Tuesday, February 7, 2012

TED Talks on morality and non-lethal weapons

ISME Participant and military ethicist Stephen Coleman gives a nice TED talk about non-lethal weapons.

Interestingly, he spends a bit of time addressing the distinction between police officers and soldiers,  nicely talked about by Douglas Lackey in Iyyun a few years ago.

Another TED talk by Peter van Uhm - the Netherlands' Chief of Defense talks about the state monopoly on the use of force.

Some ethics questions from the news

Woah. Intersting. I wonder what ethicists will have to say about self-guided bullets.

Another question: Should medivac helicopters be armed?

What is the best military-wide response to ethics/war crimes/LOAC violations? Can Neuroscience shed light on the situation? (I'm not too sure.)

And speaking of neuroscience, what ethical strictures and oversight is needed over the military's use of neuroscience? How about when DARPA tests a way to zap a brain into quickly train snipers.

(Continuing from this post) I assume that the question of the ethics of remote killing via drone and other devices will not go away, though it is already being discussed and I think that there are anthologies coming out discussing this too. See herehere, here, and here for the issue in the news. And while we are on the topic, there are plenty of robots in use in militaries. See here for example.

UPDATE: Apparently there is a whole mailing list dedicated to drones. Also, it looks like the question about arming MEDIVAC helicopters is seriously being considered.