Depersonalisation of killing: Towards a 21st century use of force “Beyond Good and Evil?”

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. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. OI179029: Serbia in contemporary international relations: The strategic directions of development and consolidation of the position of Serbia in international integration - foreign policy, economics, legal and security perspectives]

Keywords

• warfare
• military interventions
• depersonalisation
• drones
• lethal robots
• autonomous weapons systems
• ethics of war
• international relations