It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims to (...) examine the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upperand middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain. Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period. (shrink)

Taddeo’s recent article, ‘Information Warfare: A Philosophical Perspective’ (Philos. Technol. 25:105–120, 2012) is a useful addition to the literature on information communications technologies (ICTs) and warfare. In this short response, I draw attention to two issues arising from the article. The first concerns the applicability of ‘information warfare’ terminology to current political and military discourse, on account of its relative lack of contemporary usage. The second engages with the political and ethical implications of treating ICT environments as (...) a ‘domain’, with its ramifications for the pursuit of ‘dominion’, particularly through military action. (shrink)

The origins and consequences of warfare or largescale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochial altruism model and subsistence model. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism and the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes (...) induced by agriculture. Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider the plausibility and consequences of the use of the term “honest errors” to describe the accidental killings of civilians resulting from the US military’s drone campaigns in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We argue that the narrative of “honest errors” unjustifiably excuses those involved in these killings from moral culpability, and reinforces long-standing, pernicious assumptions about the moral superiority of the US military and the inevitability of civilian deaths in combat. Furthermore, we maintain that, given (...) the knowledge-distorting practices within the US military’s organizational structure, few if any civilian deaths from drone strikes meet the criteria of a genuinely morally excusing “honest mistake”. Instead, these accidental killings often reflect objectionable attitudes of relative disregard for the safety of civilians. These attitudes are, we argue, sufficient to warrant the attribution of blame and moral responsibility, both with respect to certain individual actions and with respect to the US military as an institution. In light of this, we propose incorporating a Principle of the Moral Equality of Non-combatants into military assessments of what counts as “acceptable risk” to civilians. This would go some way, we argue, to redressing the ongoing injustice inflicted on the victims of civilian killings by the failure of the US military and US political leadership to take moral responsibility for unjustified civilian deaths. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van (...) der Linden’s call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

Electronic warfare is a critical component of modern military operations and has undergone significant advances in recent years. This book provides an overview of electronic warfare, its historical development, key components, and its role in contemporary conflict scenarios. It also discusses emerging trends and challenges in electronic warfare and its contemporary relevance in an era of advanced technology and cyber threats, emphasizing the need for continued research and development in this area. The book explores the burgeoning intersection (...) of artificial intelligence and electronic warfare, highlighting the evolving landscape of modern conflicts and the implications of integrating advanced technologies. The multifaceted roles of artificial intelligence in electronic warfare are highlighted, examining its potential advantages, ethical considerations, and challenges associated with its integration. (shrink)

van Els, Paul. "Tegen aanvalsoorlogen" (Against Offensive Warfare). Dutch translation of Mozi chapters 17, 18, and 19. Het Trage Vuur 40 (December 2007): 8–19.

This paper examines the responses to advanced and transformative technologies in military literature, attenuates the conclusions of earlier work suggesting that there is an “ignorance of transhumanism” in the military, and updates the current layout of transhuman concerns in military thought. The military is not ignorant of transhuman issues and implications, though there was evidence for this in the past; militaries and non-state actors increasingly use disruptive technologies with what we may call transhuman provenance.

This paper attempts to understand the nature of guerrilla warfare as taught by T.E. Lawrence in light of Clausewitz and Liddell Hart.

The use of advanced technologies, even of so-called transhuman technology, does not make militaries transhuman. Transhumanism includes dimensions of ethics that are themselves in direct conflict with many transhuman capabilities of soldiers in warfare. The use of advanced weapons of mass destruction represents an anti-humanism that undermines the modern, open, and high-tech nation state.

Predictions about autonomous weapon systems are typically thought to channel fears that drove all the myths about intelligence embodied in matter. One of these is the idea that the technology can get out of control and ultimately lead to horrifi c consequences, as is the case in Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein. Given this, predictions about AWS are sometimes dismissed as science-fiction fear-mongering. This paper considers several analogies between AWS and other weapon systems and ultimately offers an argument that nuclear weapons (...) and their effect on the development of modern asymmetrical warfare are the best analogy to the introduction of AWS. The fi nal section focuses on this analogy and offers speculations about the likely consequences of AWS being hacked. These speculations tacitly draw on myths and tropes about technology and AI from popular fi ction, such as Frankenstein, to project a convincing model of the risks and benefi ts of AWS deployment. (shrink)

