Abstract
Putting robots on the battlefield is clearly appealing for policymakers. Why risk human lives, when robots could take our place, and do the dirty work of killing and dying for us? Against this, I argue that robots will be unable to win the kind of wars that we are increasingly drawn into. Modern warfare tends towards asymmetric conflict. Asymmetric warfare cannot be won without gaining the trust of the civilian population; this is ‘the hearts and minds’, in the hackneyed phrase from counter-insurgency manuals. I claim that the very feature which makes it attractive to send robots to war in our place, the absence of risk, also makes it peculiarly difficult for humans to trust them. Whatever the attractions, sending robots to war in our stead will make success in counter-insurgency elusive. Moreover, there is ethical reason to be relieved at this conclusion. For if war is potentially costly, then this does much to ensure that it will be a choice only of last resort, in accordance with the traditional doctrine of jus ad bellum. In this instance, morality and expediency— fortunately— coincide.
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Notes
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer who points out that such a stance may tend towards ethical nihilism. Nonetheless, whether it entails this is a more complex matter. Such reflections are certainly a source of what C. A. J. Coady aptly describes as the ‘mood’ of realism, one which is misunderstood, and misunderstands itself, as opposed to all forms of morality (Coady 2008, p. 14). He argues that realism is better understood as an opposed to utopian distortions of morality, distortions which are not attentive to the facts of power and deserve the term ‘moralism’. The fact that the Just War tradition has generally recognised probability of success as a criterion of jus ad bellum admissibility indicates that it too is opposed to moralism.
A similar problem has been noted regarding the perception of ethics within business cultures. ‘[M]oral terms are abandoned because they seem to lack robustness. They suggest ideals and special pleadings without too much organizational weight’ (Bird and Waters 1989, p. 78).
‘My assessment of your trustworthiness in a particular context is simply my trust of you.’ (Hardin 2002, p. 10).
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing this objection.
I am grateful to Alex Oliver, the editors and two anonymous referees for valuable comments and criticism. This paper was presented at the 7th European Computing and Philosophy conference, Munich. The research was financially supported by Microsoft Research Cambridge.
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Simpson, T.W. Robots, Trust and War. Philos. Technol. 24, 325–337 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-011-0030-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-011-0030-y