The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#108 Stoicism As a Warrior Philosophy - Interview with William Spears
Why Good Humans Make the Best Warriors According to Naval Commander Will Spears
What happens when ancient philosophy meets modern military leadership? In this fascinating episode, we explore how stoicism serves as a cornerstone of warrior development and ethical leadership at the Naval Academy.
I'm joined by Commander William Spears, a Naval Academy graduate, submarine commander, and author of the upcoming book "Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy." As a prior enlisted sailor who worked his way through the nuclear program to Annapolis, Will brings a unique perspective on how ancient wisdom shapes modern military excellence.
Our conversation reveals how stoicism isn't just academic theory—it's a practical framework that has guided military leaders through the most challenging circumstances imaginable, from the classrooms of Annapolis to the prison camps of Vietnam.
Key Insights on Stoicism and Military Leadership
- How Vice Admiral James Stockdale applied stoic principles during his captivity in the Hanoi Hilton
- The connection between individual morality and unit morale in military organizations
- Why the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice—remain essential for modern warriors
- The difference between popular stoicism and its deeper philosophical foundations
- How virtue can be taught and developed through examples of exemplary leadership
To pre-order Will's book, you can do so here: https://www.amazon.com/Stoicism-Warrior-Philosophy-Insights-Morality/dp/1636246230
The Vermeer Group is a residential real company matching military families with trusted real estate teams across the country. If you have any real estate questions at all, please text Grant at (650) 282-1964 or email grant@thevermeergroup.com
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The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that matches service academy families with trusted real estate teams all across the country. Text (650) 282-1964 with any real estate questions.
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Welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast, powered by the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation. Stoked to be a part of the podcast fleet that the Alumni Association now has. In this episode, I'm joined by William Spears. He's a Naval Academy graduate, submarine commander, and of all things, a lover of the Stoic philosophy, which makes me stoked because I love it. Again, this was a big factor in my education in Annapolis, something that really resonated with me. So to get him to come back on to talk about Stoicism, to talk about Stoicism as a warrior's philosophy and how this applies to the Naval Academy, how this applies to the life of a midshipman is really cool and really important. Again, I've had multiple conversations. I had Admiral Jim McNeil on a previous episode talking all about the Naval Academy ethics and leadership department, the curriculum that we use to teach leadership and all these different facets. And Stoicism is a big factor in that. So if you want to learn a little bit about what stoicism is, how it applies to the military philosophy and everything that is being taught in Annapolis, then check this episode out. I think it's really cool and I think you'll love it. One disclaimer, again, everything as an active duty service member will, as he comes on here, none of this is an official reflection or a statement of the Department of War, anything official. They're solely the opinions of him. I know he's going to give that as well, but I just want to make that very clear. Me now as a civilian, I can do whatever I want. Oh, not actually, but you know what I mean. And so just want to give that caveat. Again, Will is just here to share his thoughts on Stoicism and his new outcoming book, all about Stoicism as a warrior's philosophy. So check it out. Let me know what you think. Thank you so much. All right, Will, thank you so much for taking the time to join all of us here on the Academy Insider Podcast. If you don't mind, before we jump into this super fun conversation about stoicism, which is again a topic that is really near and dear to my heart as a result of kind of my education in Annapolis. And I know it is for you as well. But before we get there, if you just provide a little bit of a background about where you're from, how you grew up, what brought you to the Naval Academy, and a little bit now what you're doing with your career in the Navy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh yeah, Grant. Hey, really appreciate you having me on board. Uh, the legendary uh Academy Insider. Uh first things first, I gotta say that, hey, since I am active duty, it is important that I say that uh anything I say here is just Will Spears talking. Like I like I am actively serving in the military, but uh anything I say or any product or hyperlink I endorse doesn't constitute a government uh or Navy endorsement of that thing. It's just my dumb opinion. Anyway, yeah, I uh so I I just joined the Navy. I enlisted right out of high school. So I'm a I'm a prior enlisted. I'm I'm I'm one of the many prior nukes that end up going to the academy, you know. That was that was kind of my path, you know. So I enlisted to go uh go nuke submarines uh into the nuclear power program as a as an electrician, actually. I completed the technical training and I I applied to the academy and got in. And uh that was a big surprise to me, you know, uh, but uh it ended up working out really well. Uh I I I couldn't believe that uh I was I found myself actually in the academy. I was of all the people there that you you know it's very common to have that imposter syndrome where you're looking around, you're like, man, they're gonna figure me out any day. They're gonna they're gonna realize I am not supposed to be here. And uh so that was definitely me. Um, but uh it worked out really well. I still have not grown up and gotten a real job. I I'm at this at this stage, like I don't I don't know why I would want to because I I'm really liking the Navy thing. I think I, you know, a lot of people think I'm crazy because I like it a lot more than than other people do, but but it's really working out well for me and my family, and and and we're happy doing this. So we're just gonna keep doing this until they kick us out.
SPEAKER_00:That's so cool. And what was your like who brought up the Naval Academy for the first time to you? Like you enlist, you go to nuke school. Was it you know, someone in your chain of command, an instructor like out at nuke school that kind of got you into it? Or did you know about the Naval Academy prior to enlisting? Like, what was your pathway and story to end up in an apple?
