Moral ascendancy

Moral ascendancy is the influence one individual or group of individuals may hold over others through his perceived morals and character. In law and order, commanding officers require this moral force to be able to exert control over those they lead. In military situations, this moral ascendancy can extend to "I am the better army...I dominate you by my morale, training, capability". Militarily moral ascendancy then is something to be gained and retained to achieve supremacy against the enemy. According to the French army officer Ardant du Picq, "Moral force is the trump card for any military event because as events change the human elements of war remain unchanged".[citation needed]

The term was used by the Supreme Court of the Philippines in their September 1998 unanimous decision against prisoner Alex Bartolome's appeal to his death sentence. Bartolome had been convicted for the repeated sexual abuse of his underage daughter. The court stated that Bartolome's moral ascendancy ruled out his defence that the acts had been consensual.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Kooken, Don L. (1947). "Ethics in Police Service". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 38 (2): 185 – via Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.
  2. ↑ Jacob, Happymon (2018-12-11). The Line of Control: Travelling with the Indian and Pakistani Armies. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. ISBN 978-93-5305-352-9.
  3. ↑ Chadha, Colonel (retd.) Vivek (January 2013). "Assessing Pakistan's Transgression on the Line of Control" (PDF). MP-Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  4. ↑ "Supra Source". source.gosupra.com. Retrieved 2026-09-13.

Further reading