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A lawful order doesn't have to be reasonable? Why?



"Johnson, stand here and guard the road against the approaching enemy" is a lawful order, but it may not be reasonable under many different interpretations.


Because being ordered to do something that might get you killed isn't reasonable.


Because lawful means based on law, and laws aren't always reasonable or even ethical.


This is pretty basic military law that a lawful order has a valid military purpose and is a clear and specific (and its generally documented in writing although verbal lawful orders do exist).

Reasonable is in the sense of proportionate such as "reasonable force". Would a reasonable person do X Y or Z to reach a lawful goal?

If you're guarding a nuclear bunker and there are signs everywhere about deadly force authorized and someone tries to break in, its a lawful order to shoot them although if they're a pizza deliveryman it may not be a reasonable order; although lets be realistic pizza deliverymen don't normally break into nuclear bunkers, so its perfectly reasonable to shoot a deliveryman-impersonator commando.

A very off the cuff and unfair comparison is the people who decide acceptability of lawful orders are skilled knowledgeable bureaucrat lawyer types implementing the details of written laws and regs and higher level orders, whereas the people who decide reasonableness of orders are usually on the knowledge level of jury members. Or lawful orders are in the arena of goals, whereas reasonable orders are in the arena of how to do it.


"Tell me what happened, without using any words containing the letter e, while standing on one leg"

This is clearly not an order to break any rules or laws. It's also silly and unreasonable.


A military unit may have to go do something with high casualties in order to achieve a higher objective.


I wonder at what point you typically realize you've been put on a high-chance-of-casualty mission


When your mission prep includes pre-applying tourniquets to your arms and legs before you go for a drive.


Usually when you or your unit is told to take point. Or more generally, act as a forward element of some sort.




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