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July 15, 2012
Morally Obligated
I learned from this article about the work of Bradley J. Strawser, a former Air Force officer and now a professor of philosophy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Strawser recently wrote as article titled "Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" (PDF) in which he explained that:
I argue that there is an ethical obligation to use UAVs. ... there is a strong moral obligation to use [drones] in place of inhabited aircraft.
But is using drones the only moral obligation that we have? No. As another philosopher, Michael Novak, said in a February 10, 2003 speech at the Vatican on Just War doctrine, invading Iraq was also "a moral obligation."
Similarly, the philosopher Osama bin Laden explained in a 1996 journal article titled "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,"
Terrorizing you, while you are carrying arms in our land, is a legitimate right and a moral obligation.
You want to be a good person, don't you? Of course you do. And now you know what you have to do.
(Strawser via Micah Zenko and Glenn Greenwald.)
—Jon Schwarz
Posted at July 15, 2012 01:18 PM"professor of philosophy at the Naval Postgraduate School."
One could substitute either or both for "propaganda"!!
"Moral" and "Predators"??
This is postgraduate education.... what will be postdoc education? "moral ethnic cleansing" or "moral genocide?"
And is the Moral Obligation to remember just the numbers??
4 percent, 6 percent, 17 percent and 20 percent, 46 percent, 41 percent, 33 percent to more than 80 percent, 16 percent, 28 percent, 152, 7,.....
I guess, if we remembered "the people killed," we would be failing in our Moral Obligation!!! We are obligated to IGNORE or FORGET...
Posted by: Rupa Shah at July 15, 2012 04:19 PM
Well, the essence of tragedy is when two absolute rights come into conflict with one another!
Posted by: penny jr. at July 15, 2012 07:05 PMMorality in warfare, "lookin' for whut ain't".
Why bother putting a suit on it and a bible in its hand? Its just killin'.
apparantly strawser never saw T3 when Skynet becomes conscious
Posted by: frankenduf at July 16, 2012 01:46 PMAt the moment I'm feeling morally obligated to shove a drone launched hellfire missile up a certain professor of philosophy's arse...
Posted by: Carl Weetabix at July 16, 2012 06:19 PMAt the moment I'm feeling morally obligated to shove a drone launched Hellfire missile up a certain professor of philosophy's arse...
Posted by: Carl Weetabix at July 16, 2012 06:20 PMi'd also like to compare the polonium poisoning of alexander litvinenko with the atomic bombing of hiroshima.
Posted by: hapa at July 17, 2012 01:37 PMhapa: One is a spy getting paid back for his life's work. The other is a city of unsuspecting war weary men, women, and children turned into high altitude radioactive ash.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at July 17, 2012 11:09 PM"there is a strong moral obligation to use [drones] in place of inhabited aircraft."
The good professor put a escape-hatch qualifier on it. He's not saying that it's moral to use either one. But it's moral to use drones rather than risking the life of one of you own combatants. Is this context, remote-control warfare is good.
This philosopher boned up on the sophists.
Drones are not much different than any other kind of artillery round. Cheaper, faster, more accurate(???), none the less, get in front of it, end up killed, same as "Big Burtha" being on target.
And how many times must a cannon ball fly
Before they're forever banned----Dylan
