The discourse of ethical drones strategically lowers the cost of using them.

Evidence

That last point is very important. What is the purpose of the discourse about the drone’s necroethics? Its function is to diminish the reputational costs associated with the use of this weapon. Hence its strategic function in the political economy of warfare. The more “ethical” the weapon seems, the more socially acceptable it becomes and the more it becomes possible to use it. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 590

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s goal of understanding the twisted logic of ethical legitimation and impunity. — connects to: Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war; Low cost of drone warfare removes congressional restraint on military action; Drone advocates came to believe their own claims of negligible collateral damage. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 267 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle: how ‘ethical weapon’ rhetoric functions as public relations that enables more war.

Related

• Low cost of drone warfare removes congressional restraint on military action (similarity 0.90)
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war (similarity 0.90)
• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. (similarity 0.89)
• Ethical-robot advocacy lowers moral barriers to deploying lethal robots. (similarity 0.87)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.86)
• Drone advocates came to believe their own claims of negligible collateral damage. (similarity 0.86)
• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs (similarity 0.85)
• Drones create a moral hazard that shifts risk onto others. (similarity 0.85)
• Drone design produces a strong moral buffering effect on operators (similarity 0.84)
• Drones fuse killing and caring into an integrated humilitarian power (similarity 0.84)
• Ethical-robot rhetoric is a Trojan horse that lowers moral barriers to killer robots (similarity 0.84)
• The drone is a classic moral hazard example (similarity 0.83)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.83)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.83)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Ethical-robot advocacy lowers moral barriers to deploying lethal robots. #exemplifies (0.70)
• Drones create a moral hazard that shifts risk onto others. #expands (0.55) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 588
• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. #expands (0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 586
• Faceless blurry drone imagery reduces moral resistance to killing #expands (0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 404
• Drone design produces a strong moral buffering effect on operators #expands (0.45) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 407