Ethical Arguments Against Women in Ground Combat: A New Perspective

On December 3, 2015, the Pentagon announced a new policy of integrating women into every area of combat activity, including Special Forces and the infantry, a debate which has recently been reopened. I identify two kinds of arguments in favor of women in ground combat: those that rest on principles of distributive justice and those that rest on principles of a woman’s right to live autonomously. The proposed policy (and de facto practice of having women deployed in so-called support roles) is ethically problematic in ways that, to my knowledge, have not yet been discussed. In this article, I argue from a feminist perspective that the policy is morally troubling. After criticizing the justice and autonomy arguments, respectively, I raise two metaethical points about rights and obligations that underlie my objections.