In order to maximize human performance, defence forces continue to explore, develop, and apply human performance enhancement (HPE) methods, ranging from pharmaceuticals to (bio)technological enhancement. This raises ethical, legal, and societal concerns and requires organizing a careful reflection and deliberation process, with relevant stakeholders. We discuss a range of ethical, legal, and societal aspects (ELSA), which people involved in the development and deployment of HPE can use for such reflection and deliberation. A realistic military scenario with proposed HPE application can (...) serve as a starting point for such an iterative and participatory process. Stakeholders can discuss this application, modify its features, and design appropriate processes around it – for instance, procedures for informed consent. We propose that organizing aspects into these three categories – ethical, legal, and societal – can help involve appropriate interlocutors at different moments: legal aspects with people in strategy or management roles, from the start of a project; ethical aspects with people in operations and medical roles, during development; and societal aspects with people in communication and personnel roles, during deployment. Notably, we developed and discussed this framework and the three aspects in close collaboration with personnel from the military. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with thoughts for further research.

This paper focuses on Information Warfare—the warfare characterised by the use of information and communication technologies. This is a fast growing phenomenon, which poses a number of issues ranging from the military use of such technologies to its political and ethical implications. The paper presents a conceptual analysis of this phenomenon with the goal of investigating its nature. Such an analysis is deemed to be necessary in order to lay the groundwork for future investigations into this topic, addressing (...) the ethical problems engendered by this kind of warfare. The conceptual analysis is developed in three parts. First, it delineates the relation between Information Warfare and the Information revolution. It then focuses attention on the effects that the diffusion of this phenomenon has on the concepts of war. On the basis of this analysis, a definition of Information Warfare is provided as a phenomenon not necessarily sanguinary and violent, and rather transversal concerning the environment in which it is waged, the way it is waged and the ontological and social status of its agents. The paper concludes by taking into consideration the Just War Theory and the problems arising from its application to the case of Information Warfare. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Warfare of Democratic Ideals There is at least one novel quality in the current warfare of democratic ideals. Probably never before has there been so much disagreement and confusion as to the determination of the mean ing of democracy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the (...) work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This study analyzes the domestic political, economic, and social conditions in the Western Balkans that provide fertile ground for hostile and maligned actors to manipulate and exploit governments and societies with hybrid war measures, namely cyberattacks and cyber intrusions and disinformation and fake news. It begins with a review and assessment of the prevailing empirical and theoretical literature on hybrid warfare. It then describes two leading empirical indices that measure degrees of permeability and structural vulnerability that elevate or reduce (...) the risks associated with maligned and hostile interventions. The article also examines leading indicators measuring resilience levels in cybersecurity and media/information literacy, highlighting political, social, and economic vulnerabilities. It concludes by suggesting that domestic conditions in the region encourage maligned and hostile actors, especially Russia and for different reasons and to a lesser extent China and Turkey, to use hybrid measures to exploit the region. The article proposes that in addition to strengthening institutions and trust, membership in NATO and the E.U. are directly related to mitigating structural vulnerability and reducing uncertainty and insecurity in the Western Balkans. (shrink)

This special issue of Human Nature presents selected works from the 2015 and 2017 “Warfare, Environment, Social Inequality, and Pro-Sociability” conferences held at the Center for Cross-Cultural Study in Seville, Spain. These investigations explore the manifestations of indigenous warfare and violence from a host of theoretical perspectives. Topics range from the origins of warfare to the psychological repercussions of combat, the relationship between warfare and status, as well as the documentation of peace processes among warring groups. (...) This issue also examines the effects of militarization and coercive conservation on indigenous peoples. (shrink)

..............................................................................................101 I. The Idea of a Noncombatant ........................................................104 II. The Moral Shield Protecting Noncombatants.............................106 A. Accommodation.......................................................................107 B. Guilty Past ...............................................................................107 C. Guilty Bystander Trying to Inflict Harm .................................109 D. Guilty Bystander Disposed to Inflict Harm .............................109 E. Guilty Bystander Exulting in Anticipated Evil ........................109 F. Fault Forfeits First Doctrine in Just Warfare ...........................110 III. Noncombatants as Wrongful Trespassers ...................................110 IV. The Noncombatant Status of Captured Soldiers ........................111 V. Guerrilla Combat ..........................................................................116 VI. Morally Innocent Unjust Combatants.........................................118 VII. Should Rights Reflect (...) What We Can Know? ............................121 VIII. Absolute and Moderate Construction of the Revised Right.. (shrink)