SPEAKER_01:Well, really, that that that was kind of part of part of my overall picture of enlisting in the Navy is is uh I did it because, you know, partially because it it felt like the morally correct thing to do. I wanted to serve my country. Uh, but also it is a path to economic mobility and technical training and education and all those things. And so uh part of that I was told by you know my parents that hey, if you can put up with the military, uh, then it can really set you set you ahead in life. Uh so I really recommend that that you pursue any level of education. Anytime they offer you school, you take it. And so that has been my philosophy throughout my career is anytime I had an option to do this one thing or go to school, uh, I'm gonna go to school. And and that and so I at this point, three master's degrees later, that you know, it turns out that the Navy's always willing to send you to more school, and I'm just happy to go.
SPEAKER_00:So I I love that. Good for you. Uh like I think so.
SPEAKER_01:As soon as I enlisted, basically, as soon as I had an opportunity, I started applying to just whatever would take me. And and sure enough, the academy was the first one to call back. So it worked out.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. Um, you know, for anyone who's listening, uh, this idea of everything that Will just said, we uh we talk a lot about uh in an episode I do with Troy Thompson, there's a good friend of mine from the class of 17. We talk all about the generational changing opportunities that exist in Annapolis, and as a result of a military, but specif, even especially like a service academy education to kind of change the trajectory of again, your family, your future family and generations. Um I think it's a really interesting topic, again, not for the extensiveness of today. Um, but again, the the upward mobility you can have in in social class and in just your your general life as a result of you know serving in the military is is truly incredible. It's like one of those benefits that I don't think a lot of people uh truly fully comprehend while they're kind of going through some of the grind um that is Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You you can't beat it. I mean, you can't beat it from a from a uh standpoint of of just getting ahead in life, but also getting a satisfactory life, of doing something that's valuable, but also doing something that uh you know is valued by other people and and uh and and uh all the all the things that are attendant to that. But um I've never been, you know, this is tangential to what we came here to talk about, but you know, I you you're you're you've got a very gung-ho uh Naval Academy podcast. I've never been, as an academy grad, a super like Naval Academy gung ho guy, but I'm very happy to have been there because it was just the naviest school I could go to. You know, I w I I'm I much uh much prefer that I went to the academy than than I went uh any of the other uh opportunities that you have to go from being enlisted, just because I'm I'm extremely gung-ho about being in the Navy and and the Naval Academy just being uh immersed in that Navy atmosphere and that Navy history and the heroes and and and all of the uh the legacy that you inherit there was very important to me and uh meant a lot to me. And I think we'll get into that as well.
SPEAKER_00:100%. And and much to your point, part of the reason I'm so gung-ho about it, and I do love the Navy experience, is because it was it was exactly what I needed in that moment of my life, right? I had never faced a single moment of adversity. I live life, life was easy for me, right? I grew up in a uh a good family, sports came easy, school came easy, all this different stuff. Like I never faced a moment of real adversity in my life. And so for the first time to kind of get, again, metaphorically punched in the face and have to kind of go through a grind all the time. And we're gonna get to, again, what made these lessons of stoicism really resonate with me to kind of fully mature and develop into a young man who was in control of my emotional state, who was able to focus on things that were inside of my control and be able to kind of dictate the way I wanted to live my life in a virtuous way. The Naval Academy was exactly for what I needed in that moment, right? And so again, same here completely. It's less even about like this idea of the Grand Naval Academy and more about the specific impact it made in my life. And now kind of going back, it's like, all right, well, I love when I pour back into this community. It connects me with other people who resonate and share a very similar story to mine, right? And so all that is super fun. And for a big piece of this, like the reason we're here today on this conversation, which is this idea of stoicism. Again, you're big on stoicism. You literally um are getting ready. Again, this is releasing on October, I believe, 26th. You're getting ready to release a brand new book called Stoicism as a warrior philosophy. So you're a big stoicism guy, but really we'll get to that in the a little bit later in the episode. But what made Stoicism so important to you? Like, what was it about the Naval Academy or your experience in Annapolis that kind of introduced you to this new idea that was Stoicism?
