Are Drone Strikes less Moral?

[CapnAwesome]

And as a disclaimer...I teach F/A-18 Weapons at Strike Fighter Weapons School Atlantic, USN. I find the act of configuring weapons and their related systems to be easy to cope with. I don't know how I'd feel if I had to pull the trigger at close range. But, then again, somebody else has to do that. You see what I'm saying?


As an aside, Would you rather drive a knife into the side of an enemy's head, or would it be better to shoot them? The outcome is the same, but for the person doing the killing, it's a competely different experience. Now, continue adding degrees of separation between you and the enemy, and at some point, your sense of moral accountability will begin to diminish.

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@CapnAwesome

That was the experiment I mentioned.

I was trying to explain that killing is killing, and as long as people are dying. When you pull the trigger on a drones weapon system, ithe double window provided by the lense of a drone camera feed and the pressure of authority given by the order to pull the trigger may make you feel less involved than if you were there stabbing the person in the chest, but in the end, the person is dead, and you weren't any less responsible. The degrees of separation create the illusion that since the circumstances change the outcome is now different. I'm not saying either is necessarily moral. But I don't see how either one is in any way less moral than the other.

Thanks yeah, I understand your point now. Maybe that removal of the direct human element makes us more likely to engage in warfare and that's the part that makes it less moral for me. Like I said I haven't fully formed an opinion but in someway I feel like drones are a step in the wrong direction. You post and story give me stuff to think about though and that is appreciated.