Police and thieves
The rise of China and America’s military responsibility
A piece in The Atlantic reports on a joint US/Japan rehearsal to defend Japan from a possible Chinese invasion. According to the article, while there is no immediate threat of any Chinese invasion, there is no doubt that China is a rising power that one day will challenge American supremacy.
The question isn’t will China rise, it’s what happens when it does. If we simply let current trends continue, it’s entirely foreseeable that China could cajole, persuade, or bully the rest of East Asia under its influence. The U.S. can handle Chinese competition, but a unified East Asia could undermine the U.S. in any number of ways. […] Another risk of inaction could be regional war. As China expresses more dominance over its neighbors, if regional diplomatic institutions remain too weak to ensure peaceful conflict resolution, it’s possible that China could come to blows with states such as Thailand or, yes, Japan.
This is an argument for a more aggressive foreign policy in an era when many are calling for cuts to the defense budget and dismantling of the American “empire.”
Moral arguments for scaling back American power overseas tend to rely a “live and let live” type of analogy. It is arrogant and often disastrous for Americans to impose our will upon disparate nations and peoples, some might contend – let each family live according to their own rules without the fear of the American fist.
There is certainly some truth to this argument, but I think it is overly simplistic. Even if America withholds its own power, nations may still fear the power of other militaries, or perhaps equally important, individual persons may fear the power of their own governments. Read more
The trolley problem at West Point
Philosophy for soldiers
David Edmonds at BBC News reports that all West Point cadets are now required to study moral philosophy and “the trolley problem.” He outlines the famous thought experiment nicely:
Imagine there is a runaway tram, known in America as a trolley, heading towards five people tied to the track.
You are a bystander.
If you do nothing, all five will die.
But you could hit a switch and divert it down a side track.
Unfortunately, on that spur is one person and if you turn this tram, this person will die.
What should you do? Turn the tram? Most people think you should.
Now imagine that same tram is again heading towards five people. This time you are watching from a footbridge.
There is a fat man leaning over this footbridge. If you push him over, he will land on the track and die, but his bulk will stop the tram.
So should you push the fat man? Almost no-one thinks you should.
Why might it be acceptable to turn the tram and kill the man on the track but not acceptable to push the fat man?
West Point philosophy professor Jeff McMahan explains to Edmonds the implications of this conundrum to warfare. He argues that it reveals the moral distinction (recognized in international law) between killing civilians intentionally, and knowing civilians will die as a foreseen consequence of military action, “between attacking a munitions factory aware that there will be, to use that euphemism, collateral damage, and aiming at civilians intentionally.”
It might be clearer to say that the trolley problem shows that soldiers should not use the death of civilians as a strategic tool. It’s different when civilians die as a consequence of some other, legitimate strategy. Of course, there are proportionality concerns when one knows that civilians will die (how important is the military action in question vs. how many civilians will die).
As to the more general importance of future military officers studying philosophy, Major Danny Crozier explains that while it leads to the possibility of insubordination, that concern is outweighed by the fact that soldiers must not obey unjust commands. I don’t know the law on this, but it seems dangerous to have soldiers consider the morality of every command, following only the ones they support. Maj. Crozier must mean that soldiers must not obey clearly unjust commands, the illegitimacy of which is not open to serious debate.
-Jake
Do ask, do tell –later, when you’re a little older
Last Thursday, a federal judge in California ruled Don’t Ask Don’t Tell unconstitutional on First and Fifth Amendment grounds for restricting the rights of gay service members to free speech, free association, and due process. The case put the Obama administration in a slightly awkward position, having to defend a standing law that it is already in the process of repealing.
It is clear that Obama, Chairman of the Join Chiefs Mullen, and Secretary of Defense Gates have little love for DADT. The public is not keen about it either. And yet, legal procedure is so important to our form of government that it sometimes means defending or accepting laws that we don’t support.
Procedure allows for consistency and predictability. It is the counterweight to the whim or discretion of leaders, the public, bureaucrats, and other parties – none of whom are everywhere and always right. For example, we have due process and the presumption of innocence to protect people from being punished hastily and wrongfully.
Whether to defend something you believe to be morally wrong because it is the law of the land is one of the most difficult moral quandaries in public philosophy.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user The U.S. Army used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Bullet the blue sky revisited
A response to Luke’s criticisms
On Tuesday, Luke criticized my defense of targeted drone attacks in the Middle East. In my response to a piece by Ron Rosenbaum, I argued that killing targets that do not pose immediate threats does not violate the “proportionality” criteria of Just War Theory, the established canon that sets out the morality of combat.
Relying on an analogy to preemptively targeting criminals who plan to kill you, I contended that combatants were part of a lethal endeavor persisting through time, making them liable to be killed even when they are currently not doing anything. Says Luke:
In Han’s hypothetical though, the enemy is easily identifiable, the imminent threat is obvious, and there is no risk of serious collateral damage. Rosenbaum’s point, is that in actuality, none of these conditions are necessarily satisfied.