It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims to (...) examine the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upperand middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain. Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period. (shrink)

As we approach the 21st century, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has lessened somewhat, but a new threat has emerged: biological warfare. The splitting of the atom eventually led to the detonation of atomic bombs, and the discovery of DNA may soon lead to the use of genetic weapons. This article argues that the scientific community has a responsibility to help protect the world against the threat of biological weapons.

An exploration of the production, transmission, and mutation of affective tonality—when sound helps produce a bad vibe.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Epistemological Warfare and Hope in Critical Dystopia by Emrah AtasoyClaire P. CurtisEmrah Atasoy. Epistemological Warfare and Hope in Critical Dystopia. Ankara: Nobel Bilimsel Eserler, 2021. vii+ 167 pp. ISBN: 978-625-7589-04-8This book is an application of the idea of critical dystopia to three understudied novels and the beginning of an argument about utopian desire itself. Emrah Atasoy, a prolific author who reviewed Turkish speculative fiction in a (...) well-received 2021 Utopian Studies article, is modeling a search for hope in dystopian texts. In this book, derived from his dissertation, he examines three British novels written in three different eras of the twentieth century: Katherine Burdekin's Swastika Night (1937), Anthony Burgess's The Wanting Seed (1962), and P. D. James's The Children of Men (1992). In each novel, Atasoy argues, the protagonists move from an ignorance that served the interest of the dystopian forces to a resistant knowledge that should be read as offering hope, both as resistance and as knowledge.The book is organized in a straightforward way, with an introduction, conclusion, and then three analytical chapters, one for each of the novels. The introduction is expansive, offering both brief surveys of the nature of utopia and dystopia and a recounting of a number of themes taken up by dystopian texts: education, politics, gender roles, family life, and more. Layered onto this is a discussion of theorizing around knowledge and power and the transition from ignorance to understanding. The chapters focused on the individual novels are all similarly expansive. Atasoy offers biographical information about the authors along with considerations of the primary social and political events to which the authors might be responding. The analyses of the novels focus primarily on the motivations of the protagonists, but interspersed in the plot summaries are narrative cul-de-sacs explaining particular textual details (for example, the discussion of Theo's choice of the Greek statue of Diadoumenos as allocation to leave a note for the Warden [James, 37]). These [End Page 519] little detours are often interesting but can be distracting from the primary analytic focus.The analyses themselves also cover a lot of territory. The middle section of the chapter on The Children of Men (118–34) includes discussions of power, eugenics, religion, sexuality, punishment, assisted suicide, and immigration. Each of these is used to elucidate modes of social and political control wielded by the Warden, but the sheer number of issues included in the fast-moving analysis left me wanting more. Atasoy's analysis of Quietus nicely captures the ways in which James has created a world where the elderly are both encouraged and manipulated to end their lives for the good of the whole. This discussion fits especially well with the larger focus of his analysis on modes of social engineering. Fewer themes and more close readings like this one would have deepened the reading experience. But for anyone beginning a project on one of these novels, this book is a good place to start.This book begins and ends with the interesting contention that times of catastrophe diminish the literary production of utopia, and potentially the capacity for hope itself. While the point of this book is not to defend this claim empirically, it is one worth considering for any scholar of utopia, or any person interested in the potential of future change for the better. The book may underplay the fact of twentieth-century literary utopias (there is a brief discussion of the feminist utopias written in the 1970s and 1980s), but it is surely correct that there is an imbalance in the production of utopia in favor of dystopia. Utopias are more challenging to construct and potentially (especially in this day and time) less formulaic than dystopia, which is an increasingly popular (and marketable) genre.Kim Stanley Robinson noted in a recent interview that "[utopias] shape people's conception of what's