The Moral Case for Drones

The philosopher Bradley Strawser has been making a bit of a stir lately over his comments regarding the morality of drone strikes, and that they should perhaps be regarded as morally permissible, or even ethically obligatory. In short:

The use of drones is ethical, both because they reduce the risk to the "just war fighters" involved in operating them and, as important, lower the number of innocent civilians killed in strikes compared with other forms of attack. Specifically: "Other things being equal," he writes, "using such technology is, in fact, obligatory," if it can reduce the risk to the person on the "just" side who is controlling the vehicle. In other words, if you can avoid putting a soldier or pilot at risk by using a missile fired from a ship or drone that would have the same effectiveness as one fired from a plane overhead or the ground nearby, you have a moral obligation not to put the soldiers in harm's way.

The article quoted above, by Mark LeVine, is not without its own flaws. And besides, after a little while it gets a bit weird (and funny):

Thankfully, the use of drones - whether based on facts or merely evidence of supposed wrong-doing (or thinking about wrong-doing, or just playing the wrong first-person shooter video game, which the NSA apparently determines is evidence enough that you want to harm the US) is, at least for now, not an option for most people. But soon enough, the same people who refuse to leave their homes unarmed will be travelling around with armed drones hovering over them or their cars, ready to attack anyone who unexpectedly comes to close to or raises its owner's pulse or blood pressure. Think George Zimmerman versus Trayvon Martin in the outer ring of the seventh circle of Hell, and you will have an idea of what life will be like, not in Afghanistan or Yemen, but in Texas or Colorado, once weaponised drones become only slightly more expensive than the remote controlled helicopter your child keeps bothering you to buy.

(Image: "Drones cause uproar everywhere they are used, and among the world's ethicists and lawyers." Gallo / Getty, via Al Jazeera)