SPEAKER_01:So I, you know, I discovered it there. I was about like 2004. It was my my plebe year at the academy. And and like I said, I was looking around saying, like, I am gonna get discovered at any moment. I do not belong here. And and the reality is, is that that's part of the experience. And so I'll, you know, for I know you've got a list lot of listeners that are probably bound toward the academy. That's that's a thing I'll warn you on is you know, no one ever got there and and and says, like, man, this is exactly what I signed up for, exactly what I expected. Like, that's not the real experience. The real experience is like this is either like this is not what I signed up for, this is not what I expected, or you know, I do not belong here. Any combination of those things is like that's normal. That's that's part of the process. And one of the things is I I definitely is just coming from, you know, middle class background, enlisted, you know, public school, just regular Joe. Uh I and I thought that the academy is just a bunch of senators kids and stuff like that. And that's kind of this reputation that you have, especially as an enlisted guy. It's like it's all aristocracy, it's all these ring knockers that are we're all rich kids and and everything. The reality is the rich kids are not going in the military at all. Those guys are going to, those are guys, those guys are all going to to some elite thing to go be, you know, Wall Street bankers or whatever weird, unimportant thing that they do is. You know, the academy is for regular Joes. And the process that they have is does a pretty good job of selecting a cross-section of America. So you will have an occasional rich kid, an occasional, you know, senator's kid or whatever, but you know, right next to him is going to be the kid from the trailer park who just happens to kick ass at everything he does. And that's that's the academy, you know, and it and it selects that cross-section. And, you know, it's not perfect, but it does a pretty darn good job of getting a cross-section of America. And when you find yourself right in the middle of it, where you're saying, Man, I don't belong here. It turns out the guy to your left and guy to your right is also saying, Man, I don't belong here. Yeah. Um, anyway, to answer your question, my response to that, man, I don't belong here, is I've got to investigate this legacy. I've got to learn about what in the world this is that I'm inheriting here. And so I started like kind of digging into who are the who are the big heroes, who are the big uh the the big names, the big figures. And the academy has, you know, a pantheon of heroes that I would put up against any institution anywhere. Um, among them is this guy named Vice Admiral James Stockdale, who is just an you know an amazing human being, an amazing hero uh in the in the Navy's history. Uh at the time that I was there, they they had not built the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership yet. Uh that came, they decided to do that after I was there, but you know, his he was already famous at that time. And so uh, you know, basically in between classes, uh, whenever I'd have a gap of time in between, you know, the engineering classes, I was a MEC E major, I would go to the library and just dork around and see what I could find. And I found his book, uh, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot. And so Vice Admiral Stockdale was a very uh philosophical guy, just in general. He always had been, but he late in his career, uh, whenever he was president of the Naval War College, he started becoming very vocal about this obscure Roman philosopher named Epictetus, who was a stoic. And it turned out that Vice Admiral Stockdale was deeply into Stoicism. Uh, well before there was this popular Stoicism movement that you have now, you know, before there was an internet to create that, sure, uh, he was really into this thing and found a lot of parallels with the uh values and important things in military service. And uh it it resonated and reinforced his ability to uh serve with honor in some really amazing ways we can get to if you want to. And and uh, but through him is kind of where I discovered and I started reading into Stoicism. I'm like, oh man, this is like how I think anyway. Yeah. And uh really got into it from there.
SPEAKER_00:No, for sure. And and for the the average listener who may, again, like today, like you're saying, may have be familiar with this idea of stoicism because it's it's gained a little bit of popularity. You have the Ryan Holidays of the world who have massive followings. There are a lot of books about it and kind of this like self-help kind of way, almost now in today's world. Do you mind just giving a little bit of a breakdown, like a true like definition breakdown of what is a stoic? Like what is this idea, this we have stoicism? Um, and then and then, yeah, if you want to dig into a little bit of again, specifically how Stockdale applied that into you know some of his uh uh actions in the world and kind of leading the United States uh again, captives, sure, prisoners of war in the in the Hanoi Hilton. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I'll I'll start with kind of where where we're at right now with uh you know what what is Stoicism? It is a ancient Greek philosophy that came from the same period of time. Uh, you know, you had you know, you had Plato and Socrates, and then you had the Stoics and the Cynics and the Aristotelians and all these different Hellenistic schools. And uh then you kind of Athens, the Athens philosophical scene kind of dissolved, and then Stoicism uh became popular for a little while in Rome. And that's where we have all of our sources for Stoicism, Epictetus and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, you know, everyone knows about Marcus Aurelius. And uh then, you know, it kind of faded, and it but it's always been a thing that people study in classical philosophy because they had some really great ideas that uh resonate through all the different worlds, religions, and and uh uh other philosophies, and they they've influenced a lot of later moral thinkers. Uh and then they've kind of exploded recently um in the self-help space with uh Ryan Holliday is is probably the most popular one. You know, he he pumps out another uh stoicism book about every few months. Uh and and you know, but then you you you've got a bunch of other ones. And what it is is people are finding that it the way that they thought about things uh helps you, you know, helps them uh remain mentally stable and uh remain disciplined and remain calm and control their emotions and all these things. Uh so it's not it's not like a kooky new age religion or anything like that. You have a handful of people who treat it that way. Uh I, you know, I don't recommend it. I, you know, you can, uh, but I don't think that that's necessarily a philosophically honest way of approaching it. You know, the way to approach any kind of philosophy is to say, like, okay, here's a this series of of ideas. Do I agree with this? Do I agree with that? You can you can pick from a menu, you know. You can you can pick, that's how you're supposed to approach philosophy is you're not supposed to agree with stuff you don't agree with, you know, or you're not supposed to pretend to agree with stuff you don't agree with. So you you look at the ideas and you say what's good, what's useful, and and you say, okay, well, uh, here's what I think, but those those different things can can influence other kinds of thoughts and develop you as an individual. That's that's how you approach philosophy, you know. So what does that have to do with Stockdale? Well, Stockdale was uh, you know, he was a he was a fighter pilot who was shot down. He was the commander of the prisoners of war, or I'm sorry, let me back up. He was the commander of the carrier air group uh in in early phases of the Vietnam War. He was shot down and captured. And as soon as he arrived in the in the uh the the prison situation, where and it's like this torture camp prison in the the they call the Hanoi Hilton, he was the senior officer there for the majority of his time. So he was immediately uh had to take command of the of the prisoners there. And um, but it happened to be he was uh deeply invested in this philosophy that centered on uh thinking through things, uh basically controlling your emotions, controlling what you can, uh, you know, not con not worrying about what you can't control, and then isolating your your moral reality to your own moral identity, uh, your own volition is is basically unassailable to any out outside force. And that was a very important survival mechanism uh in this prison camp where you know almost any function of agency has been deprived of you, you know. But if you isolate your moral identity down to yourself, then uh you know that establishes a sense of control and a sense of agency. And that uh basically permitted them to survive and uh and come through the ordeal with honor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And Stockdale's leadership effectively rippled through the camp and uh basically helped them create a resistance network that uh would resist the uh they came up with a bunch of different methods to resist the uh torture methods and interrogations and everything so that the prisoners could come through that ordeal with honor. Yeah. And and I mean it's a it's a brilliant story. It's very, you know, I'm not doing it any justice at all here, but your listeners can easily look into it. You don't need to buy any books on it. Like you can go to the Academy's Stockdale Center website, yeah, and they've got his writings uh and his speeches on Epictetus just right there. You can just go click on them and read them there, and they're you know, brilliant reading there.
SPEAKER_00:100%. And and you wrote you wrote an article about it too recently, again, specifically about Stockdale and the Stockdale Leadership Center, which I thought was interesting. Specifically, again, you call out towards the end, because we'll kind of get more into again this idea of stoicism being a warrior's philosophy, right? Which is kind of the premise of your book, but important for midshipmen as well. And like this discussion for, again, the the sons and daughters of the moms and dads who may be listening to this podcast is this understanding uh the fact that they're about to graduate, commission into the Navy or Marine Corps as an officer, and be a warrior, right? And and so I'm excited to get through these things. But one of the things that you mentioned at the bottom of the article is that whenever you see uh like a military unit that has true morale, that that that kind of goes based on these things, it is a direct descendants and reflection of their leader kind of embracing and and maintaining that level of demeanor and living a virtuous life. You mind talking about why it's so important for leaders in general and specifically again how Stockdale was able to do this, but but why leaders need to live a virtuous life, right? And why these things need to happen in order kind of to you know, again, be great at what they do in the profession of leadership.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So so that that there's a lot to unpack there. Uh, but I think we can, I think we can kind of give it, we can hit a lot of it uh pretty quickly here. So what is morale and what is morality and what is the connection between those two? Why is there an uh uh etymological connection there between morale and morality? Most people, if I ask you, you know, what does morale mean to you? If I go ask some sailor, you know, hey, what's morale? He's gonna say, yeah, things are good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I, you know, I you know, I get to go continue until morale improves, until we fake to be happy, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's not that you know, that that can be part of morale, but uh morale is is it is a collective function of a of a group, you know, an individual can't have morale, and it's a function of that unit, that group being able to achieve its mission. And so things like working together well, being internally coherent and internally cooperative is an important piece of morale. If you're not those things, you're not gonna have morale, you're not gonna, and you're not gonna be successful. But if also if you're not successful, you're not gonna have morale. So no losing team, no matter how ostensibly happy they look, has morale. Okay. Morale is, it is, it is uh a function of your ability to achieve your mission. So what is mission? What do I mean by mission? All right, this is a uh this is a tough concept because we use mission in different ways in the military. So if I say my mission is to drive my submarine over here and observe this event or something like that, that might be a mission. But what is the mission of a submarine? Why do I have an attack submarine? Why does an attack submarine exist? Uh and if I look in volume one, chapter one, paragraph one of the Los Angeles class ship systems manual, it's going to tell me that the mission of an attack submarine is to destroy hostile ships. That's why it exists. Okay, so mission used in that context of why a thing exists is uh synonymous with the ancient more philosophical term of telos. Okay. And so the telos of something is the purpose of it, the the why it exists. The Stoics believed that everything and everyone has a telos or a purpose for existing, uh, whether that's a rock or a human or an attack submarine. You know, the the mission of the United States Naval Academy is the is its telos, which is to develop midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor, and loyalty, all those things. You know, so that's why it exists. All right. So that's why the telos is the reason that something exists. You're not going to have uh morale if you're not achieving your telos. Okay, if you're not achieving your purpose or your mission. All right. What does that have to do with morality? Well, and and morality is is is one of my, I mean, the the you know, the subtitle of my book is insights on the morality of military service. And when I go and talk to, you know, individuals, if I go to talk to a bunch of midshipmen, I say, All right, gentlemen and ladies, I'm here to talk to you about morality, they're all gonna roll their eyes. They're gonna they're gonna say, What is this, church? Like I, you know, I got this when I was a kid, you know. If you say, What is morality? They're gonna say, ah, it's you know, helping little old ladies across the street and sharing is caring and all this warm and cuddly stuff. You know, I say, okay, but if if instead of saying I'm here to talk about morality, I said, I'm here to talk about being fearless. And I'm I'm here to talk about being self-obedient, perfectly self-controlled, disciplined, controlling your emotions, being wise, being just that is morality. Okay. But if I talked to, if I put it in that context, all those things that midshipmen actually want to be, then you know, then I'd have their attention. But the reality is that is morality. That is being what you're supposed to be, or being what a human being is supposed to be. Uh what does that have to do with morale? Well, morale is a collective quality. Morality, uh, as I was just discussing there, is an individual quality. The leader of a of a group converts those individual qualities both you know, both deliberately and passively, uh, just by virtue of being an example of what right looks like, leaders convert that individual quality of morality to the collective quality of morale and bringing the unit, the group or the collective into being what it is supposed to be. That is that is the connection there. And that's kind of what I was talking about in that article. And that's kind of what Stockdale did in that prison camp situation. His example of what a resistant uh prisoner of war is supposed to be rippled through the prison colony and served as the example for everyone else to follow. And it's kind of the quintessential example of contagious moral fortitude.
SPEAKER_00:And and in that realm, then, like what did the Stoics believe was true virtue, right? If we're talking about morality as kind of like being the this ideal, uh in in control individual, what were the virtues that Stoics were trying to achieve or shooting for on a constant basis? Like what does that, what does right look like in terms of personal morality?