This chapter studies classifications of warfare in Master Wu, The Four Canons, and Master Wen. In sections one through three, I analyze the classifications in their original contexts. How do they relate to the texts in which they appear? In what way does each classification feed into the overall philosophy of the text? In section four, I compare the three classifications. What are their similarities and differences? In section five, I discuss the possibility of a relationship between the three (...) classifications. Are any perhaps directly and demonstrably influenced by another? I hypothesize that the classification of warfare in Master Wu may have served as a source for those in The Four Canons and Master Wen. In section six, I explore the development of classifications of warfare in writings from the Warring States period to the early Han dynasty. How did the classifications evolve from military–strategic writings to texts of politico–philosophical nature? Finally, in section seven, I survey the impact of classifications on the wider political debate on warfare in those days. Did classifications influence the debate? If so, to what effect? (shrink)

This book aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), including their characteristics, origins, methods, consequences, and defense strategies, with a focus on detecting these threats. It explores the concept of advanced persistent threats in the context of cyber security and cyber warfare. APTs represent one of the most insidious and challenging forms of cyber threats, characterized by their sophistication, persistence, and targeted nature. The paper examines the origins, characteristics and methods used by APT actors. It (...) also explores the complexities associated with APT detection, analyzing the evolving tactics used by threat actors and the corresponding advances in detection methodologies. It highlights the importance of a multi-faceted approach that integrates technological innovations with proactive defense strategies to effectively identify and mitigate APT. (shrink)

This article demonstrates a priori cosmopolitan values of restraint and harm limitation exist to establish a cosmopolitan “no-harm” duty in warfare, predating utilitarianism and permeating modern international humanitarian law. In doing so, the author exposes the atemporal and ahistorical nature of utilitarianism which introduces chaos and brutality into the international legal system. Part 2 conceptualises the duty as derived from the “no-harm” principle under international environmental law. Part 3 frames the discussion within legal pluralism and cosmopolitan ethics, arguing that (...) divergent legal jurisdictions without an international authority necessitates a “public international sphere” to mediate differences leading to strong value-commitment norm-creation. One such norm is the “no-harm” duty in warfare. Part 4 traces the duty to the Stoics, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, African traditional culture, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Parts 5 and 6 explain how the duty manifests in principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. (shrink)

*North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Book Award 2019.* -/- *International Studies Association (ISA) - International Ethics Section Book Award 2021.* -/- Although military mores have relied primarily on just war theory, the ethic of cooperation in warfare (ECW)—between enemies even as they are trying to kill each other—is as central to the practice of warfare and to conceptualization of its morality. Neither game theory nor unilateral moral duties (God-given or otherwise) can explain the explicit language of (...) cooperation in developing and enforcing principles of military ethics and the law of armed conflict. -/- The ethic of cooperation is borne of various motivations: reciprocity, self-preservation, and efficiency, to be sure, but also a sense of warrior honor and concern with human rights. This shared morality can persist despite making it more difficult for one side or the other to win and, unfortunately, its well-meaning motivations often lead to unintended tragic consequences. -/- This book explores three manifestations of this significant yet overlooked ethic of cooperation in warfare: (1) for a “fair fight,” (2) to protect classes of individuals (e.g., non-combatants or prisoners of war), and (3) to end the war quickly. Such cooperation can take unexpected forms, from ad hoc decisions on the battlefield to institutionalization in international law, and is the source of some critical tensions in one of the most significant developments in warfare in recent years: namely, how to handle terrorism or other forms of warfare that lie outside the purview of international law. -/- Each type of ECW raises questions internal to that ethic, such as inconsistencies in the concept of “parity” across different weapons bans, contradictions within the warrior ethic that heavily influence—and therefore confuse—notions of the “fair fight,” the disconnect between what protections a person receives and his responsibility for the war (e.g., political leaders), or the limited decisiveness of outcomes generated by very short wars. -/- Their simultaneous application also generates significant tensions and raises questions about the proper relationship of ECW to the immediate goal of war itself, which is to win, and thus yield either a political settlement or a justicial decision. For example, the ECWs for a “fair fight” and to protect classes of individuals can make it harder to win the war, but even more concerning is that they can also kill more people, which in the latter case contravenes its very purpose. -/- Human history is in some ways the story of trying to concurrently wage and tame war, and the architecture of warfare itself is informed by the ECW, in particular: (a) the political nature of war, (b) the abdication from jus ad bellum judgments in order to concentrate on justice within war (jus in bello), and (c) the ways in which modern nation-states collude to define “legitimacy” in war. -/- The combination of these three features leave questions of justicial right and responsibility for war disturbingly unresolved, it also generates new challenges in a geopolitical context in which cooperative and non-cooperative (e.g. contemporary terrorism) forms of warfare clash. (shrink)

This article for Chronicles Magazine deals with Aleksandr Dugin's religious, philosophical, and political outlook and how the Ukrainian war can be analysed in these terms.

Information has always been at the core of conflicts. When Napoleon planned to invade Italy, he duly upgraded the first telegraph network in the world, the French “semaphore”. He famously remarked that “an army marches on its stomach,” but he also knew that the same army acted on information. As Von Clausewitz once stated “by the word ‘information’ we denote all the knowledge which we have of the enemy and his country; therefore, in fact, the foundation of all our ideas (...) of actions [in war].”I am very grateful to Mariarosaria Taddeo for this citation and for our fruitful collaboration on a 2-year project about the ethics of information warfare, Marie Curie Fellowship Grant, FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF see now . This is why the radar, the computer, the satellite, the GPS system, and the Internet were initially developed as military technologies, while unmanned vehicles are becoming a reality thanks to DARPA. The difference between then and now is that information warfare .. (shrink)

Grey zone attacks tend to paralyze response for two reasons. First, they present us with choice scenarios of inherently dilemmatic structure, e.g., Prisoners’ Dilemmas and games of chicken, complicated by difficult conditions of choice, such as choice under risk or amid vagueness. Second, they exploit our uncertainty about how much we do or should care about the things under attack¬—each attack is small in effect, but their effects accumulate: how should we decide whether to treat a given attack as something (...) meriting a serious response rather than a mere irritation to be ignored? This chapter brings standard decision theoretic tools to bear on the issues, tools such as the maximization of expected utility principle, and the precautionary principle. But it also develops three innovations. It shows that seeing it as possible to make choices not just of actions given our values, but also choices of values themselves, can extricate us from certain kinds of decision paralysis. It shows how we can rationally regard ourselves as having bright decision lines even when nothing in the circumstance of choice has these lines in its structure. And it shows how certain conflict escalation risks from the former two strategies can be managed by both parties seeing that cooperation can yield a sharable surplus of goods, and that cooperation can be rational upon a rationally defensible change in their values so that each comes to derive utility from the success of both parties. This yields cooperative solutions to what amount to Prisoners’ Dilemmas. The Cold War was prosecuted on the logic of strategic rationality and that part of game theory that is deterrence theory. We need a new logic from decision theorists for the games that constitute grey zone conflict. (shrink)

Sparrow argues that military robots capable of making their own decisions would be independent enough to allow us denial for their actions, yet too unlike us to be the targets of meaningful blame or praise—thereby fostering what Matthias has dubbed “the responsibility gap.” We agree with Sparrow that someone must be held responsible for all actions taken in a military conflict. That said, we think Sparrow overlooks the possibility of what we term “blank check” responsibility: A person of sufficiently high (...) standing could accept responsibility for the actions of autonomous robotic devices—even if that person could not be causally linked to those actions besides this prior agreement. The basic intuition behind our proposal is that humans can impute relations even when no other form of contact can be established. The missed alternative we want to highlight, then, would consist in an exchange: Social prestige in the occupation of a given office would come at the price of signing away part of one's freedoms to a contingent and unpredictable future guided by another agency. (shrink)

Clausewitz made the intuitively appealing claim that wars tend to “absoluteness,” and that all limitations imposed by law and morality are in theory alien to it. Clausewitz of course knew that there are in practice many limitations to how wars are fought, but he saw them as contingent to what war is. Since then, however, historians such as John Lynn (Battle: A History of Combat and Culture [Westview Press, 2003]), John Keegan (A History of Warfare ([Random House,1993]) and Victor (...) Davis Hanson (The Western Way of War [Oxford University Press, 1989]) have taught us to see things differently: war is a cultural phenomenon, and the limitations that rituals and taboos impose are essential to what war is. With Conspiring with the Enemy, her intelligent and erudite book on cooperation in war, Yvonne Chiu builds on that work by showing the wide variety of forms cooperation in war can take—something that, Chiu claims, we tend to overlook and take for granted at the same time. (shrink)

Debates about terrorism and technology often focus on the potential uses of technology by non-state terrorist actors and by states as forms of counterterrorism. Yet, little has been written about how technology shapes how we think about terrorism. In this chapter I argue that technology, and the language we use to talk about technology, constrains and shapes our understanding of the nature, scope, and impact of terrorism, particularly in relation to state terrorism. After exploring the ways in which technology shapes (...) moral thinking, I use two case studies to demonstrate how technology simultaneously hides and enables terroristic forms of state violence: police control technologies and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones. In both these cases, I argue that features of these technologies, combined with a narrative of precision and efficiency, serves to mask the terroristic nature of the violence that these practices inflict and reinforces the moral exclusion of those against whom these technologies are deployed. In conclusion, I propose that identifying acts of terrorism requires a focus on the impact of technologies of violence (whether they are “high tech” or not) on those most affected, regardless of whether users of these technologies conceive of their actions as terroristic. (shrink)

Whether man is predisposed to lethal violence, ranging from homicide to warfare, and how that may have impacted human evolution, are among the most controversial topics of debate on human evolution. Although recent studies on the evolution of warfare have been based on various archaeological and ethnographic data, they have reported mixed results: it is unclear whether or notwarfare among prehistoric hunter–gathererswas common enough to be a component of human nature and a selective pressure for the evolution of (...) human behaviour. This paper reports the mortality attributable to violence, and the spatio-temporal pattern of violence thus shown among ancient hunter–gatherers using skeletal evidence in prehistoric Japan (the Jomon period: 13 000 cal BC–800 cal BC). Our results suggest that the mortality due to violence was low and spatio-temporally highly restricted in the Jomon period, which implies that violence including warfare in prehistoric Japan was not common. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is an urgent need for an international doctrine for cyberspace skirmishes before they escalate into conventional warfare.

If, as asserted by the French collective Tiqqun, we are essentially living in a global colony, where the 1% control the 99%, then it follows that the revolutionary struggle should strategically reorient itself as guerrilla warfare. The agents of this war, Tiqqun characterize, in part, by drawing on ethnologists Pierre de Clastres and Ernesto de Martino, specifically their figures of the Indigenous American warrior and the Southern Italian sorcerer, respectively. Hybridizing these two figures into that of the “warrior-mage,” the (...) present article posits an actionable exemplar thereof in players of the massively popular trading and online card game, Magic: The Gathering (MTG). More specifically, I propose a strategic mapping of MTG’s five colors of magic onto the five divisions of a coalition against late capitalist Empire, which I call the “Warrior-Mage Guild,” including liberation clerics, animal rights activists, propagandists, anti-psychiatrists, hackers, saboteurs, and those who threaten decolonizing force contra Empire. (shrink)

The 2016-17 Iraqi offensive that recaptured the city of Mosul from the Islamic State have demonstrated the inability of contemporary armed forces to retake urban areas from a determined and ruthless enemy without either suffering debilitating casualties or causing thousands of civilian deaths and virtually destroying the city itself. The enemy’s willingness to refuse civilian evacuation via a humanitarian corridor and effectively take the inhabitants hostage is all it takes to impose this tragic dilemma on an attacking force. The civilian (...) death toll of the battle of Mosul alone is estimated to have reached between seven and forty thousand, with almost one million people internally displaced and large portions of the city levelled. Avoiding another such tragedy should be a priority for all practitioners and theorists of urban warfare. Indeed, confronting and defeating this challenge may be the most important task for ethics, theory and practice of urban combat in the coming decade. I argue that the only viable way of escaping the hostage siege dilemma consists of incorporating large numbers of unmanned and autonomous weapon systems into the blue force structure and using these to substitute for artillery and aerial fires presently being used to overpower defenders. While other measures may be used to marginally improve the outcome of hostage city assaults, only the automatization of the assault can dramatically change the calculus and in result either discourage rogue actors from creating hostage city dilemmas or defeat them decisively while suffering unequivocally proportional casualties. I proceed as follows: first, I provide an account of the 2016-17 Coalition assault on Mosul, giving special attention to the events and features relevant to the hostage city dilemma. I then use this case study to introduce the theoretical concept of the hostile city and the ethical dilemma it creates, discussing possible objections and making the case that the circumstances of the Battle of Mosul are bound to repeatedly transpire in the future. This generates a duty to find a way out of the hostage city dilemma. I argue that widespread use of unmanned and autonomous weapon platforms constitutes a viable way of assaulting hostage cities in a manner that assures respect for the ius in bello principles, proposing several ways in which such weapons may be designed and used to drastically limit both military and civilian casualties. Concluding that it may be not only permissible but morally required to employ autonomous weapons in the hostage city scenario, I briefly discuss the implications of this conclusion for a wider debate concerning the moral feasibility of autonomous weapons. (shrink)

The Mozi contains at least three distinct arguments against offensive warfare. The "moral argument" claims that offensive warfare is morally wrong. The "economic argument" calculates that the foreseeable costs of a military campaign inevitably outweigh its possible benefits. The "religious argument" warns that military aggression harms the interests of Heaven. This paper discusses these three lines of argumentation, with extensive reference to the original text in translation. The paper explores what the arguments entail, to whom they may have (...) been addressed, and how persuasive they are from a modern academic perspective. It shows not only how Mozi and his followers theorized about offensive warfare, but also how their arguments were used in practice, at least according to anecdotes in the latter part of the received Mozi. The ultimate goal of this paper is to show how the Mohists actively adapted their argumentative strategies so as to find the best words to end wars. (shrink)

The dissertation deals with the questions surrounding the legal, ethical and strategic aspects of armed drones in warfare. This is a vast and complex field, however, one where there remains more conflict and debate than actual consensus. -/- One of the many themes addressed during the course of this research was an examination of the evolution of modern asymmetric transnational armed conflict. It is the opinion of the author that this phenomenon represents a “grey-zone”; an entirely new paradigm of (...) warfare. International terrorism has not been dealt with in a cohesive fashion. Any international prosecution of terrorism which has been conducted has been either “sectoral” adopting a piecemeal typological approach or has been carried out at the domestic level. -/- A novel approach to the problem, of sub-national actors with transnational reach, was proposed, by attributing certain groups with a new legal personality, that of “Stateless International Entities”, or “SIEs”. Those groups who possess, for all intents and purposes, the same attributes as those of States, could then be judged for their behavior before an international tribunal. Other important topics addressed in this research include an examination of important case law, targeted killing, autonomy, preemption versus prevention, imminence versus intent, the find, fix and finish paradigm, the impact of the media, and the role of the CIA, and finally, the flawed reasoning which adopts technology as a form of strategy. (shrink)

Warfare is becoming increasingly automated, from automatic missile defense systems to micro-UAVs (WASPs) that can maneuver through urban environments with ease, and each advance brings with it ethical questions in need of resolving. Proponents of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) provide varied arguments in their favor; robots are capable of better identifying combatants and civilians, thus reducing "collateral damage"; robots need not protect themselves and so can incur more risks to protect innocents or gather more information before using deadly (...) force; robots can assess situations more quickly and do so without emotion, reducing the likelihood of fatal mistakes due to human error; and sending robots to war protects our own soldiers from harm. However, these arguments only point in favor of autonomous weapons systems, failing to demonstrate why such systems need be made *lethal*. In this paper I argue that if one grants all of the proponents' points in favor of LAWS, then, contrary to what might be expected, this leads to the conclusion that it would be both immoral and illegal to deploy *lethal* autonomous weapons, because the many features that speak in favor of them also undermine the need for them to be programmed to take lives. In particular, I argue that such systems, if lethal, would violate the moral and legal principle of necessity, which forbids the use of weapons that impose superfluous injury or unnecessary harm. I conclude by highlighting that the argument is not against autonomous weapons per se, but only against *lethal* autonomous weapons. (shrink)

This paper focuses upon the challenge posed by the concept of ‘information’ to the new materialisms, viewed with reference to the multifaceted worldly phenomenon of informational conflict. ‘Informational conflict’ is a broad term designed to encompass the hi-tech ‘cyber’ operations of inter-state warfare as well as the informational actions of non-state actors, and is contingent not upon information technologies, as commonly understood, but upon ‘information’. Informational conflicts can be viewed as sociotechnical assemblages of humans and non-humans although information is (...) a problematic component of these assemblages, on account of its uncertain ontological status. This paper addresses the ontology of information and asks how the new materialisms might respond in the various ontological registers described. Drawing upon the natural sciences—especially physics—and the emerging ‘philosophy of information’ to outline the metaphysics of information and the differences that exist in its ontological characterisation, the paper outlines informational challenges to materialist perspectives. It concludes by examining two examples of how information and materiality are addressed in International Relations with respect to informational conflict. It concludes by noting the positive contributions the new materialisms can make to the study of information and informational conflict, but challenges them by asking: Information matters for conflict; does it matter for materialism? (shrink)

A Treatise on Political Philosophy expounds upon the nature of government and its relationship with the citizen. We see how this relationship regresses towards class warfare and the egregious error made by government that makes such warfare possible. The Treatise also examines the role of the citizen and their importance in the dictation of the State.

Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) are the next logical advancement for military technology. There is a significant concern though that by allowing such systems on the battlefield, we are collectively abdicating our moral responsibility. In this thesis, I will examine two arguments that advocate for a total ban on the use of AWS. I call these arguments the “Responsibility” and the “Agency” arguments. After presenting these arguments, I provide my own objections and demonstrate why these arguments fail to convince. I then (...) provide an argument as to why the use of AWS is a rational choice in the evolution of warfare. I conclude my thesis by providing a framework upon which future international regulations regarding AWS could be built. (shrink)

Killing in War presents the Moral Equality of Combatants with serious, and in my view insurmountable problems. Absent some novel defense, this thesis is now very difficult to sustain. But this success is counterbalanced by the strikingly revisionist implications of McMahan’s account of the underlying morality of killing in war, which forces us into one of two unattractive positions, contingent pacifism, or near-total war. In this article, I have argued that his efforts to mitigate these controversial implications fail. The reader (...) is left stranded: to reach plausible conclusions, Walzer deployed an implausible conception of our rights to life; McMahan’s more rigorous account of those rights generates untenable conclusions. Absent new developments, it seems that the prospects for grounding the ethics of war in individual rights are poor: any theory of our rights to life that is sufficiently indiscriminate to work in the chaos of war is not discriminating enough to be a plausible theory of our rights to life. Perhaps by rejecting the ideal of the rights-respecting war altogether we might develop an alternative theory of justified warfare, which marries theoretical soundness with conclusions that we can more confidently support. (shrink)

This paper sets out the felicity conditions for metalinguistic proposals, a type of directive illocutionary act. It discusses the relevance of metalinguistic proposals and other metalinguistic directives for understanding both small- and large-scale linguistic engineering projects, essentially contested concepts, metalinguistic provocations, and the methodology of ordinary language philosophy. Metalinguistic proposals are compared with other types of linguistic interventions, including metalinguistic negotiation, conceptual engineering, lexical warfare, and ameliorative projects.

In light of Taiwan's extensive exposure to the Chinese Communist Party's "cognitive domain infiltration warfare," this paper proposes new response mechanisms and strategies for cybersecurity and national defense. The focus is primarily on assessing the CCP's cognitive infiltration tactics to develop policy recommendations in cybersecurity linguistics. These recommendations are intended to serve as a reference for future national defense and information security policies. Within the constraints of limited resources, this study attempts to provide an integrated analysis method combining qualitative (...) and quantitative tools. This method involves text mining in cybersecurity linguistics, focusing on "textual content" and incorporating discourse deconstruction. The aim is to enhance the success rate in identifying and defining contentious information in cognitive warfare, thereby offering policy suggestions. -/- Keywords: Cognitive Infiltration, Big Data Corpus, Cybersecurity Linguistics, Text Mining Analysis, Narrative Language Deconstruction. (shrink)

There are two important ways in which, when dealing with documents, we go beyond the boundaries of linear text. First, by incorporating diagrams into documents, and second, by creating complexes of intermeshed documents which may be extended in space and evolve and grow through time. The thesis of this paper is that such aggregations of documents are today indispensable to practically all complex human achievements from law and finance to orchestral performance and organized warfare. Documents provide for what we (...) can think of as a division of intellectual, instructional, and deontic labour, allowing plans, orders, and obligations to be enmeshed together in a way that often involves the use of diagrammatic elements, as for example in a musical score. (shrink)

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................... ......................................... xiv Preface .................................................................................................... .............................................. xv Acknowledgment .................................................................................................... .......................... xxiii Section 1 On the Cusp: Critical Appraisals of a Growing Dependency on Intelligent Machines Chapter 1 Algorithms versus Hive Minds and the Fate of Democracy ................................................................... 1 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 2 We Can Make Anything: Should We? .................................................................................................. 15 Chris Bateman, University of Bolton, UK Chapter 3 Grounding Machine Ethics within the Natural System ........................................................................ 30 Jared Gassen, JMG Advising, USA Nak Young Seong, Independent Scholar, South (...) Korea Section 2 From the Outside In: Intelligent Machine Technologies as a Window on Human Morality both as Evolved and as Evident in Internet Discourse, Today Chapter 4 The Emergence of Arti cial Autonomy: A View from the Foothills of a Challenging Climb ............. 51 Fernando da Costa Cardoso, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Chapter 5 Semantic Analysis of Bloggers Experiences as a Knowledge Source of Average Human Morality .... 73 Rafal Rzepka, Hokkaido University, Japan Kenji Araki, Hokkaido University, Japan Section 3 From the Inside Out: The Ethics of Human Enhancement from Moral Perception to Competition in the Workplace Chapter 6 Machine Ethics Interfaces: An Ethics of Perception of Nanocognition ............................................... 97 Melanie Swan, Kingston University, UK Chapter 7 Ethical Concerns in Human Enhancement: Advantages in Corporate/Organizational Settings ......... 124 Ben Tran, Alliant International University, USA Section 4 From Far to Near and Near to Far: The Ethics of Distancing Technologies in Education and Warfare Chapter 8 Responsibility and War Machines: Toward a Forward-Looking and Functional Account ................. 152 Jai Galliott, Macquarie University, Australia Chapter 9 Ethical Responsibilities of Preserving Academicians in an Age of Mechanized Learning: Balancing the Demands of Educating at Capacity and Preserving Human Interactivity ................... 166 James E. Willis III, Indiana University, USA Viktoria Alane Strunk, Independent Scholar, USA Section 5 Wrapping Things Up, then Unwrapping Them Again: Integral Visions of Morality in a Technological World, Over Evolutionary Time, with Revolutionary Means, and with Open Questions about the Final Purpose of It All Chapter 10 Bridging Two Realms of Machine Ethics ........................................................................................... 197 Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Ari Saptawijaya, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal & Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia Chapter 11 Robots in Warfare and the Occultation of the Existential Nature of Violence ................................... 225 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 12 Self-Referential Complex Systems and Aristotle’s Four Causes ........................................................ 239 Aleksandar Malecic, University of Nis, Serbia Related References .................................................................................................... ........................ 261 Compilation of References .................................................................................................... ........... 292 About the Contributors .................................................................................................... ................ 325 Index .................................................................................................... ............................................... 329 . (shrink)

This article provides a thematic overview of the work of contemporary French philosopher Grégoire Chamayou. It suggests that the notion of violent capture serves as a guiding theme linking Chamayou's work, linking it to his early study of experimental medicine, his genealogy of manhunting and predatory power, as well as his recent study of contemporary predatory or "cynegetic" warfare use of drones.

It is generally agreed that using lethal or otherwise serious force in self-defense is justified only when three conditions are satisfied: first, there are some grounds for the defender to give priority to his own interests over those of the attacker (whether because the attacker has lost the protection of his right to life, for example, or because of the defender’s prerogative to prefer himself to others); second, the harm used is proportionate to the threat thereby averted; third, the harm (...) is necessary to avert that threat. The first and second conditions have been exhaustively discussed, but the third has been oddly neglected. Meanwhile a prominent school of thought has arisen, in the ethics of war, which seeks to ground the justification of killing in war in principles of individual self-defense. They too have failed to offer any substantive analysis of necessity, while at the same time appealing to it when it suits them to do so. In this paper, I attempt a detailed analysis of the necessity constraint on defensive force, and explore the implications of that analysis for the attempt to transpose principles of individual self-defense into the context of warfare. (shrink)

In the face of the climate crisis, countries around the globe have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and achieving carbon neutrality. While the effects of such commitments remain ambiguous, some risks and obstacles could potentially hinder nations, even leading to failure in fulfilling their climate commitments. The paper presents four major challenges that can impede the global progress towards emission reduction targets as pledged: 1) energy security and global socio-economic development demands, 2) political conflicts, geopolitical instability, and (...) class='Hi'>warfare, 3) challenges in developing and scaling emission reduction technologies, and 4) public perceptions toward climate change. Without addressing these challenges, humanity and the Earth's ecosystems will face the dangers of venturing into “uncharted waters” full of uncertainties and disorder. A potential solution to these issues is for the world to transition from an eco-deficit culture to an eco-surplus culture, where the lasting values of Earth's ecosystems are recognized as the conscience of our time. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be (...) central to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, (...) survey of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

In July 2017, China’s State Council released the country’s strategy for developing artificial intelligence, entitled ‘New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan’. This strategy outlined China’s aims to become the world leader in AI by 2030, to monetise AI into a trillion-yuan industry, and to emerge as the driving force in defining ethical norms and standards for AI. Several reports have analysed specific aspects of China’s AI policies or have assessed the country’s technical capabilities. Instead, in this article, we focus on (...) the socio-political background and policy debates that are shaping China’s AI strategy. In particular, we analyse the main strategic areas in which China is investing in AI and the concurrent ethical debates that are delimiting its use. By focusing on the policy backdrop, we seek to provide a more comprehensive and critical understanding of China’s AI policy by bringing together debates and analyses of a wide array of policy documents. (shrink)