possible that could be good in the future."1 Atasoy's book offers the possibility that a close reading of dystopian texts might well help us uncover other ways of finding out what future good is possible. By extolling the value of finding the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:WORKING WARFARE AND ITS RESTRICTIONS IN THE JEWiSH TRADITION Reuven Kimelman Brandeis University The test case for any political theory of checks and balances is war. It also tests the outer limits of the ethical deployment of power. I. Types of Wars The Jewish ethics of war focuses on two issues: its legitimation and its conduct. The Talmud classifies wars according to their source oflegitimation. Biblically mandated wars (...) are termed mandatory (milhemet mitzvah or milhemet hovah). Wars undertaken at the discretion of the Sanhédrin are termed discretionary (milhemet reshut). There are three types of mandatory wars: Joshua's war of conquest againstthe seven Canaanite nations, the war againstAmaleq, anddefensive wars against an already launched attack. Discretionary wars are usually expansionary efforts undertaken to enhance the political prestige of the government or to secure economic gain. The first type of mandatory war is only of historical interest as the Canaanite nations lost their national identity already in ancient times. This ruling, which appears repeatedly in rabbinic literature, is part ofa tendency to blunt the impact of the seven-nations policy. The Bible points out that these policies were not implemented even during the zenith of ancient Israel's power (Kings 9:20; 2 Chr 8:7-9; see also Judges 1:21-33, Ps 106:34). Indeed, an ancient Midrash explicitly excludes the possibility of transferring the seven-nations ruling to other non-Jewish residents of the Land ofIsrael. Maimonides is just as explicit in emphasizing that all trace 44Reuven Kimmelman of them has vanished. By limiting the jurisdiction of the seven-nations ruling to the conditions ofancient Canaan it was effectively removed from the postbiblical ethical agendaand vitiated as aprecedent forcontemporary practice. The second category ofmandatory war, against Amaleq, has also been rendered operationally defunct by comparing them with the Canaanites, or by postponing the battle to the immediate premessianic struggle, or by viewing them as a metaphor for genocidal evil. The two remaining categories, reactive defensive wars (which are classified as mandatory) and expansionary wars (which are classified as discretionary) remain intact. So, for example, King David's response to the Philistine attackaredesignated mandatory, whereashis wars "to expandthe border of Israel" are designated discretionary. Intermediate wars such as preventive, anticipatory, or preemptive defy so neat a classification. Not only are the classifications debated in the Talmud, but commentators disagree on the categorization of the differing positions in the Talmud. The major clash occurs between the eleventh century Franco-German scholar Rashi and the thirteenth century Franco-Provencal scholar Meiri. According to Rashi, the majority position considers preemptive action to be discretionary whereas the minority position expounded by Rabbi Judah considers it to be mandatory. According to Meiri, a preemptive strike, against an enemy who it is feared might attack or who is already known to be preparing for war is deemed mandatory by the majority ofthe rabbis, but discretionaryby Rabbi Judah. Accordingly, Rabbi Judah defines a counterattack as mandatory only in response to an already launched attack. A similar reading of Maimonides also limits the mandatory classification to a defensive war launched in response to an attack. With these distinctions between mandatory and discretionary wars in mind, we should be able to investigate the Jewish concerns with the problematics ofwarby focusing on preemptive strikes, declarations ofwar, ethics of warfare, and draftability. II. Preemptive Strikes as Self-Defense Not only Machiavellians view the security and survival ofthe state as nonnegotiable. National self-defense is as much amoral right as is personal self-preservation. Whereas it is clear that offensive war cannot be subsumed under the inalienable right of self-defense, the moral status of pre-emptive attacks is not as clear. Is the moral category of self-defense Working Warfare and Its Restrictions in the Jewish Tradition 45 limited to an already launched attack? The majority talmudic position, according to Rashi, and that of Rabbi Judah, according to Meiri, would answer in the affirmative. Their position is seconded by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which states: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherentright ofindividual ofcollective self-defense ifan armed attack occurs against a member." The minority position of Rabbi Judah, according to Rashi, and the... (shrink)

Abstract:Early modern efforts to justify warfare entailed serious reflection on the relationship between Christianity and nature or natural law. Those working in a Thomist tradition could draw on a concept of natural law as an ethical system distinct from Christianity; others rejected that concept, working instead to show that warfare could form part of the duties of Christians. All sides recognized the tension between the words of Christ and the demands of human political life, especially when it came (...) to defending military activity. That tension produced creative discussions of natural law, political thought, and theology, in the universities and beyond. (shrink)

Cognitive warfare—controlling others’ mental states and behaviors by manipulating environmental stimuli—is a significant and ever-evolving issue in global conflict and security, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. In this article, we aim to contribute to the field by proposing a two-dimensional framework to evaluate China's cognitive warfare and explore promising ways of counteracting it. We first define the problem by clarifying relevant concepts and then present a case study of China's attack on Taiwan. Next, based on predictive coding theory (...) from the cognitive sciences, we offer a framework to explain how China's cognitive warfare works and to what extent it succeeds. We argue that this framework helps identify vulnerable targets and better explains some of the conflicting data in the literature. Finally, based on the framework, we predict China's strategy and discuss Taiwan's options in terms of cognitive and structural interventions. (shrink)

Introduction. The complexity of the modern world causes a person to be overloaded with information and a desire to automate and simplify all these processes. Such a reaction is a natural response of the psyche, which strives to prevent excessive stress. At the same time, this natural defensive reaction is manipulated by forces that have the ability to control information and pursue their own narrowly focused goals. This is how the phenomenon of information warfare appeared and developed. The purpose (...) of the study is to consider information as a way of negative impact in the context of modern information wars. Methods. The author uses an axiological approach that reveals the importance of studying war not only from a materialistic perspective, but also from a spiritual, value-based one; the method of systematization allows us to consider at first glance disparate phenomena and events as part of a single system; using the structural and functional method, the phenomenon of information is comprehensively studied and the key mechanisms of its influence on humans and society are pointed out. Scientific novelty of the research. The paper examines the features of information that allow it to be used both in a positive and negative direction. The author provides current data on information wars and analyzes the involvement of modern Russia in all these processes. Information warfare is considered from the standpoint of a predominantly axiological approach, while exploring the possibilities of the influence of new types of information warfare on the processes of changing value orientations and spiritual traditions. It also reveals the importance of the ideology of “Western values” in the context of information warfare, which represents a new stage in the long process of civilizational confrontation. Results. Information is studied as a philosophical category, its functions and other characteristics are highlighted. Various approaches to studying information warfare are presented. The distinctive features of information warfare as a type of new generation wars are highlighted. Special attention is paid to the disclosure of the axiology of information warfare, as well as ways to counter information aggression. Conclusions. A successful society in the 21st century should be able to use the latest technologies to preserve its uniqueness, identity, and national identity to counter the information wars of modernity. (shrink)

Ibn Khaldun and Ernest Gellner have both developed comprehensive yet very different theories of social cohesion. Whereas Ibn Khaldun traces the development of intense group solidarity to the ascetic lifestyles of nomadic warriors, for Gellner social cohesion is a product of different material conditions. In contrast to Ibn Khaldun?s theory, where all social ties are generated through similar social processes, in Gellner?s model the patterns of collective solidarity change through time, that is, different societies produce different forms of social cohesion. (...) While Ibn Khaldun argues that asbiyyah is the backbone of group unity in all social orders, Gellner insists that modern societies are underpinned by very different type of collective solidarity than their premodern counterparts. In this paper I offer a critique of Ibn Khaldun?s and Gellner?s theories of social cohesion and develop an alternative explanation, which situates the social dynamics of group solidarity in the organisational and ideological legacies of warfare. (shrink)

Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the...

