Remote killing free from retaliation creates a moral hazard problem

Evidence

What the Republic suggested by this thought experiment finds technical realization in the drone. As John Kaag and Sarah Kreps write, given that “remote-controlled machines cannot suffer the consequences [of their actions] and the humans who operate them do so at a great distance, the myth of Gyges is more a parable of modern counterterrorism than it is about terrorism.” Freed from the constraints imposed by reciprocal relations, will the drone masters be able to continue to demonstrate virtue and to resist the temptation to commit injustice with virtually no sanction imposed? That question, to which we shall return, raises the matter of moral hazard. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 343 (#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: Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory; Right to kill depends on readiness to expose own soldiers; Claimed precision paradoxically expands global killing rather than limiting it (+12 more)

Related

• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (similarity 0.91)
• Remote killing removes reciprocal constraints that traditionally shaped warrior morality. (similarity 0.91)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.89)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.88)
• Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory (similarity 0.87)
• Remote killing of humans drew less moral outrage than remote hunting of animals (similarity 0.86)
• The drone made warfare absolutely unilateral, killing without risk of being killed (similarity 0.85)
• Impersonal long-range killing is aseptic homicide rather than rational progress (similarity 0.84)
• Drones create a moral hazard that shifts risk onto others. (similarity 0.84)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.84)
• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs (similarity 0.84)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.84)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.84)
• Drone warfare establishes a norm neither war nor peace via imperial immunity (similarity 0.83)
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs #exemplifies (0.80)
• Remote killing removes reciprocal constraints that traditionally shaped warrior morality. #expands (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 343
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good #expands (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties #contradicts (0.70)
• Drone warfare adopts assassination ethics while refusing assassination’s self-sacrifice #expands (0.60)
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives #complicates (0.55)