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So virtue is being what you're supposed to be. All right. Uh, what does that look like for a human? Uh and the I think it's important to call out that the virtue is the core concept of the stoic philosophy. And you're not gonna really find that in the self-help uh presentations of it that you see online. It'll be there, but you got to dig a little bit to get to it. What they're gonna focus on is controlling your emotions and staying sane and you know, you keeping cool under pressure and not reacting and all those things. But all those things are functions of morality, and all those things are downstream of the core concept of stoicism, which is that virtue is the the preeminent thing that I care about. What is virtue then? Virtue is being what you're supposed to be. What is a human supposed to be? That is wise, courageous, self-controlled, and just those four qualities are what's called the cardinal virtues. They actually predate Stoicism. They go back to Plato uh and were discussed, you know, presented by Plato via Socrates. Uh, but those those are those cardinal virtues rippled throughout Hellenistic philosophy. They were taken up by many religions, including Christianity, uh, downstream of that. Uh, and they were, you know, they basically have influenced all uh other uh religions and and philosophies that came into contact with uh the hell Hellenistic philosophers because they just make so much sense. But the idea of those four qualities being the cardinal virtues, what makes them cardinal is that they are ostensibly uh indivisible. You can't reduce them any further. They work like the primary uh colors of you know, red, yellow, and blue. Uh any other quality of an individual, you know, be it magnanimity or charisma, you know, sense of humor, whatever, whatever good thing about a person is some combination of those uh of those primary or cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, uh self-control, and justice. Yeah. Does that help answer that question?
SPEAKER_00:No, it's incredible. And so how do you teach that? Because uh again, and and I'll be again really interested because we talk um, you know, in doing a little bit of research for for this interview, right? Like I read some of your excerpts, I read articles, right? And again, you you mentioned that um if we want to produce good warriors, we should aim and focus on producing good humans. And that Socrates suggests that virtue can be taught. So how do we teach that? Like, how do we develop that? And where does that play into the entire Naval Academy mission?
SPEAKER_01:So that idea that virtue can be taught is is a very old idea. And the idea and it and it's baked into the Naval Academy's mission of develop midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically. What is implicit in that mission is that morally, mentally, and physically are different facets of the same person. Okay. And if you're deficient in one, you're deficient in all. Okay. If you're whole in one, you're whole in all. And so if you're deficient in any of them, you need to fix it. It doesn't mean you go home and cry about it and you feel bad about yourself. It means you fix it. You mean you take action. And and no one's ever going to be perfect. Um the the idea that it it can be taught uh is is profound. And the idea that it is incumbent on the virtuous society to teach it is no less profound. So how do we teach it? I argue that uh we we can do no better than pointing to examples, okay. And that and this is this goes to the same idea of uh the uh you know the virtuous leader and the ripple effects that they have throughout the organization, that the ideal leader is always an ideal human. Okay. And the the leader is going to be the example of what right looks like. So looking towards our heroes, guys like Stockdale, and saying that that is what right looks like. That is what a good human is. Uh, that is how you create good warriors. Okay, that's that's a that's a very important part of it, is the idea that that is what what a ideal human is and an ideal warrior is. Now baked into that thesis is the what I think is a profound idea that martial virtues or military virtues are not distinct from human regular moral virtues, they are just virtues. Okay, so to say that like the ideal warrior is something other than an ideal human is incoherent to me, you know, and that's kind of like a theme uh in in in my book is that you know, if you want to be an ideal warrior, you should aim to be an ideal human. And if we want to produce ideal warriors, we should aim to produce ideal humans. And and the ideal warrior is always going to be an ideal human.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I like that. Um I like do I look, I just um I I I firmly and wholeheartedly like uh agree with you in that, in that sentiment, right? Like and and again, something that I think is really interesting, and again, I never want to put you in weird spots, but is this kind of You know, this flow of one of the cardinal virtues that we're talking about is being just. And so what, again, because you know, starting a long time ago, like that idea of what is just may be different based on the societal norms of today and how things have developed and evolved over time. So, where where does the cardinal virtue of being just come from? How do we decide what is just? And specifically in this idea of being in the military, of being a warrior, of being a maybe a low-grade military officer, a lieutenant, right, a division officer or a department head, how do you now decide or determine and evaluate what is just and live out that way?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so listeners, I want you to take note. You know, so Grant did not prepare me for to answer the question of like, hey, I'm gonna ask you what is justice. I'm just gonna point out that probably the greatest philosophical masterpiece ever written was Plato's Republic. And it was basically Socrates trying to answer the question of what is justice, and he didn't ever get there. So uh that is uh that's a tough question, right? And and sure, our concepts of what what is justice have have evolved over time. Um you know what what I can I can say is it it's it's treating other people right, doing the right thing, you know. Um and and it's gonna feed into uh your your concept of an ideal human. Now, how does that uh how does that jive with being a warrior where I might be I might be required to kill people? Hey, that's part of it, right? Uh is that something that a good person can ever do? Like, or is war, is warfare actually just this justified evil? So I basically, you know, I devoted a whole sixth chapter to uh getting into just war theory. And like in in when you go through the academy, you're gonna you get into just war