Abstract Contemporary English and Chinese scholars alike have interpreted Sunzi's Art of War as advocating amoralism in warfare. That charge has a long history in pre-modern China and has not been fully refuted. This essay argues that the alleged amoral Machiavellianism is more appropriate for ancient Qin military thought than for Sunzi. The third chapter of Sunzi's treatise contains a distinctive moral perspective that cannot be found in the military thought of the state of Qin, which succeeded in defeating (...) all other states in the Period of the Warring States. Such a moral perspective contains both ad bellum and in bello norms. I submit that my interpretation of Sunzi's warfare ethics can provide an important resource for the People's Liberation Army of China to construct full-scale just war ethics that is similar to Western understandings. (shrink)

Saint Augustine of Hippo was one of the most influential Western Christian theologians. Sri Aurobindo Ghose was a political revolutionary and later a spiritual master with a worldwide reputation. Augustine and Aurobindo were very different religiously and politically, but on the issue of justifying warfare, there are remarkable parallels between them. To begin, pragmatic considerations formed the core of most of their arguments. Furthermore, they buttressed their core points with considerations from the religious domain. These included discussing the inward (...) disposition of the warrior, countering ethical reservations about fighting, and mentioning possible, spiritual benefits from warfare. Yet, in spite of the parallels, the two men would have found little to agree on, as their approaches to both governance and religion were very different. Augustine’s approach was statist whereas Aurobindo’s was revolutionary. (shrink)

In the present article the author studies and reviews the essential scientific opinions and discourse on the understanding of the term and phenomena of Cybernetics. The article is the author's vision of the concept of cybernetic epistemology based on its progressive methodological features. The main idea of the understanding of the information warfare category as a complex social system in the context of cybernetic epistemology is also developed in the present research. The concept of complexity theory has not yet (...) been applied in the study of ontological characteristics of the "information warfare" phenomenon so far. This kind of analyzing method allows us to highlight the true essential characteristics of "information warfare". There are recursiveness and spontaneous nature among them. This kind of epistemology methods and their possible and proper application in Cybernetics were analyzed and reviewed in the present paper. Such an analyzing confirmed the relevance of this research for the formalization of the world’s complex phenomena. It also determined the possibility of constructive generalization of knowledge and research data. However, this knowledge should be gained in the process of complex formalization of the studied phenomena characteristics and the maximum permissible changes and transformation in their conditions and forms. (shrink)

Building on and partially refining previous theoretical work, this paper presents an extended simulation model of ancestral warfare. This model (1) disentangles attack and defense, (2) tries to differentiate more strictly between selfish and altruistic efforts during war, (3) incorporates risk aversion and deterrence, and (4) pays special attention to the role of brutality. Modeling refinements and simulation results yield a differentiated picture of possible evolutionary dynamics. The main observations are: (i) Altruism in this model is more likely to (...) evolve for defenses than for attacks. (ii) Risk aversion, deterrence and the interplay of migration levels and brutality can change evolutionary dynamics substantially. (iii) Unexpectedly, one occasional simulation outcome is a dynamically stable state of ‘tolerated intergroup theft’, raising the question if corresponding patterns also exist in real intergroup conflicts. Finally, possible implications for theories of the co-evolution of bellicosity and altruism in humans are discussed. (shrink)

In order to address whether states can ever have the proper authority to militarily punish other international agents, I examine three attempts to justify punitive warfare from Augustine, Grotius and Locke for their relevance to both our contemporary international legal and political order and our contemporary security threats from sporadic terrorist or militant violence. Once a plausible model for a state’s valid authority to punish international agents is found, I will consider what punitive aims it can support and what (...) challenges such punitive warfare would have in satisfying the remaining jus ad bellum conditions. (shrink)

From North Korea's recent attacks on Sony to perpetual news reports of successful hackings and criminal theft, cyber conflict has emerged as a major topic of public concern. Yet even as attacks on military, civilian, and commercial targets have escalated, there is not yet a clear set of ethical guidelines that apply to cyber warfare. Indeed, like terrorism, cyber warfare is commonly believed to be a war without rules. Given the prevalence cyber warfare, developing a practical moral (...) code for this new form of conflict is more important than ever. In Ethics and Cyber Warfare, internationally-respected ethicist George Lucas delves into the confounding realm of cyber conflict. Comparing "state-sponsored hacktivism" to the transformative impact of "irregular warfare" in conventional armed conflict, Lucas offers a critique of legal approaches to governance, and outlines a new approach to ethics and "just war" reasoning. Lucas draws upon the political philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, and Jürgen Habermas to provide a framework for understanding these newly-emerging standards for cyber conflict, and ultimately presents a professional code of ethics for a new generation of "cyber warriors." Lucas concludes with a discussion of whether preemptive self-defense efforts - such as the massive government surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden - can ever be justified, addressing controversial topics such as privacy, anonymity, and public trust. Well-reasoned and timely, Ethics and Cyber Warfare is a must-read for anyone with an interest in philosophy, ethics, or cybercrime. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek HistoriansJohn WalshPeter Hunt. Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xiv + 246 pp. Cloth, $59.95.Put briefly, the theses of this book (a revised Stanford dissertation) may be stated as follows. (1) The role and importance of slaves in warfare of the Classical period were greater than is generally believed to be (...) the case. This misapprehension exists because Greek historians of the Classical period (most notably Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon) routinely underestimate, even suppress, the contributions made by slaves to a city's success in war, whether in strategy or on the field, because of reluctance to face the fact that then slaves would be operating on the same level as was fitting for their free, and presumably better, masters. (2) Modern historians too have been unwilling to face squarely the extent of involvement by slaves in some of the most important campaigns and battles of the Classical period. Hunt attempts to rectify this situation through a thorough review of slaves' participation in Greek warfare [End Page 313] from the Persian Wars down to Xenophon. (The book concludes with a chapter of a comparative nature, on the Volones, slaves who fought for Rome in the Second Punic War; Islamic Mamluks; and slaves who fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.)It is certainly true that historians of the Classical period do not present us with anything close to a complete account of slaves' participation in Greek warfare. But all modern historians of the ancient world complain about the same thing: the lack of ancient sources for matters in which they are most interested. In fact, as I was reading this book, I developed an impression quite different from Hunt's concerning the extent to which slaves in war are discussed by the historians under question. I was surprised by the considerable attention which these writers paid to the issue. Were Hunt's thesis about the reluctance of Greek writers to discuss the issue so obviously correct, I would have expected far less material than Hunt has managed to discover and collect.Hunt's accounting is taken from the fifth century and is selective even at that. We are told about slaves' participation in battle at Thermopylae, Plataea, Pylos, Decelaea, Sphacteria, during Brasidas' campaign in the Thraceward region, and at Mantinaea and Arginusae. We know from Pausanias that slaves fought at Marathon. Herodotus does not mention them, and Hunt's suspicions (42) are representative of his position throughout the book: "The omission of these slaves is so striking one is tempted to call it suppression." The participation of slaves at Salamis is very likely, though not certain. Admittedly, many of these mentions are sketchy and most probably do not do justice to the role played by slaves, whether in combat or otherwise. But it may be more a matter of the glass being either half empty or half full, depending upon one's point of view. Consider the following conclusion: "Thucydides puts the Messenians and Athens' support of them in the background as he does all slave involvement in the Peloponnesian War" (63). Now, this may or may not be true for Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War, but it is certainly not the case in his Pentecontaetia. The defining moment in Thucydides' understanding of the importance of the Pentecontaetia for the Peloponnesian War is the course of events which led up to and followed the "open split" between Athens and Sparta (1.102.3). Given the brevity of his account of these years, the amount of space and depth of detail which he allows the Helots' revolt at Ithome and its aftermath is striking. Thucydides at times did concentrate on slaves' involvement in Greek warfare, presumably when he thought that its importance warranted such treatment. Similarly, slaves serving as rowers in the Athenian fleet at the battle of Arginusae most certainly did make a major contribution to the victory, and it is for this reason that their role is mentioned by no fewer than three contemporary sources: Hellanicus, Aristophanes, and Xenophon.Hunt is skeptical about Herodotus' account of the Helots... (shrink)

