Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake

Evidence

Alfred de Vigny wrote, “The paid man, the soldier, is a glorious pauper, victim, and executioner.” A soldier wields violence and is also exposed to it; he is both an executioner and a victim. But what does he become once the very possibility of being exposed to violence is removed? The fatal conclusion is that he becomes a mere executioner. And that is why he must somehow continue to be a victim if he wishes to continue to be called a soldier. There is a difficulty, though: what could he be the victim of? The only possibility is that he is psychically the victim of having to act as an executioner. That is the only way he can be defined in his own eyes, as in those of society, as the fighter that he no longer is. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367 (#expands, via linked claim)

According to this view of military morality, to kill while exposing one’s own life is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. That first principle of drone necroethics is, paradoxically, vitalist. And it is in accordance with this logic that the drone can be said to be a “humanitarian” weapon: the humanitarian imperative is to save lives. And the drone does indeed save our lives. It is therefore a humanitarian technology. QED. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Refusing to kill is about what one becomes, not what one ought to do; Claimed precision paradoxically expands global killing rather than limiting it; Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367 (+2 more)

Related

• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.88)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.87)
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (similarity 0.86)
• Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood (similarity 0.86)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.85)
• Drone warfare deactivates the democratic critique rooted in exposable lives (similarity 0.85)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.84)
• Refusing to kill is about what one becomes, not what one ought to do (similarity 0.84)
• Remote killing free from retaliation creates a moral hazard problem (similarity 0.84)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.84)
• Impersonal long-range killing is aseptic homicide rather than rational progress (similarity 0.84)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.83)
• Jus in bello norms applied to drones convert combat ethics into necroethics (similarity 0.83)
• Feigned empathy with victims legitimizes drone homicide publicly (similarity 0.83)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good #expands (0.55) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453