Abstract
The introductory chapter offers an overview of the debate on autonomous weapons. It shows how the debate emerged, why it came about, and why it matters. It then considers the debate from the perspective of just war theory, giving a brief account of central ideas in the ethics of armed conflict. The chapter then makes a number of general remarks about the moral permissibility of weapons research.
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Notes
- 1.
Christof Heyns, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, A/HRC/23/47, United Nations General Assembly, 9 April, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-47_en.pdf.
- 2.
United States Department of Defense (2011) Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY 2011–2036, Reference Number 11-S-3613, http://www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/resources/UnmannedSystemsIntegratedRoadmapFY2011.pdf (accessed 1 September 2015).
- 3.
For the sake of convenience, whenever I use the term operator I mean that the operator is human.
- 4.
Ron Arkin (2010) ‘The Case for Ethical Autonomy in Unmanned Systems’, Journal of Military Ethics, 9(4): 332–341; and Ron Arkin (2009), Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots, Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis.
- 5.
Robert Sparrow (2007), ‘Killer Robots’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24(1): 62–77.
- 6.
Nick Bostrom (2014) Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers and Strategies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 7.
Sparrow, ‘Killer Robots’.
- 8.
See Michael Walzer (2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 4th edn, New York: Basic Books; David Rodin (2002) War and Self-Defense, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Jeff McMahan (2009) Killing in War, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Cecile Fabre (2012) Cosmopolitan War, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Oliver O’Donovan (2002) The Just War Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 9.
See J. Finnis, J. Boyle, and G. Grisez (eds) (1988) Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- 10.
Brian Orend (2000), War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective, Waterloo/Ontario: Wilfried Laurier University Press.
- 11.
On the challenges posed by WMDs, see Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee (eds.) (2004) Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Secular and Religious Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 12.
Orend, War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective.
- 13.
John Rawls (1999b) The Law of Peoples, Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press.
- 14.
David Rodin (2002) War and Self-Defense, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 15.
Walzer, M. (2006) Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 4th edn, New York: Basic Books.
- 16.
Rawls, The Law of Peoples.
- 17.
Thomas Hobbes (1996), Leviathan, editor: R. Tuck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Leveringhaus, A. (2016). Ethics and the Autonomous Weapons Debate. In: Ethics and Autonomous Weapons. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52361-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52361-7_1
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