This book offers an overview of the ethical problems posed by Information Warfare, and of the different approaches and methods used to solve them, in order to provide the reader with a better grasp of the ethical conundrums posed by this new form of warfare. -/- The volume is divided into three parts, each comprising four chapters. The first part focuses on issues pertaining to the concept of Information Warfare and the clarifications that need to be made (...) in order to address its ethical implications. The second part collects contributions focusing on Just War Theory and its application to the case of Information Warfare. The third part adopts alternative approaches to Just War Theory for analysing the ethical implications of this phenomenon. Finally, an afterword by Neelie Kroes - Vice President of the European Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner - concludes the volume. Her contribution describes the interests and commitments of the European Digital Agenda with respect to research for the development and deployment of robots in various circumstances, including warfare. (shrink)

I use an explanation of Yanomami warfare given by the anthropologist Brian Ferguson as a case study to compare the merits of the causal and unification approaches to explanation. I argue that Ferguson's insistence on explaining actual occurrences and patterns of Yanomami warfare together with his claim that all of his generalizations are statistical raises difficulties for the unification approach, because of its commitment to "deductive chauvinism." Moreover, I show that there are serious difficulties involved in comparing the (...) "unifying power" of Ferguson's explanations to those of his competitors. I show that the causal approach can provide a rich analysis of Ferguson's explanation while avoiding these difficulties. (shrink)

The socio-religious panorama of the African religion deserves a close observation of its foundation and function. The perception of the spirit world is dominant in Africa. Similarly, spiritual warfare in the African context is prevalent in the mind and worldview of an African. Spiritual warfare derives its framework from African Traditional Religion (ATR). Hence, understanding ATR’s complexity helps us with the understanding of spiritual warfare. Some essential questions to understand would be what is spiritual warfare from (...) an ATR perspective? How do Africans perceive spiritual warfare? And how do Africans engage in spiritual warfare? What is the place of ATR in spiritual warfare? African Traditional Religion acknowledges the reality and functionality of witchcraft. The perception of the reality of evil forces in Africa attracts all forms of spiritual rites, seeking more extraordinary spiritual powers for defensive and offensive spiritual warfare. This article argues that the effectual Christian response to spiritual warfare with witchcraft practices in Africa is ‘the classical model’ of spiritual warfare. The article provides a synopsis of the models of spiritual warfare, that is, the classical model (CW), world systems model (WSM), ground-level deliverance model (GLDM), and strategic-level deliverance model (SLSW). Subsequently, the article provides the framework for African spiritual warfare and witchcraft practices from traditional and contemporary perspectives. Lastly, the article argues that the Evangelical Christian Response to witchcraft practices is rooted in ‘the classical model’ of spiritual warfare. Contribution: The article contributes to African religiosity within the African context. It reveals the ongoing argument about the continuity and discontinuity of the ATR beliefs and practices in Christianity. The article adds to the evangelical or classical arguments in support of the discontinuity of ATR beliefs and practices in Christianity. (shrink)

Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel. By Mark R. E. Meulenbeld. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 273. $57.

This article characterises the nature of cognitive warfare and its use of disinformation and computational propaganda and its political and military purposes in war and in conflict short of war. It discusses both defensive and offensive measures to counter cognitive warfare and, in particular, measures that comply with relevant moral principles.

The origins and consequences of warfare or largescale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochial altruism model and subsistence model. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism and the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes (...) induced by agriculture. Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable. (shrink)

Taddeo’s recent article, ‘Information Warfare: A Philosophical Perspective’ (Philos. Technol. 25:105–120, 2012) is a useful addition to the literature on information communications technologies (ICTs) and warfare. In this short response, I draw attention to two issues arising from the article. The first concerns the applicability of ‘information warfare’ terminology to current political and military discourse, on account of its relative lack of contemporary usage. The second engages with the political and ethical implications of treating ICT environments as (...) a ‘domain’, with its ramifications for the pursuit of ‘dominion’, particularly through military action. (shrink)

