The Ethics of Drone Warfare

Authors

  • Aleksandar Fatić Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1702349F

Keywords:

effectivity, warfare, drones, technology, military ethics.

Abstract

The paper investigates the compatibility of the modern technologies of warfare, specifically the use of offensive drones, with traditional military ethics and suggests that the new technologies radically change the value system of the military in ways which make large parts of the traditional military ethics inapplicable. The author suggests that Agamben’s concept of ‘effectivity’ through ‘special actions’ which mark one’s belonging to a particular community or profession is a useful conceptual strategy to explore the compatibility of drone warfare with traditional military ethics; this strategy shows mixed results at best.

Keywords: effectivity, warfare, drones, technology, military ethics

References

Agamben, Giorgio (2013), Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty, Stanford: Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bachmann, Klaus and Fatić, Aleksandar (2015), The UN International Criminal Tribunals: Transition Without Justice, London: Routledge.

BBC (2015), ‘ HARDtalk Brandon Bryant Former US Drone Operator’,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U2kPuQ9TxE, 13 April.

Best, Geoffrey (1994), War & Law Since 1945, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bunstetter, Daniel and Brown, Megan (2013), ‘From Jus ad Bellum to Jus ad Vim: Recalibrating Our Understanding of the Moral Use of Force’, Ethics & International Affairs 27, 1: 87–106.

Fatić, Alekandar (2015), ‘The Epistemology of Intelligence Ethics’, in Galliott, Jai and Reed, Warren (eds), Ethics and the Future of Spying: Technology, National Security and Intelligence Collection, London: Routledge: 39–51.

Fatić, Aleksandar (2016), Virtue as Identity: Emotions and the Moral Personality, London: Rowman and Littlefield International.

Grossman, Dave (2009), On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Howe, Paul (2005), Leadership and Training for the Fight, Bloomington, IN: Author House.

The National Post (2015), ‘Extremely rational’ Anonymous hacktivist Matt DeHart avoids 70-year prison term with child porn plea deal’, 13 November.

Wiebes, Cees (2003), Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992–1995, Muenster: LIT Press.

Downloads

Published

30.06.2017

How to Cite

Fatić, A. (2017) “The Ethics of Drone Warfare”, Filozofija i društvo/Philosophy and Society. Belgrade, Serbia, 28(2), pp. 349–364. doi: 10.2298/FID1702349F.

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 2 (2017)

Section

STUDIES AND ARTICLES

License

Articles published in Philosophy and Society are open-access in accordance with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC