The Morality of Remote Warfare

Against the Asymmetry Objection to Remote Weaponry

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6344288
AutoresMarcus Schulzke (0000-0002-5998-138X, University of Leeds, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume64
Fascículo1
Páginas90-105
Data de publicação2016-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1467-9248.12155
OpenAlexW1667078485
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas12
Referências citadas30

Remote weapons, such as precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and drones, regularly play an important part in contemporary military operations, but they are extremely controversial on moral grounds. Although critics of these weapons have raised a number of objections against their use, many rely on some variation of the asymmetry thesis. This is the claim that it is immoral to wage war using weapons that allocate risk asymmetrically, allowing those who use these weapons to minimise their exposure to risk while their opponents can be easily attacked. In this article, it is demonstrated that the asymmetry thesis fails as a moral objection to the use of remote weapons by exploring three different variants of the asymmetry thesis and showing that each suffers from serious limitations

Biology · Computer security · Criminology · Drone · Just war theory · Law and economics · Morality · Political science · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Computer Science · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies · Free Will and Agency · Law · War, Ethics, and Justification