Allowing prisoners of war (POW) to be released on parole ceased to be practiced in early XX century, although for centuries it was quite common in European warfare. In this article I argue there are several powerful moral reasons to reinstate POW parole: the well- being of POW and their families, but also a chance to address the previously intractable problem of surrender to aircraft and autonomous weapons. I also argue that there are no good moral reasons not to allow (...) POW to accept parole, and that the reasons commonly put forward against the practice of parole are usually informed by antiquated and flawed ethical attitudes. I subsequently offer solutions for overcoming the practical obstacles to reinstating the practice of parole utilizing commonly available technology and self-enforcing diplomatic arrangements. I provide a detailed outline of such arrangements, addressing a number of possible objections and testing the model against several hypothetical scenarios. (shrink)

The world can be divided into a digital sphere and a physical sphere. Within the realm of the physical sphere, Michael Walzer’s Just War Theory stands as a prominent framework for understanding the ethics of warfare. Is his theoretical framework also applicable to the digital sphere? This article studies whether elements of Walzer’s theory can be adapted to the context of digital conflict. Walzer divides countries into zones of peace, zones of war, and in-between zones. A country could then, for (...) example, be a physical zone of peace but a digital zone of war. This article explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere. It concludes that the digital sphere should mostly be seen as an in-between zone, with the problem of very unclear borders. Regarding Walzer’s theory, while it offers valuable insights when applied to the digital sphere, difficulties arise, underscoring the necessity for further research to refine the principles of just war within the digital sphere. (shrink)

I am concerned that the military’s Rules of Engagement (ROE) exclusively focus on prescribing permissible actions but fail to consider the servicemembers’ blameworthiness. In explaining this concern, I will illuminate how permissible actions do not necessarily yield blamelessness. While permissibility is generally a function of rules or good outcomes, blameworthiness is at least a function of an agent’s intentions. Why should we care about permissible actions done with blameworthy intentions? I offer two distinct motivations. Using a self-defense situation as an (...) example, I explain that neglecting to consider blame can increase the magnitude of harm done to an apparent but merely possible attacker. Secondly, we should certainly be concerned about the harms done to servicemembers, and I show that ROE that fail to prescribe a blameless intention may result in increased harm to servicemembers in the form of a “moral injury”. In even more general terms, I am advocating for a more robust in bello consideration of intentions. (shrink)

This article describes the progress and impact of the King’s College London Centre for Military Ethics since its collaboration with the Colombian military forces’ educational institutions. More specifically, the article focusses on expanding the military ethics course across different educational facilities of the Colombian Army and the Colombian Navy and Air Force. The impact of the education delivered using an online course designed to be completed without a tutor is analysed and presented. The final part of the article describes a (...) way forward as far as the Colombian project is concerned, as well as the refinement of the course materials and launch of new tools. (shrink)

It has been argued that the criterion of right intention adds nothing in just war theory – that it is subsumed by other conditions on just war. It has also been argued that there is no tenable reading of the criterion at all, and in particular that taking it as a positive requirement on the state's motives is after all incoherent in a way that would make it impossible to satisfy. This article gives an action-theoretic analysis of (one central understanding (...) of) the criterion and uses it to examine arguments that have been offered for the strong negative claims above. It is shown that none of these arguments succeed. Our endeavor brings welcome clarity and understanding to our own ideas about the criterion. (shrink)

It has been argued that the criterion of right intention adds nothing in just war theory – that it is subsumed by other conditions on just war. It has also been argued that there is no tenable reading of the criterion at all, and in particular that taking it as a positive requirement on the state's motives is after all incoherent in a way that would make it impossible to satisfy. This article gives an action-theoretic analysis of (one central understanding (...) of) the criterion and uses it to examine arguments that have been offered for the strong negative claims above. It is shown that none of these arguments succeed. Our endeavor brings welcome clarity and understanding to our own ideas about the criterion. (shrink)

In the second decade of the new millennium, artificial intelligence (AI) became a catchword among senior politicians and the military officers of India. Indian military officers have raised concerns about the potential use of AI-enabled weapon systems by China and by insurgents supported by Pakistan in the subcontinent. This article portrays the complex interlinkages between AI, strategic planning about future warfare and the role of ethics in India. The article, divided into three sections, deals with the role of AI and (...) ethics in India’s grand strategy, in military strategy and in command culture. Finally, the article also offers some policy recommendations. For cultural reasons, India follows a defensive strategy. India is attempting to integrate the AI weapons within its dharmayuddha (just war) format. Indian military strategy emphasises that on no account should these intelligent machines be autonomous. Atman (self-consciousness) must not be subordinated to yantras (machines). (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 2, September-October 2024, Page 73-73.

