Open AccessDepersonalisation of killing: Towards a 21st century use of force “Beyond Good and Evil?”
Author(s) -
Srdjan Korac
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
filozofija i društvo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2334-8577
pISSN - 0353-5738
DOI - 10.2298/fid1801049k
Subject(s) - adversary , dignity , realm , conscience , action (physics) , environmental ethics , law , opposition (politics) , value (mathematics) , population , sociology , political science , law and economics , epistemology , computer security , philosophy , computer science , politics , physics , demography , quantum mechanics , machine learning
The article analyses how robotisation as the latest advance in military technology can depersonalise the methods of killing in the 21st century by turning enemy soldiers and civilians into mere objects devoid of moral value. The departing assumption is that robotisation of warfare transforms military operations into automated industrial processes with the aim of removing empathy as a redundant ?cost?. The development of autonomous weapons systems raises a number of sharp ethical controversies related to the projected moral insensitivity of robots regarding the treatment of enemies and civilian population. The futurist vision of war as a foreign policy instrument entirely ?purified? of the risk of morally wrong actions is in opposition with the negative effects of the use of drones. The author concludes that the use of lethal robots in combat would eventually remove enemy soldiers and civilians from the realm of ethical reasoning and deprive them of human dignity. Decision to kill in military operations ought to be based on human conscience as the only proper framework of making decisions by reasoning whether an action is right or wrong.