The ethical conduct of war is already a murky and complex issue but it is important to attempt to analyze emerging military technologies and determine if anything useful can be said about their potential ethical use. In this paper I will analyze telerobotic weapon systems form the standpoint of the issues raised by the impact of these systems on the philosophy of technology and the just war tradition.

Telerobots are one of the most successful applications of recent robotics technologies. A telerobot is any machine that is controlled by an operator at a distance and used to perform actions which otherwise would have been performed by a human agent.   These machines have been successfully employed in many roles running the gamut from planetary exploration to sewer repair.   These robots allow humans agents to extend their presence into arenas that are too distant, dangerous, or repugnant for humans to easily operate in.   One job that fits all three of these criteria is the modern battlefield. Because of this, telerobotics is generating a lot of interest as a force multiplier, since it promises to be a way to allow a small number of professional operators to remotely control robots in both support and direct combat functions.   The political motivation for the pursuit of these technologies is clear. If successful systems can be built, then they will provide a way for warfare to be conducted with a greatly reduced casualty rate. The various bomb removal machines already seeing action are a prime example of this phenomenon. But as these machines move from support roles to direct combat important ethical questions are quickly raised. After a brief overview of current telerobotic military technologies, this paper will identify and address the most important ethical issues surrounding the design and use of this technology.

The first ethical issue addressed will be the effects of distancing the operator from the location of military activity. There are both positive and negative properties afforded by the distance from the action that telerobotics provides. One major benefit is the removal of the human operator from harms way. When something goes wrong all that is lost is some expensive, but completely replaceable, machinery. From the individuals point of view this is quite possibly an unmitigated good.   But when we look at it from a different perspective we can see that there are a number of potential ethical problems with this arrangement. This distancing helps facilitate political arguments that propagate the impression that modern warfare can be a sanitized and surgical affair. I will argue that this could be a powerful disincentive towards accountability and media scrutiny of military affairs.

A second issue is the creation of shift work soldiers. The Predator aircraft, a telerobotic reconnaissance and weapons platform already in use in foreign theaters of operation, is flown by pilots who live and work in the United States.   They commute to work each day, fight the War on Terror, and return home to their every day lives. I will discuss the effects that this normalizing of warfare has on the special ethical place that warfare inhabits in the just war theory. Just war theory attempts to outline the ethical conduct of war based on the maintenance of certain preconditions that prescribe the morality of any given war or action committed in the progress of a war. One of these preconditions is the requirement that the use of force be limited to actions that aim at concluding the conflict and regaining peace. If the conduct of warfare becomes equivalent to a day at the office, might we not lose interest in its speedy conclusion? Given that only large technologically advanced countries such as the United States can produce and maintain telerobots, and that the majority of opponents to countries such as the United States do not have telerobots themselves, then we are likely to see a continual rise in the blood shed by our opponents with a welcome decrease in that shed by ourselves. This can tend to make war more of a palatable political expedience which will increase the chance of continued warfare and decrease the chance of peace, thus conflicting with the concept of a just war.

Related to the last issue raised is the question of the moral equality of soldiers, which is a key component of Michael Walzer’s theory on just war (Walzer, 1977). Since it is difficult for each individual soldier to properly work though all the nuances of the conflict he or she might be involved in, they do not lose their status as moral agents simply by being on the wrong side of a conflict. Telerobotic weapons systems place a tremendous antiseptic layer of technology between the combatants which may help each side to dehumanize the other.   The operator of the machine will see his or her enemy as little more than thermal images on a screen and the human combatant will see only the animated weapons of his or her foe. This type of warfare could ferment an even deeper hatred than that already fostered by current modes of armed conflict.

In addition to these topics I will argue that work in the philosophy of technology shows us that political and ethical values are incorporated into the design of technologies in ways that often go unnoticed. Given this argument, we can see that the design of telerobotic weapon systems can foster values that either extend just war ideals or not. I will suggest some ways in which this technology can be designed that will enhance just war implementations. For example, the same technology used for reconnaissance can, and should, be used by the media to extend the abilities of war reporters thus enhancing accountability and scrutiny of military affairs.

In conclusion I will argue that telerobotic weapons systems need to be carefully designed and deployed in order to minimize the negative impacts they could have on the already shaky ground that supports the ethical conduct of military actions. On a hopeful note, I will recognize that these systems do allow for increased command and control with the attendant potential for increasing individual accountability and review when, indeed, the cause for conflict is just and necessary.

Select Bibliography

Sullins, John (2005): Ethics and artificial life: From modeling to moral agents, Ethics and Information Technology, 7:139-148.

Sullins, John (2006): When is a Robot a Moral Agent?, International Review of Information Ethics, In Press.

Walzer, Michael (1977): Just and Unjust War: A moral argument with historical illustrations.