theory in in like you know, second or uh I think that's youngster year, right? That's youngster year ethics. You're gonna get into uh the the different you know, deontology and utilitarianism, all the all these different uh important philosophical uh concepts and approaches to decide what right is or what decides what right and wrong are. Uh, but you also get into when is war justified? And you know, you said bellum, you said bello, these these concepts that are very uh important. And and what I devote uh a lot of time to is hey, how would Stoics look at these ideas? Uh in fact, most of you know traditional just war theory uh came after the Stoics, but was also deeply influenced by the Stoics, and I kind of I kind of point point out some of that uh by way of Cicero, uh who was who is kind of a seminal uh just war theorist before before Augustine. Anyway, that's some nerd stuff that we can get into. But the the point is that uh I categorically deny the idea that war is a justified evil. If it's something that a good person would do, then it is not evil. It's just it just may be something that we would very much prefer not to do. Uh and yet here we are, we are in this world where things are are very dangerous and and uh uh there are there are very nefarious actors. And, you know, if if I if I go and I say, well, I'm never going to, you know, that's that's evil, I'm not gonna participate in that thing. Well, then what I'm doing is I'm, you know, for one thing, I'm deflecting moral and physical burdens onto other people who are gonna have to go do that thing. The other thing is like sometimes that horrible thing that is war might prevent a much more horrible thing, you know. Uh I, you know, pacifism doesn't stop a genocide, it doesn't do anything to keep the sea lines open, it doesn't stop proli uh nuclear proliferation. You know, pacifism is a I'm glad it's an ideology. I'm glad that there are pacifists out there, but it doesn't work, you know, uh it you're at least the hard, hard pacifism doesn't work. Um, and and most moral philosophers will agree to that. Most will say, like, okay, that hard pacifism is indefensible. There are conditions under which a just country and a just individual goes to war. Here they are, and then they'll probably give you all kinds of, you know, stipulations about why that those conditions are never met uh in in the real world. But hey, the real world's complex. That's what we as warriors live in, is is is the real world. And, you know, the decision makers have to develop a uh a deeply invested sense of moral autonomy and uh and moral identity in order to navigate that very uh dangerous and scary world uh with justice. And and it and it is tough, and it there's a lot of ambiguity out there, and you know, our aim in our uh development of our warriors and our leaders is to develop people with as a finely honed sense of moral autonomy as possible. And that's how you avoid things like the atrocities, and that's how you uh, you know, you preserve a sense of duty that is going to radiate out from the leader into the units. Yeah. So I hope that that kind of helps answer that question.
SPEAKER_00:It does. And if you're already complaining about me, just wait for this next one. Uh but it's um no, uh it's it's really interesting, and like you're talking about is having this again sense of morality and justice. Again, in today's day and age, we kind of we swear and we swear an oath, right, to uh the constitution and we talk about all this stuff, and people will hear in the media all the time about lawful orders, orders that are lawful. We're not saying follow and execute just orders or justice, like it's it is what is lawful. Is there a distinguishing factor there? Because you talk about you the last thing you said was about this personal autonomous morality that you know what is right and just. And is there ever a confliction point between what is right and what is lawful in in kind of your discovery and academic and study of all of this?
SPEAKER_01:Is that possible? Uh yes, I think so. Um so and and this is kind of this this is this is I have to be very careful how I how I phrase stuff here. Um, but uh most of the whenever you go through your kind of your basic uh education and uh uh just war theory and stuff like that, uh people will say, like, well, how do we how do we how can we be good, how can a war good warrior exist when atrocities happen? And people will point out that, well, usually those those atrocities are illegal orders, and you you are trained to disobey illegal orders. And that there's a long list of reasons why that is true and why you should disobey an illegal order. And that will eliminate, you know, 99% of the situations that are the historical atrocities that you want to never ever happen. Um but that kind of sidesteps the question of is it possible for an order to be legal and yet still immoral? And that's a very tough question. And I'm not saying that individuals have the, you know, should just go willy-nilly pick what what orders that that they follow based on their own uh moral sense, but every individual, and it's unknowable to, you know, outs external to the individual, but every individual has uh some order, you know, some level of morality that they're not gonna obey, you know, even if it's lawful. And, you know, so a good and this is a thought experiment, but I but uh if I said, you know, hey, you know, Lieutenant Vermeer, I need you to go and slaughter this village over here, you would say, uh, sir, that's a that's an illegal order. I'm not I'm not gonna do that. But then if I said, well, look, actually, I can show you right here, Congress just voted and it's it's legal. I need you to go do it. You know, it this is now legal. I need you to go bayonet that baby over there, you know. You're there's some level of order that any individual is gonna say, Sir, I'm just I'm not gonna do that. I don't care that it's legal, I'm not gonna do that. Every that that um that line exists within every person somewhere. And I think it's important to think through these things and to and to develop that, you know, and so that you don't get into the moral crisis in the moment of crisis, you know, so that you you understand your own moral identity. Yeah. Um I, you know, and I I don't think that it, you know, a thought experiment is a thought experiment. That's not a likely scenario, but the point is that because that line does exist in every individual, that individual capacity to disobey, come what may, uh, is a way that the individual retains moral autonomy within a hierarchy, even though you're in a situation where you swear an oath to the constitution and you swear to obey the orders of those above you, and yet you still retain the individual autonomy. And with that is the individual moral responsibility for what you do. Sure.
