Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Fifth. On the Obligation of Furnishing Military Service
319. On military laws. 1. To political authority belongs the right of providing the means which are necessary for preserving and defending the republic. To this right in citizens there corresponds the obligation from legal justice of contributing those things which are necessary for defending the republic from internal and external enemies. Since this end of preserving and defending the republic cannot be obtained without military force, political authority can by right establish military laws, which citizens of themselves ought to obey from legal justice, provided they are just.
The mode by which political power provides for itself the necessary military force depends upon the conditions of times and peoples, and in fact was diverse in diverse times. Since today nearly all great republics sustain standing armies (stehende Heere), there can chiefly be distinguished a threefold diverse mode of obtaining soldiers. For soldiers either are hired, that is, volunteers, who are assumed for an agreed wage for a definite time, or are conscripted, and this either by a law of universal conscription, by which all suitable young men must follow military service, or by a law of particular conscription, by which from suitable men some, usually chosen by lot, are assumed for military service.
In order that military laws be just, chiefly a twofold condition is required: a. as to the number of soldiers, that no more be assumed for military service than are truly necessary for the security of the republic; for if more are ordered to furnish military service, the money of the citizens is vainly lavished in supporting an army greater than is fitting, and soldiers are exposed in barracks without necessity to great moral dangers. b. As to the mode of gathering the army, that compelled soldiers not be conscripted where volunteers can be had and at the same time suffice for the necessities of the republic; for otherwise citizens are deprived without necessity of their liberty of providing for domestic affairs and of embracing whatever state they prefer.
It is clear that the justice of military law requires this especially, that those be exempted from the obligation of furnishing military service who are exempt either by ecclesiastical, that is, divine, law, as clerics and religious, or by natural law, as sons who are necessary for supporting a family. For the higher law prevails over the lower law.
1 Theod. Meyer, Institutiones iuris naturae, II, n. 615 ss.; Vict. Cathrein, Moralphilosophie^4, II, p. 628; A. Vermeersch, Quaestiones de iustitia, n. 129 ss.
320. On the obligation of military law. The opinion does not seem improbable which affirms that in most regions military laws, especially where universal conscription flourishes, are merely penal laws; for the common judgment even of prudent and timorous persons interprets their force in this manner, and there are added extraordinarily grave punishments by which transgressors of these laws are punished. But if military laws somewhere are preceptive laws, they must be obeyed from legal justice.
a. There are those who say that military laws which command universal conscription are certainly unjust, and that those which require particular conscription are probably unjust.1 From the things said above it is clear that they are unjust if so many soldiers are not necessary for protecting the security of the country, or if the necessary number of soldiers can be obtained through soldiers hired for pay. Since very many social and political matters must be known for forming an equitable judgment in this very difficult matter, it cannot be demanded from the confessor that he himself define the question; but he can prudently hold the law to be just if those to whom it belongs, after considering all circumstances, affirm that in a determinate republic so great an army, and indeed one compelled by conscription, is necessary.
b. What is added, namely that a law of military service which calls all suitable persons to the service of arms is contrary to distributive justice, because only the families which have sons suitable for military service are forced to undergo this burden, is true unless care is employed that upon the families of the rich who do not have sons fit for military service another burden be imposed. But from that reason, that military law forces young men to celibacy for several years, it is not demonstrated to be unjust; for, once the necessity of so great an army has been supposed, the reason of the common good rightly demands from them that they defer marriage for some time.
1 I. Aertnys, Theologia moralis^7 (Paderbornae: Schoningh, 1898), I, n. 380.
321. Obligations of soldiers. Since the mode of obtaining an army is diverse in three ways, it is useful to determine more accurately the obligations of soldiers according to these diverse conditions, with the true obligation of these laws supposed.
Hired soldiers are bound from commutative justice to follow military service and to observe the promised conditions; for by entering a contract and agreeing to a wage they obligated themselves to furnishing military service, and therefore they are bound from justice to observe the conditions of the military contract. Therefore if they do not furnish those things which according to the agreement they ought to furnish for the stipend, they are bound to restitution of the stipend, except in the case in which the republic which hired them does not itself observe the conditions of the contract.
Soldiers conscripted by particular conscription: a. are bound to undergo the danger of the lot; if they withdraw themselves from the drawing of lots, they offend against legal justice. b. Those designated by lot are bound to follow military service; if they withdraw themselves from it, they injure legal justice, but not commutative justice, neither as to those who are assumed into military service in their place, nor as to the republic.
Not as to those, etc., both because they are not the cause but the occasion of the damage which those persons suffer, for the efficacious cause of the damage is the military law, and because they are not bound from justice to impede this damage, since none of them has a right that he be immune from military service. Not as to the republic, because the republic obligates them only from legal justice to furnishing military service.
- Soldiers conscripted by universal conscription are bound to follow military service from legal justice. Therefore he who withdraws himself from military service, where all suitable persons are assumed for military service, certainly does not injure commutative justice; this is clear already from the fact that from his manner of acting no one else suffers damage, since all suitable persons are assumed.
322. Resolutions. 1. Since clerics are immune from following military service, they can licitly withdraw themselves from it and, already conscripted, licitly flee, even if they have taken the military oath; for they are not bound to obey an unjust law. The same of itself holds also concerning those who are necessary for supporting a family, since by natural right they are immune from following military service.
Those who employ artifices to exempt themselves from military service, for example, by weakening the eyes or procuring for themselves a defect, sin neither against justice nor against another virtue, provided the means which they use is licit; for they are prohibited by no law from exempting themselves from a burden as grave as possible to themselves.
Those who on the occasion of military service undergo grave danger in faith or in morals which they cannot forestall can withdraw themselves from military service or licitly desert it, even if they have taken the oath, provided that by fleeing they do not expose themselves to graver dangers. The same must be said about those who deservedly fear that on the occasion of military service they will fall away from a clerical or religious vocation.
Those who desert military service without just cause sin gravely both against justice and against religion, and of themselves are bound to return, and indeed both from the oath and from commutative justice if they are hired for pay, or from legal justice if they are conscripted. But from this obligation they are for the most part excused, both on account of the very grave punishment which awaits those returning, and on account of the great moral dangers which threaten soldiers in barracks; from the obligation of the oath they can be freed by dispensation.