In spite of many attempts to define courage, from Plato’s Laches and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to recent moral philosophy, courage remains ambiguous: it is a classical virtue and a requirement of soldiers, and yet, it is not clear what courage means in specific situations. In this article, I investigate courage in view of a complex military context stretching beyond the battlefield into an ethically grey area of war and military operations, namely, a case from ISAF Afghanistan. I explore courage in (...) relation to context-specific factors that inspire soldiers’ judgments and choice of action, and look at the meaning of both physical and moral courage in the given context. The relationship between character and situation plays an important part in the quest to be courageous, and courage proves to be a notion dependent on such factors as level of risk. One of the more essential questions regarding courage seems to be: What should soldiers fear? I argue that we need a deeper understanding of risk and fear to understand courage in complex military contexts. Furthermore, courage is dependent on other virtues, which corresponds with an understanding of courage that is close to Plato’s notion of the unity or interdependence of the virtues. (shrink)

Soldiers hold special ethical obligations to prioritise care for those closest to them when dealing with combat casualties. This obligation draws on the unique, personal relationships already established, which soldiers have with their comrades. These relationships arguably overrule the need for impartiality barring only a significant difference in the severity of injuries. The bonds of fraternity deserve moral recognition that is not reflected in current conceptions of battlefield medical care. However, an ethics of care (or care ethics) approach does not (...) reject care for enemies but suggests that extension to them occurs when there is no significant difference in severity to comrades first. It also calls on a different form of care called ethical caring, which as opposed to natural caring requires introspection on behalf of the caregiver. Ethics of care distinguishes treatment of the enemy from emotionally detached positions. Emotional detachment rejects the call to care and denies the development of a relationship, which is a foundational principle of care ethics. (shrink)

Studying the military thinking and military history of the Middle Ages, one can observe several forms of warfare ideologies. Three of these ideologies are the holy war ideology, the ideology of ordeal (or iudicium Dei), and the traditional just war theory. Every such ideology has the common characteristic of a stronger or weaker link to concepts of a Christian God, religion, or church. Beyond this common characteristic, the ideologies differ from each other in some key respects. The holy war ideology (...) applies first and foremost the concept of God, traditional just war theory applies the concept of justice, and the ideology of ordeal relies on both the concepts of God and justice. This article presents the ideology of ordeal as a form of just war thinking, and describes its features through historical examples, through its essence, and in contrast to other ideologies. (shrink)

This essay investigates the change in the Catholic attitude toward nuclear weapons as articulated by Pope Francis. Francis has generally followed the position of his immediate predecessors with regard to the Catholic teaching on just war. While the resort to armed force remains a morally justifiable option if the principles of just war have been met, the pope forcefully emphasises the tools of nonviolent peacebuilding. Recently, however, Francis made an original just war argument when he broke with the Church’s established (...) position on nuclear weapons. The pope declared both the use and possession of nuclear weapons “immoral” and, thus, abandoned the Church’s reluctant acceptance of nuclear deterrence that had survived the end of the Cold War. In this essay, I analyse the rationale behind Francis’s decision to break with nuclear deterrence, which is mainly grounded in the disillusionment about the failed promise of nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, I assess the impact of the new position with regard to Catholic soldiers serving in nuclear armed militaries. (shrink)

In Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Michael Walzer (2015, 3) wrote this unforgettable line to introduce his work: “For as long as men and women have talked abou...

This article describes a new and innovative methodology for calibrating trust in ethical actions by Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS). For the foreseeable future, LAWS will require human operators for mission planning, decision-making, and supervisory control; yet humans lack the cognitive bandwidth and processing speed to make prompt, real-time ethical decisions. As a result, trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be required to support ethical decision-making. We use a Bayesian ethical decision model for: (1) human setting of ethical preferences and thresholds (...) in accordance with Laws of War and tactical criteria; and (2) highlighting the factors that contribute to strike/no-strike recommendations for human evaluation. The model can perform an ethical analysis, provide a quantitative ethical strike/no-strike score, and recommend actions to reduce decision uncertainty. In this article, we describe successful initial evaluation trials of the Bayesian model and of a human interface for interaction with the model. Our Bayesian ethical decision model has an immediate application in wargames; the model can also be used to train operators in understanding the principles and key factors relevant to ethical decision-making; and it may eventually be used in actual military operations employing LAWS. (shrink)

Little research has explored the perceptions of military medical providers in the deployed environment and how their perceptions may change over time across an extended military conflict. To our knowledge, no studies have examined military medical providers’ opinions on readiness for their roles in the post-9/11 contingency operations. What has been published indicates that, during the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, military medical providers often deployed with little notice and minimal formal training. The present report examines data obtained from multiple (...) cohorts of military medical providers (N = 321) deployed to Iraq between 2005 and 2009. Despite varying degrees of support from the U.S. public, our findings indicate that U.S. Air Force military medical providers’ support for the people of Iraq, their belief in the mission, and their ability to influence change did not vary with time. (shrink)

This issue of our journal – while asking crucial questions about today’s world and our future challenges – contains thoughtful pieces attending to history. It has been compiled while the war in Ukr...

At this writing, late in 2023 and on the eve of 2024, we are approaching the seventy-fifth anniversary of George Orwell’s 1984 and its many quotable passages such as “WAR IS PEACE.” Like 1949, the...

Immanuel Kant adopted the imperative sapere aude (dare to reason, know, or be wise) as the guiding principle for his writings, and this maxim became recognized as the hallmark of the Enlightenment...

Tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel remain missing in action (MIA). U.S. law requires that our MIAs be accounted for and that the government maintain a comprehensive, coordinated, integrated and fully resourced program dedicated to accomplishing this enormous task. The aim of this paper is to show that there is also a moral requirement. There is a moral duty to repatriate U.S. military personnel, a duty that is grounded in our individual right to self-defense.

To be publishing this journal as the brutality of war is on display every night on our television screens may seem simultaneously futile and deeply meaningful. With the horrors of Gaza, Israel, and...