This book chapter addresses two questions. First, can targeted killing by drones in non-battlefield zones be justified on basis of just war theory? Second, will the proliferation and expansion of combat drones in warfare, including the introduction of autonomous drones, be an obstacle to initiating or executing wars in a just manner in the future? The first question is answered by applying traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles to the American targeted killing campaign in Pakistan; the (...) second question is answered on basis of principles of “just military preparedness” or jus ante bellum, a new category of just war thinking. It is concluded that an international ban on weaponized drones is morally imperative and, certainly, that an international treaty against autonomous lethal weapons should be adopted. (shrink)

In this article I propose an ethical analysis of information warfare, the warfare waged in the cyber domain. The goal is twofold: filling the theoretical vacuum surrounding this phenomenon and providing the conceptual grounding for the definition of new ethical regulations for information warfare. I argue that Just War Theory is a necessary but not sufficient instrument for considering the ethical implications of information warfare and that a suitable ethical analysis of this kind of warfare (...) is developed when Just War Theory is merged with Information Ethics. In the initial part of the article, I describe information warfare and its main features and highlight the problems that arise when Just War Theory is endorsed as a means of addressing ethical problems engendered by this kind of warfare. In the final part, I introduce the main aspects of Information Ethics and define three principles for a just information warfare resulting from the integration of Just War Theory and Information Ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van (...) der Linden’s call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

This article explores the effects of our technological way of war, for the first time driving toward total combatant immunity, on the psyche of combatants and the ethos of a warrior. It is a plea for the preservation of a warrior spirit, or at least a warrior class, that views war in a philosophical and personal manner. The article posits that without a sense of the tragic, without a personal test of will and skill often at great individual risk, we (...) can find no real meaning in war. It argues that the warrior dimension of immunity in warfare has somehow altered our experience of war, yet the effects of this ‘virtual war’ are still ambiguous – we do not yet know whether executing warfare through long-distance video desensitizes the ‘remote warrior’ or enhances his/her experience of killing. We do not yet know how combatants ‘commuting’ to war from home and being transported 7000 miles into battle through this ‘miracle’ of technology will handle the consequences of what the nation is asking them to do. We kn.. (shrink)

(1979). CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION AGAINST WARFARE: A Juridical Perspective from the Calvinistic Point of View. Philosophical Papers: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 56-64.

Thomas Aquinas, one of the "founding fathers" of just war theory, offers an account of virtuous warfare in practice. The author argues that Aquinas's approach to warfare, with its emphasis on justice and charity, is helpful in providing a coherent moral account of war to which Christians can subscribe. Particular attention is given to the role of charity, since this virtue is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian soldier. Charity compels him to soldier justly, and by fighting justly, (...) he is elevated by God to friendship with God. Notable features of this approach are its emphasis on the criteria for judging whether a war is just and its relativizing of the criteria for proper combat behavior. (shrink)

As part of the Issues in Military Ethics series, Cyber Warfare Ethics is an insightful anthology of cutting-edge articles that examine the potential and the hazards of cyber operations. Michael Ske...

I argue that warfare, typically seen as essentially and solely destructive, should be seen as essentially destructive, but accidentally creative. This view of war is then applied to the relationship between philosophy and warfare. The argument is made that the nature of warfare has been an influence on philosophy. This argument is made by considering the Athenian experience in the conflict at Delium where Socrates is known to have taken part.

Abstract Semi-autonomous robotic weapons are already carving out a role for themselves in modern warfare. Recently, Ronald Arkin has argued that autonomous lethal robotic systems could be more ethical than humans on the battlefield, and that this marks a significant reason in favour of their development and use. Here I offer a critical response to the position advanced by Arkin. Although I am sympathetic to the spirit of the motivation behind Arkin's project and agree that if we decide to (...) develop and use these machines they ought to be programmed to behave ethically, there are several major problems with his view as it stands. At present, it is not clear whether such machines would be capable of behaving more ethically than humans. More importantly, to the extent that humans would remain in the context of war, human moral transgressions will continue, especially in the face of complicated ethical challenges accompanying automated warfare. Moreover, even if machines could be more ethical than humans in certain ways and in certain situations, this says nothing about whether warfare that contains these machines would itself be overall more ethical than warfare that does not include them as participants, or whether the inclusion of lethal robots is the best way to guard against human moral transgressions in war. (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)