Science, Ethics and War

• scientists are simultaneously professionals, citizens of a particular country and human beings
• ‘conflicting’ moral demands
• three major angles: realism, just war theory and pacifism
• professional codes of ethics
• modern total warfare IS assisted by scientists and technologists and DOES result in the inevitable killing of innocents
• science has long been the servant of war and war often funds or otherwise produces advancement in technologies
• many scientists and technologists in weapons manufacture, conflict logistics, surveillance etc
• many sciences are useful for both civilian and military efforts
• “use-inspired or applied research for military purposes” - fundamentally many sciences have uses that are hard to predict (Stokes 1997)
• professional moral obligations often go beyond the demands of common morality
• “a profession makes a tacit agreement with society” very contextual though
• “in return for a monopoly on certain specialized knowledge and skills not easily attainable by the general population, the profession agrees to use that knowledge and those skills to serve society” that isn’t strictly true for many professions, why is it more so for scientific ones. Mostly serving capital more than society
• some have formal agreements eg medicine and law
• “government promises to fund the basic science that peer reviewers find most worthy of support, and scientists promise in return that the research will be performed well and honestly and will provide a steady stream of discoveries that can be translated into new products, medicines or weapons” (Guston and Kenniston 1994) but that is very object focused rather than in service generally of society
• emphasis on weaponry due to nuclear arms race
• this funding implies ‘special obligation’ to use their skills for weaponry — but this obligation in funding does Not trump their personal moral obligations!!
• all moral rules have permissible exceptions, even killing is usually considered permissible in self-defence
• war often ‘justified’ as self-defence
• simply avoid causing harm, or provide tangible benefit to society?
• ‘shared fate individualism’ in choice of research problems (Care 1987, 2000) suggests that competent individuals should put other responsibilities ahead of self realisation in important life decisions
• so scientists should engage in applied research that benefits the many
• “Necessities for the poor should have priority over toys for the rich” (Dyson 1997)
• even though war-related research has led to civilian benefit those benefits could have come without the war-related costs

Realism

• doesn’t believe in applying moral concepts eg justice to international affairs (orend 2005)
• believes war should only be resorted to if it makes sense for national self-interest
• believes that once war begins, anything is justifiable in order to win
• ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means’ (Clausewitz 1873)
• descriptive realism asserts that morality does not apply to states
• prescriptive realism suggests that the state ought to behave a morally in international affairs in order to protect national interest

Just War Theory

• belief that some wars are justified
• believes that war is acceptable if there is a just cause, such as aggression from another nation
• counts war as a last resort, but still an option
• should have a high probability of success and have cost only as proportional to benefit
• importantly includes caveats of non-combatant immunity, ‘proportional’ force and not using methods ‘evil in themselves’
• tries to minimize the harm whilst recognising there is inherent harm
• guidelines for ethical exit strategies and moral restraint on the victors

Pacifism

• pacifism here defined as mass killing for political reasons
• explicitly avoids ‘tangential’ questions of use of force by police (which to me seems an extension of the same thing) but also questions of personal self defence (which I agree is an adjacent question)
• belief that there are no moral grounds that can justify war
• many come from religious perspective but there are also secular motivations
• the killing of innocents cannot be justified and modern war always involves the killing of innocents (either incidentally or intentionally) so war is morally wrong (Holmes 1989)
• argue that the benefits can never outweigh the costs
• advocates of the other two view pacifism as unrealistically utopian
• non-violence often crushed by opponents that use violence (Walzer 2000)
• violence only brings more violence
• war is organized violence

Professional Codes of Ethics

• no professional code of ethics directly addresses war-related research

• but all of them apply the principle of non-maleficence

• ‘Chemists should actively be concerned with the health and welfare if coworkers, consumers and the community’

• ‘Scientists should avoid causing harms to society and theu should attempt to produce social benefits’

• ‘Engineers […] shall: (1) Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare if the public’

• the just war theorist would argue that there are cases in which waging a sad is necessary to ensure the safety of the citizenry

• argument that scientific research for the military is a civic duty (Kemp 1994), making assumption that war is a legitimate means of pursuing policy objectives, that the policy objectives are just, that it is the duty of the government to protect society from certain kinds of aggression, and that it is it’s duty to do so if war is the only effective means

• believes the government’s duty to protect its citizens must be borne by individuals and by all according to their ability, so scientists for war-research. Similar argument used for universal conscription

• as war proceeds in reality both sides tend towards worse methods and more unjust war

• “World War 2 reinforced my belief that in war one becomes what the enemy is accused of being” (Kurlansky 2006 p.139)

• the erosion of ethical standards during war raises serious questions about the practicality of just war theory

• is every one battle just in service of a greater ‘just’ war?

• some choice in career trajectory/company worked for but this isnt necessarily a practical reality,

• individual decisions can collectively influence decisions of governments about waging war Fichtelberg (2006)

• some companies do both, but sometimes a scientist does choose to work for a major defense contractor

• is ignorance of their dealings a valid excuse

• certain kinds of weapons eg nuclear and land mines are ‘inherent evils’ but most can be of mixed morality under just war theory

• almost any defensive weapon can be used to attack

• same for scientists applying for and/or accepting funding from defense industry

• either taking taxpayer money for knowingly ineffective works, sabotage and theft?

• or taking it explicitly for military effectiveness, and so immoral

• most challenging: those who accept military funding for some purpose and believe that this purpose is benign. But again, ignorance of the nature of war isn’t really a tenable excuse given there is always historical and recent precedence of inherently immoral acts of war

• By ‘‘the Western way of warfare’’ Keegan means the unrestrained ‘‘fight to the death’’ conflict that had originated with the Greek phalanxes as contrasted with the more restrained ‘‘raid and retreat’’ style that developed in Asia.

• many of the conflicts that the United States has engaged in since the Korean War are morally troubling even in the context of just war theory (Lackey, 1994)

• there are structural factors that create a strong probability that scientific research will be used to ill effect

• application of technology to warfare creates an increasing distance between the killer and the killed

• “soldiers looking at computer screens and launching long range missiles are screened from the effects. People will die, some combatants, some innocent non-combatants, but the person who pushes the button never sees them.”

• the killing of innocent non-combatants in war, what is euphemistically called ‘‘collateral damage’’ (Holmes 1989)

• technological advances have developed increasingly powerful and indiscriminate weapons eh nuclear warheads

• when the purpose of a weapon is to harm or kill or destroy, advances mean making it more likely and able to harm or destroy or kill

conclusion

• unless one takes the amoral, realist position there are some kinds of war-related research that are clearly morally bad; research on weapons that are evil in themselves is the clearest case
• Although is it difficult to develop a clear definition of weapons that are evil in themselves, the most prominent examples are chemical and biological weapons
• considerable research on chemical and biological weapons is carried out for ‘defense’
• Kemp’s position that scientists have a duty to engage in such research is troublesome because it assumes that the government will only go to war for just causes and in a just manner - this is ahistorical
• this naive trust in government puts serious moral decisions in someone else’s hands
• detachment from consequence of the research is relevant as humans feel a stronger ethical responsibility for those close to them
• having better and smarter weapons might lead a country to assume that it can win a war with minimal casualties - illusion of progress - again ahistorical
• distinguished military historian Keegan seems to agree that modern total warfare has evolved to a point where it can no longer be justified, a position that pacifists have long held
• ultimately an individual question of how much immorality a scientist or researcher can stand for personal benefit
• generous funding of research by the military has helped to develop what Eisenhower called the military–industrial complex which puts war making at the center of policy, not a means of last resort as envisioned by just war theory