictetus?
• What did he do to contribute to moral ethics and
  leadership?

5
The Moral Leader

• Meditation (Stoicism)
• 1. all things are both familiar and
  short-lived
• 2. The things which are external to my mind have
  no relation at all to my mind. To recover thy
  life is in thy power. Look at things again as
  thou didst use to look at them for in this
  consists the recovery of thy life.

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The Moral Leader

• 3. Be more critical of your self than others
• 4. Get the full Picture
• 5. Realize your own limits
• 6. Dont focus on glory
• 7. Be not ashamed to be helped
• 8. Let not future things disturb thee
• 9. There is a unity and order to the universe
• 10. Everything material soon disappears

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The Moral Leader

• 11. the same act is according to nature and
  according to reason.
• 12. Be thou erect, or be made erect
• 13. you should love and respect all other
  rational beings
• 14. unless I think that what has happened is an
  evil, I am not injured.
• 15. you are responsible for your own character

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The Moral Leader

• 16. no outside influence can force your soul to
  suffer or be disturbed in any way unless you
  allow it
• 18. people tend to fear the unknown and be
  comfortable with the familiar
• 22. love even those who do wrong
• 24. A scowling look is altogether unnatural

9
The Moral Leader

• Epictetuss articles tell us many things. What
  do the following extracts from his articles mean
  to you?
• The body is to everyone the proper measure of
  its possessions, as the foot is of the shoe.

10
The Moral Leader

• Everything has two handles one by which it may
  be borne, another by which it cannot.
• Never proclaim yourself a philosopher, nor make
  much talk among the ignorant about your
  principles, but show them by actions.

11
The Moral Leader

• Whatever rules you have adopted, abide by them
  as laws, and as if you would be impious to
  transgress them and do not regard what anyone
  says of you, for this, after all, is no concern
  of yours.

12
The Moral Leader

• What did VADM Stockdale mean, as he parachuted
  from his A-4, I am leaving the world of
  tech-nology and entering the world of Epictetus?
  
• How does the world of Epictetus, on Stockdales
  account, differ from the world of technology?

13
The Moral Leader

• What does life in this world have to teach us
  about ourselves and about our attitudes and
  behavior in the world we normally inhabit?

14
The Moral Leader

• What does Stockdale mean in saying that the
  thing that brings down a man is not pain but
  shame?
• How does this square with the teaching of
  Epictetus?

15
The Moral Leader

• VADM Stockdale viewed his exper-ience in prison
  camp as a kind of laboratory test of the
  relation between our ethics and our fate,
  because
• - standing naked
• - no distractions
• - no support
• - ordinary rules and principles
• - pivotal element

16
The Moral Leader

• As a prisoner of war, what things are in your
  power, and what things are not in your power?
• It matters not how strait the gate
• How charged with punishment the scroll,
• I am the master of my fate
• I am the captain of my soul.
• Dave Hatcher (Vietnam prisoner of war)

17
The Moral Leader

• Stoics Goals
• - inner serenity
• - our will / external world
• - desires / actuality
• - indifference in matters

18
The Moral Leader

• Stoic Indifference Think of what is not within
  your power events in the past, movements of the
  stars it is these things to which we are morally
  indifferent.

19
The Moral Leader

• Stoic Self-mastery How do you achieve this?
• - by understanding the working s of the universe
  (using your reason)
• - if you really understand the world, you will
  reach the conclusion that all nature tends to the
  good, and that all events are causally
  determined this will extinguish your desire for
  things to be other than they are.

20
The Moral Leader

• Stoic philosopher vs. the ordinary person
• The ordinary, average person supposes that
  happiness is possible only when the natural world
  comes up to his or her expectations
• The Stoic philosopher knows that this condition
  rarely exist, and that if we build our hope we
  are doomed to endless sorrow, envy and strife.
  So we should try to bring our desires to the
  level of actuality...

21
The Moral Leader

• Stockdales observations on how to survive in a
  leverage world or an extortion environment
• - rudiments of civilization
• - power of guilt
• - dont compromise
• - avoid self-deception
• - directness in your dealings

22
The Moral Leader

• (Continued)
• - recognize emotion of hate
• - dont rely on ideology
• - be educated already
• - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
• -

23
The Moral Leader

• Select three well-known historical figures who in
  your opinion come closest to being moral
  exemplars. Are these figures generally thought
  to be near ideal?
• What features make them exemplars?

24
The Moral Leader

• We face hazards in focusing on ideal models. For
  example, the moral ideal encourages dedication to
  that person. This may curtail moral autonomy.
  List some other dangers and explain how they
  could be avoided.

25
The Moral Leader

• Case Study
• In Harms Way
• - How does this apply to Epictetus and his
  articles ?

26
The Moral Leader

• Case Study
• Finding My Heritage
• How does this relate to Epictetus and his
  articles?

27
The Moral Leader

• Questions?

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The Moral Leader