Abstract
Dr Peter Lee is the Director of Security and Risk Research at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He specialises in the ethics and ethos of drone warfare, the politics and ethics of war and military intervention, and the politics and ethics of identity. He is currently conducting research with RAF Reaper drone crews for his next book, which will tell the story of the first 10 years of UK drone operations from the operators’ perspectives. Peter is regularly invited to speak on this and other subjects to military, academic, political, religious, media and wider audiences. In 2012 he published Blair’s Just War: Iraq and the Illusion of Morality and in 2015 published Truth Wars: The Politics of Climate Change, Military Intervention and Financial Crisis, both with Palgrave Macmillan.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amnesty International. 2016. Syrian and Russian Forces Targeting Hospitals as a Strategy of War. 3 March. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/syrian-and-russian-forces-targeting-hospitals-as-a-strategy-of-war/. Accessed 5 April 2016.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1981. Summa Theologica, Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Rev. edn., Benzinger Brothers, 1948. Reprinted Westminster, MD: Christian Classics.
Arkin, Ronald C. 2010. The Case for Ethical Autonomy in Unmanned Systems. Journal of Military Ethics 9, 4: 332–341.
Augustine. 2003. City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson. London: Penguin Classics.
BBC. 2016. ‘Jihadi John’ Death: Islamic State says Mohammed Emwazi Killed. 19 January. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35358101. Accessed 10 March 2016.
Biddle, Tami Davis. 2002. Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas About Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Boog, Hoorst. 1995. Harris: A German View. In Despatch on War Operations 23rd February, 1942 to 8th May, 1945, ed. Arthur T. Harris. London: Frank Cass.
Brunstetter, Daniel R., and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. 2015. Clashing Over Drones: The Legal and Normative Gap Between the United States and the Human Rights Community. The International Journal of Human Rights 19 (2): 176–198.
Cameron, David. 2015. Statement to the House of Commons on Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism. 7 September. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150907/debtext/150907-0001.htm. Accessed 18 June 2016.
Connolly, William E. 2002. The Augustinian Imperative, 2nd ed. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Demy, Timothy J., George R. Lucas Jr, and Bradley J. Strawser (eds.). 2014. Military Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Abingdon: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Use of Pleasure. Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley. London: Penguin Books.
Goertzel, Ben. 2007. Human-Level Artificial General Intelligence and the Possibility of a Technological Singularity: A Reaction to Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near, and McDermott’s Critique of Kurzweil. Artificial Intelligence 171: 1161–1173.
Gray, Peter. 2010. The Gloves Will Have To Come Off: A Reappraisal of the Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive Against Germany. Air Power Review 13 (3): 9–40.
Grayling, Anthony. 2006. Among The Dead Cities. London: Bloomsbury.
Hall, David. 1998. Black, White and Grey: Wartime Arguments for and against the Strategic Bomber Offensive. Canadian Military History 7 (1): 7–19.
House of Lords and House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights. 2016. The Government’s Policy on the Use of Drones for Targeted Killing. 10 May. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201516/jtselect/jtrights/574/574.pdf. Accessed 20 May 2016.
International Committee of the Red Cross. 2010. History of the ICRC. https://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/history/overview-section-history-icrc.htm. Accessed 25 May 2016.
International Committee of the Red Cross. 1977. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I). 8 June. https://www.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750065. Accessed 15 June 2016.
Kapossy, B., and Whatmore, R. 2008. Introduction. In Vattel, Emerich de (2008) The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. 1797 trans. and ed. T. Nugent. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Inc.
Lee, Peter. 2013a. Return from the Wilderness: An Assessment of Arthur Harris’s Moral Responsibility for the German City Bombings. Air Power Review 16 (1): 70–90.
Lee, Peter. 2013b. Rights, Wrongs and Drones: Remote Warfare, Ethics and the Challenge of Just War Reasoning. Air Power Review 16 (3): 30–49.
McMahan, Jeff. 2004. The Ethics of Killing in War. Ethics 114: 693–733.
McMahan, Jeff. 2007. The Sources and Status of Just War Principles. Journal of Military Ethics 6 (2): 91–106.
Ministry of Defence. 2011. Joint Doctrine Note 2/11: The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Swindon: Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre.
Obama, Barack. 2013. Remarks by the President at the National Defense University. 23 May. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university. Accessed 15 May 2016.
Orseau, Laurent and Armstrong, Stuart. 2016. Safely Interruptible Agents. Machine Intelligence Research Unit. https://intelligence.org/files/Interruptibility.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2016.
Putin, Vladimir. 2015a. Interview to Vladimir Solovyov. 12 October. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50482. Accessed 8 June 2016.
Putin, Vladimir. 2015b. Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. 22 October. http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548. Accessed 8 June 2016.
Rogers, Ann, and John Hill. 2014. Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security. London: Pluto Press.
Spaight, J.M. 1938. Air Power in the Next War. London: Geoffrey Bles.
The Guardian. 2015. David Cameron faces scrutiny over drone strikes against Britons in Syria. 8 September. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/07/david-cameron-justifies-drone-strikes-in-syria-against-britons-fighting-for-isis. Accessed 12 May 2016.
The Guardian. 2016. Tesla driver dies in first fatal crash while using autopilot mode. 1 July. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/tesla-autopilot-death-self-driving-car-elon-musk. Accessed 8 July 2016.
Tonkens, Ryan. 2012. The Case Against Robotic Warfare: A Response to Arkin. Journal of Military Ethics 11 (2): 149–168.
Trenchard, Hugh. 1928. Memorandum by the Chief of the Air Staff for the Chiefs of Staff Sub-Committee on the War Object of an Air Force. 2 May. In Webster, Charles and Noble Frankland. 1961. Volume 4 of The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939–1945. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office: 72.
United Nations. 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/sections/universal-declaration/history-document/. Accessed 10 June 2016.
United Nations. 1945. Charter of the United Nations. 26 June. http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/. Accessed 11 July 2016.
Vattel, Emer de. 2008. The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. 1797 trans. and ed. T. Nugent. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Inc.
Walzer, Michael. 1977. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.
Walzer, Michael. 2000. Just and Unjust Wars, 3rd ed. New York: Basic Books.
Walzer, Michael. 2006. Response to McMahan’s Paper. Philosophia 34 (1): 43–45.
Walzer, Michael. 2007. On Fighting Terrorism Justly. International Relations 21 (4): 480–484.
Washington Post. 2015. U.S. strike believed to have killed ‘Jihadi John,’ Islamic State executioner. 13 November. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-strike-targeted-jihadi-john-the-briton-linked-to-hostage-beheadings/2015/11/13/8d58595c-89df-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html. Accessed 15 July 2016).
Williams, John. 2015a. Democracy and Regulating Autonomous Weapons: Biting the Bullet while Missing the Point? Global Policy 6 (3): 179–189.
Williams, John. 2015b. Distant Intimacy: Space, Drones, and Just War. Ethics and International Affairs 29: 93–110.
Wills, Colin. 2015. Unmanned Combat Air Systems in Future Air Warfare. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Webster, Charles, and Noble Frankland. 1961. The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939–1945. Volume 4. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lee, P. (2018). Armed Drones: Automation, Autonomy, and Ethical Decision-Making. In: Kiggins, R. (eds) The Political Economy of Robots. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51466-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51466-6_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51465-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51466-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)