Depersonalisation of killing: Towards a 21st century use of force ʻBeyond Good and Evil?ʼ

Korać, Srđan (2018) Depersonalisation of killing: Towards a 21st century use of force ʻBeyond Good and Evil?ʼ. Filozofija i društvo=Philosophy and Society, 29 (1). pp. 49-64. ISSN 0353-5738

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Abstract

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.

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