SPEAKER_00:And that's that that that's like way deeper than and again, I I ask these questions because I, you know, I listened to you on another podcast kind of go through this stuff, which is again, you always maintain that individual morale, like morality and autonomy of your moral decision making, but it doesn't make you void of potential like legal consequence if you are behind, you have this autonomy, but you're still a part of a system and a hierarchy and a structure. And just because you feel one weight doesn't make you void or subject of, again, whatever the consequences of your whatever decisions you choose to make, right? Right.
SPEAKER_01:And so my point in saying all of this is not to say, hey, people can or should go around you know disobeying orders. You know, I'm not saying that. My point is that individuals are responsible for what they do no matter what. Uh and that uh moral autonomy is not forfeit whenever you choose to become part of an organization, and you become you choose to become part of that collective organ of national defense that is your military, that does not constitute a forfeiture of your moral identity and your moral autonomy, which is a controversial position. You know, not everyone's gonna agree with me on that, but that's kind of part of the argument that that I make here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, I look, I um I think it's fascinating. Like I got, and just to be very clear, much like you're saying, I'm not I'm not out here trying to like advocate or make ways. I just think it's an interesting thought experiment, right? Like when we talk about this, and the again, these are a lot of discussions that are happening in the classroom in Annapolis, right? This is why I love what is going on. And you know, I had Jim McNeil, Admiral McNeil on a couple of episodes back to talk about the ethics program, the leadership program at the Naval Academy. And we dive into some of these things and we know we talk about morality and we talk about these thought experiments and these things that these younger men and young men and women are gonna have to consider to find, like you're saying, that that individual morality level or line that exists within each person on how they, you know, choose to believe and operate and feel and believe. And so um, I think this is all really interesting. The next piece that I want to touch on really quick, you know, we talked about the kind of the mainstream stoic movement and the Ryan Holidays of the world. And I'm a big fan, right? Like I genuinely am. I've read a lot of his books, Stillness is the Key, is like one of the most important books that I've read in terms of, again, especially in my transition out of the military and re-establishing and refining what I felt was maybe a lost identity of the military, really kind of helped narrow and focus me back into, again, the virtue of who I am, you know, my purpose, what I am here to do, like all these different aspects that I thought was great. Um, but what do you think this kind of popular stoicism movement misses about the philosophy of being a stoic? And what if young men and women who are at the Naval Academy are listening now, what additions would need to be made? What additional thought factors would need to be considered as they're developing, as young men and women and they're developing their own morality paths through their time in Annapolis?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So uh you, you know, Holiday gets a lot of flack uh on a lot of the you know Stoicism forums and stuff like that for being kind of shallow and and but but he doesn't pretend not to be that. You know, he he he's he's a popularizer, that's what he does. And most of the people on those forums wouldn't be there if it weren't for him. That's the reality of it. And I, you know, my I've I've been studying this stuff since you know I was a plebe, and my observation is that it's like week two of clicking around stoic blogs and you know, watching Gladiator on repeat, that you you get your card that gives you license to say that everyone else is doing it wrong. And if you really read the stoics like I do, then then you would see it this way. Like it's gonna be it's an individual experience. And I I don't I don't have any interest in in knocking, you know, uh the the popular stoicism movement or anything like that. Like it it brings a lot of value to a lot of people for for different reasons. Um that said, I do think that a lot of people are missing out or leaving a lot of the value that it has to add on the table by being overly focused on the emotional equanimity piece of it, overly focused on the, you know, I'm gonna be uh I'm gonna have perfect control of my emotions uh because this stoic philosophy is going to give me that, while missing the piece that, you know, A, that is uh that is coherent with virtue and it is it is it is a part of virtue. And and B, that you know, approaching it from the standpoint, the core concept of stoicism, which is that virtue is the sole good, approaching it from that angle is gonna make you more effective at all those things you're trying to go for there of for the the emotional equanimity piece of it. You know, so I I think that there just there's a lot that's left on the table there. And you know, I try to get at that uh in in in in my writing of of like, hey, let's follow this, this follow this rabbit hole as far down as it goes and just see what is what is actually what the book actually says. And that's kind of a that's kind of a nuke way of of approaching it, you know. I'm a I'm a submarine officer. Before I was a submarine officer, I was a nuke, you know, and and the way the way that the way that nukes do things is, you know, we say like, okay, well, your opinion about reactor instrumentation is great. And I promise I will be very fascinated in your opinion, but first we're gonna find out what the book says. What's the book says? Yeah, what's in the what's in the pub? What's in the pub, dude? Yeah, bring the pub, you know. And so that's kind of my approach is like, let's check the pub, let's check the record and see what the actual Stoics said uh before we inform our own opinion about about these things. And uh, and and that's kind of the the approach. Yeah, I think that there's just a lot of value there. There's there's a lot of depth that is often left on the table uh whenever whenever you you just kind of overlook the virtue piece. Yeah, that's fair.
SPEAKER_00:Uh dude, I love it. Uh for all for all the listeners out there, we got a good explanation actually of like what quote unquote nuking it means uh through that description. But again, it it's a it's a funny way, like he's saying, is the nuclear community, um, maybe notoriously, uh, or maybe kind of the joke lightheartedly is that they don't operate in the gray much, right? Like it's very much like what's in the pub, it's it's in the pub or it's not in the pub. Like we do it the way that it's written, right? Like it's very strict adherence to like how things are going. And so a lot of times, you know, there'll be way, again, you'll hear terms or jokes of like something that may seem like very simple based on like common sense, but you know, someone's like trying to go super hard through the process or exactly to the like the T of like what something says, and you're like, dude, you're just like you're nuking this right now.
SPEAKER_01:Like uh and if it's not in the pub, then we will create a pub. We will create a pub. The problem is sometimes we might want to do something right now, like, no, no, no, we got to create the procedure and then we will do it. You know, that's that's the that's the nuke way.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Um, well, sweet. I uh will like thank you so much for this discussion. This is super fun. I want to give dedicate this last you know couple minutes to allow you to talk about what took you again from this guy who was chasing, just like trying to understand the legacy of the institution that you were in that led to an initial interest in a stoic philosophy to actually going and developing and and living this out through your military career and then writing a book about it and what kind of motivated you and inspired you to write and put all of these thoughts down onto paper and and go through it. And uh if you tell us a little bit about your book, when it's coming out, and how people can find it if they're interested in it at all.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. I I appreciate that. The book is called Stoicism as a warrior philosophy. Uh, it is it is exactly what it sounds like. It is every bit as nerdy as it sounds, uh sounds like. It's kind of like you've you've seen it, Grant. It's it's it's pretty nerdy. Uh it's it is uh it's uh it's available anywhere you get books. You know, it is actually it's already released in the UK. Okay. Uh and the you for some like publisher distribution, you know, algorithm reasons that I don't understand. The publishers don't even talk to me anymore. They already got what they need for me. Anyway, it releases in in the US in November, uh, November 1. And uh I I think Amazon has pushed out the delivery date to like mid mid-November now. And I I I think that's a good sign. I think that means that they're they're ordering a bigger print because they're they're anticipating some demand. Anyway, that's that's what I tell myself that's about. So yeah, so the books, you know, books available anywhere you get uh books. And uh if we can throw a link in the show notes, Grant, uh I would I would appreciate that. I I have a I have a website too where I hang essays and stuff like that. So we can throw you know williamcspears.com. Uh that that's really mainly to support the book, but uh there's there's you know, I write articles here and there too. Um the so one thing that I I want to leave your listeners with, uh is the appeal to coherency is a really good uh sorting mechanism and a good tool for just kind of thinking through uh problems whenever I am uh conflicted somewhere. And it actually, the the best quote on it comes from Cicero, who was not a stoic. He was a stoic adjacent, but he's extremely important uh political philosopher that was very influential on the founding fathers of the United States. If you don't know about Cicero, you need to, you need to fix that. But uh Cicero basically took uh Socrates' idea. So Socrates, you know, doing the doing the Socrates thing, asking these impossible questions, he was trying to answer at some point the question of what is good? What makes what makes an act good? And you know, he concluded that it must be both uh honorable and useful. Those are your necessary and sufficient conditions of a good act. And Cicero uh took that idea and ran with it and said, you know, we can infer from that that what that which is honorable is useful, and that which is not honorable, conversely, is not useful. Okay, and that is an extremely powerful idea, I believe, is that if it is not honorable, no matter how expedient it may seem in the short term, it is gonna bite you. Okay, it is not useful, and whatever you know, value you think is going you're gonna extract out of that non-honorable act is is not truly valuable. Okay. It's definitely not more valuable than your integrity. And I think that that that appeal to coherency applies at so many levels and to so many things in life. If you can sort out things and basically find the values and the pursuits that resonate with each other and that support one another, uh that that that helps sort out a lot of uh actions and a lot of priorities in life and command and in leadership and and just in in getting through something as uh as tough as the Naval Academy. And so that's what I I hope that your listeners will take away.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. I love it. Uh again, Will, thank you so much. For everyone who's reading it, again, it's funny. I I love it. It's it's a nuke, it's a nuke version of stoicism out here in this book. And uh and and I just I think it's really cool. But again, this is something that I've always had a little bit of interest in, not to the not nearly to the level that Will has, but again, to to be able to like take this and reflect back on my time in Annapolis, and you know, especially when I was going through certain moments, that it that it really did resonate with me, right? I told um there were a lot of times where I'd have conversations with at the time, uh, you know, his name was Major Krusinger. He's now kind of moved on Lieutenant Colonel, uh go going in advancing. Um we would have multiple conversations. Uh and he never once used the term stoicism or like being a stoic, but in reflection of everything, it was very clear that that was what powered and moved him and guided him and kept him centered and focused in everything that he did, leading Marines in combat. Right. And, you know, we would tell stories, and again, this is a guy who literally took a bullet wound, you know, bullet through the, you know, through the chest. Um, and again, all he was concerned about was wanting to make sure that his Marines got home safe, right? And like that, that was it. And I think the more we can get to this point, and it's again, I just love it because we talk about the development of young men and women in, you know, at the Naval Academy, get back to this final quote, which I loved. It was like so good, is that if we want to produce good warriors, and this is the goal of the institution, is to produce good warriors, we should aim to produce good humans. That's it. Good humans who have a solid, virtuous foundation and base of who they are and live life with integrity in every aspect in the moral, in the physical, and the mental, right? The development of the wholeness of who they are as that ideal human being who lives a virtuous life, then we will have leaders in our military who are gonna do great things and be great warriors. Right. And uh I love it. So, Will, thank you so much for your time today, man. It's it was awesome to have this discussion. Super fun for me. I appreciate it. Yeah, Grant, really appreciate it, man. Absolutely. All right, so everyone listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Make sure to go pre-order the book. Could be a great Christmas gift for your midshipmen coming home uh to augment and supplement the education that they're getting there. Um, and I I appreciate it. So thank you so much, and I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it, and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves, and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen, and their families. Thank you.