The principle of non-combatant immunity protects non-combatants against intentional attacks in war. It is the most widely endorsed and deeply held moral constraint on the conduct of war. And yet it is difficult to justify. Recent developments in just war theory have undermined the canonical argument in its favour – Michael Walzer's, in Just and Unjust Wars. Some now deny that non-combatant immunity has principled foundations, arguing instead that it is entirely explained by a different principle: that of necessity. In (...) war, as in ordinary life, harms to others can be justified only if they are necessary. Attacking non-combatants, the argument goes, is never necessary, so never justified. Although often repeated, this argument has never been explored in depth. In this article, I evaluate the necessity-based argument for non-combatant immunity, drawing together theoretical analysis and empirical research on anti-civilian tactics in interstate warfare, counterinsurgency, and terrorism. (shrink)

Before the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, Viet Nam’s economy was devastated by 30 years of warfare with two major military powers, France and the US, ending in 1975. In the subsequent 10 years, Viet Nam suffered from failing economic experiments, including agricultural cooperatization, “industry-commerce rehabilitation,” price-wage-currency reform, among others, under the centrally planned mechanism (Wood 1989), as well as the international isolation and a US trade embargo when its troops entered Cambodia to overthrow the Khmer Rouge (Riedel and (...) Turley 1999). Its per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) declined to USD 97 in 1989 whereas the ratio of external debt to GDP reached 330%. 1 The economy languished and became one of the poorest in the world (VGP 2016). (shrink)

War is almost always conducted with various restrictions in the form of rules, rituals, and taboos. Many of the norms that regulate warfare can be found in the tradition of just war. This tradition seeks to provide a middle ground between an unrealistic (at least for politicians) pacifism that does not even allow war in self-defence and a too realistic realism that claims there is no place for ethics in war. The tradition of just war does not have the (...) force of law; it provides, above all, a vocabulary to discuss war in moral terms. At the same time, the tradition does have an impact: it forms the basis of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions. Just like with laws, it is recognised here that imperfect adherence to these principles does not necessarily diminish their validity. Most proponents of the tradition believe that the principles of just war, even though some date back centuries, are sufficiently general to be applicable to contemporary conflicts, such as the Russo-Ukrainian War. If we apply the norms of the just war tradition to the current situation in Ukraine, we see that Russia is waging an unjust war in an unjust manner. (shrink)

Any intelligent discussion of terrorism must demarcate its subject matter, for the term ‘terrorism’ is differently understood and where there is no accord on its meaning there is little chance for agreement on its application or normative status. The best course is to sketch a morally neutral definition that classifies as ‘terrorist’ as many widely-agreed upon cases as possible. Definitions that explicitly render terrorism illegitimate make classification contentious, and it is more informative to base moral assessment on an examination of (...) the case rather than through apriori stipulation. Most writers on the topic agree that terrorism is (i) a deliberate use or threat of violence, (ii) politically-motivated, and (iii) directed against non-military personnel, that is, against civilians or noncombatants. Taking these as the only essential features of terrorism, the simplest and more accurate reportive definition is this: Terrorism is deliberate, politically-motivated violence, or the threat of such, directed against civilians.1 By contrast, Ted Honderich describes terrorism as small-scale violence, driven by a political aim, that violates national or international law and is prima facie morally wrong. He thereby counts a good deal of resistance activity and guerilla warfare as terrorist, even when directed against military personnel, while excluding the large-scale military actions of governments. Of course, he may define the word as he chooses, but given its common.. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, global (...) warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. (shrink)

The paper examines the justification of warfare. The main thesis is that war is very difficult to justify, and justification by invoking “justice” is not the way to succeed it. Justification and justness are very different venues: while the first attempts to explain the nature of war and offer possible schemes of resolution, the second aims to endorse a specific type of warfare as correct and hence allowed – which is the crucial part of “just war theory.” However, (...) “just war theory,” somewhat Manichean in its nature, has very deep flaws. Its final result is criminalization of war, which reduces warfare to police action, and finally implies a very strange proviso that one side has a right to win. All that endangers the distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello, and destroys the collective character of warfare. Justification of war is actually quite different – it starts from the definition of war as a kind of conflict which cannot be solved peacefully, but for which there is mutual understanding that it cannot remain unresolved. The aim of war is not justice, but peace, i.e. either a new articulation of peace, or a restoration of the status quo ante. Additionally, unlike police actions, the result of war cannot be known or assumed in advance, giving war its main feature: the lack of control over the future. Control over the future, predictability, is a feature of peace. This might imply that war is a consequence of failed peace, or inability to maintain peace. The explanation of this inability forms the justification of war. Justice is always an important part of it, but justification cannot be reduced to it. The logic contained here refers to ius ad bellum, while ius in bello is relative to various parameters of sensitivity prevalent in a particular time, with the purpose to make warfare more humane and less expensive. (shrink)