Drone Killings in Principle and in Practice

It is a widely accepted claim that whether a given technology is being justly used in the real world is a separate question from moral issues intrinsic to technology. We should not blame the technology itself for immoral ways it happens to be used. There is obviously some truth to that. But I want t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethical theory and moral practice
Main Author: Dige, Morten (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2017]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2017, Volume: 20, Issue: 4, Pages: 873-883
IxTheo Classification:NCD Political ethics
NCJ Ethics of science
VA Philosophy
XA Law
Further subjects:B Targeted Killing
B Just War
B Drones
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:It is a widely accepted claim that whether a given technology is being justly used in the real world is a separate question from moral issues intrinsic to technology. We should not blame the technology itself for immoral ways it happens to be used. There is obviously some truth to that. But I want to argue that what we see in the real world cases of drone killings is not merely an accidental or contingent use of drone technology. The real life use reflects to a large extent features that are inherent of the dominant drone systems that have been developed to date. What is being imagined "in principle" is thus to a large extent drone killings in dreamland. I use an historic example as a point of reference and departure: the debate over the lawfulness of nuclear weapons.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-017-9827-9