Well no: Rosenbaum’s point was that “proportionality requires that the use of lethal force be justified by the imminence and danger of the threat.” And my point was that under a traditional interpretation of Just War Theory this is simply not true. Read more
Bullet the blue sky
Just War Theory and unmanned drones in Afghanistan
Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum argues that using unmanned drones in Afghanistan is immoral and criminal. He thinks that it violates both the “distinction” and “proportionality” aspects of Just War Theory. By “distinction,” Rosenbaum is referring to the traditional Just War criteria of drawing lines between combatants and noncombatants.
But can drones make these distinctions? I’ve read arguments that drones offer more precision than other battlefield weapons, because drone porn gives the Predator joystick operators more time to examine the targets intimately and cross-reference intelligence. But what they really offer is more precise views of less precise targets. The “foes” in Afghanistan do not wear uniforms. I’m not saying all Taliban look alike, but the pious believers don’t look very different from the “provincial commanders.”
It is unclear to me why Rosenbaum thinks drones are any worse at making these distinctions than other military weapons. They are certainly better than some military attacks, such as artillery barrages and carpet bombings. In fact, even infantry soldiers on the ground probably would not be able to make better distinctions – they wouldn’t run up to a potential target and ask him if he’s a militant. I doubt Rosenbaum or anyone believes any of these other operations are war crimes. Read more
Morality and gaming
Why banning realistic depictions of war in games is wrong
The BBC reported on Monday that British Defense Secretary Liam Fox has continued to defend comments he made calling for a retail ban of the newest Medal of Honor game. The publishers of the game, Electronic Arts, have defended it and accused Fox of portraying its content unfaithfully.
Fox denounced the game on Sunday, saying it was “shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers.” Fox also made an appeal to patriotism, arguing that this new installment of the franchise is a “thoroughly un-British game.”
His comments can be seen in the context of a larger crusade against objectionable content in videogames that has involved some of the best-selling games of all time, including the Grand Theft Auto series and the newest installment of the Call of Duty series.
Arguments against these games usually claim that their content is immoral, obscene, or in some other way objectionable. Additionally, this claim is often accompanied by the idea that the interactive aspect of a game has a special persuasive power. Read more
Lawful mutiny
The BBC reports that several federal police officers in Ciudad Juarez have arrested their own commander on grounds of corruption and racketeering. On the heels of the Wikileaks case and in the midst of two ongoing wars, it is worth considering the moral role of the individual in security-related institutions like the military and police.
Millennia of human experience demonstrate that discipline and professionalism distinguish effective security forces. Such forces can do tremendous good. But institutions are fallible. The uncertainties of both violent conflict and day-to-day human life also provide endless opportunities for rigid adherence to orders to cause grievous harm. When is it appropriate for those who are vested with the protection of a society to disobey orders and even turn on their superiors? Read more
How to dismantle an atomic bomb(ing)
For the first time, the United States will send an ambassador to attend the ceremony in Hiroshima marking the anniversary of the atomic bombings during World War II. Some critics think that this is tantamount to a US apology.
Signs of sympathy toward Japanese suffering could be seen as criticism of the U.S. decision to drop the bombs — viewed by many Americans as a pragmatic move to hasten the end of the war that the U.S. entered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
This seems like a very weak argument. Even if the atomic bombings of Japan were morally permissible, they were at best unfortunate necessities of war (in fact, we could say this about any act of war). Even the most ardent supporter of dropping the bomb should admit that it is simply the least horrific choice out of a regretful handful of alternatives. This being the case, sympathy and grief toward the victims of the bomb is not only compatible with support for the decision to drop the bomb, but is probably a morally obligatory addendum to the act itself. Read more
Journalistic ethics
Clive Crook of The Atlantic has an interesting take on WikiLeak’s handling of the documents on the Afghanistan war. In the piece, Crook draws a parallel between WikiLeaks and the Rolling Stone article on Stanley McChrystal.
A few weeks ago the McChrystal scandal was in the news. I asked a few journalist friends about it. “Suppose you had the story that Hastings had. But also suppose that you thought McChrystal was a great general, that the war was worth fighting, and he would have to resign if you reported what his team had said. Wouldn’t you feel some qualms about writing the story?” Most of my friends said that they might, but that good journalists suppress such thoughts because it was not their job to worry about it. Yes, I thought. So whose job is it, then?
I’m sympathetic to Crook here. The consequences of releasing this sort of information has to be a consideration for any reporter. On the other hand, if a reporter’s choice of stories is framed by her view that the “war is worth fighting” we could end up with a very subjective perception of the conflict.
-Luke
Photo by Flickr user The U.S. Army used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
WikiLeaks: a new breed of leak?
WikiLeaks and its documents are here. What do we do now?
On Monday, Sam highlighted WikiLeaks’ enormous release of secret documents concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan, and US efforts in and relations with both countries. As he noted, one of the first questions we should ask is whether or not WikiLeaks’ document release is legal.
Obviously, the cat is out of the bag: WikiLeaks and its documents, for good or for bad, are here. The bigger question now is how governments and citizens will respond.
Leaks, even large ones, are not unheard of (think Pentagon Papers). To answer both this question, and the earlier one to which Sam pointed, we need to determine if this leak is unlike any previous ones—and whether deserves a unique response as a result. Read more
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