Are Drone Strikes less Moral?

[CapnAwesome]

This is a topic which I am undecided on. A lot of people seem to think that the use of drones to attack stuff is inherently less moral than the use of manned aircraft. I'm not quite sure. There is something creepy in a dystopian novel sort of way about them but I can't really come up with a logical reason why they are less moral than using a manned aircraft to do the exact same thing. I'd like to get some people with better established or better informed opinions on it to weigh in one way or another.

[vorlon13]

No Geneva Convention prohibition or anything I'm aware of.

There have been reports of our enemies really hating their use. That constitutes a major ++good reason to use them.

I note they can use smaller munitions to achieve goals, and by reducing personnel from forward positions and the logistics difficulty in supplying them, the drones are far more green than any other weapon we've fielded that I can think of.

[The Reality Salesman01]

In Psychology class, I remember learning about an experiment on the extent to which people could be instructed to push a button that would administer a shock to a person while they watched behind a two way mirror. The "victim" was an actor but would pretend to be shocked every time the person pushed the button, theyd scream in pain. A man in a white lab coat (position of authority) would convince each subject (button pusher) that the study was the person being shocked and then the importance of continuing the "treatment" was stressed over and over again. The button pusher was led to believe that each time they pushed the button, a higher voltage was being delivered.

Many people got to the highest voltage so long as the Lab Coat Man stayed there to encourage the button pusher.

But they changed some of the variables and found that people found it easier to deliver the shock if they didn't have to physically push the button themselves. Some how the act of being directly and physically involved made it easier to cope with. Kinda like the trolley car thought experiment.

If you were on an out-of-control trolley car headed for a split between two paths, the left path had 5 workers on the track and the right path had only 1 worker. You could pull a lever and decide which path the car would plow through...

Most people say it would be better to save the life of 5 and kill 1.

But, when faced with the same scenario with only one difference...

You are on a bridge overhead, you're watching the trolly go straight toward a group of 5.

...and you notice a fat man standing to your left and it's clear that if you pushed him off the bridge, he'd fall onto the track in front of the trolly, and all 5 people would be saved...would you do it?

Most of the people who said they'd pull the lever to kill one and save the 5 immediately found this new proposition to be immoral. But, the only thing that changed was their level of physical involvement. The outcome was still 1 dead and 5 alive, but the act of physically pushing the person over was harder to swallow...

[Nine]

Its just a tool really. I don't see how it would be any less moral than artillery, air strikes or anything like that.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Milgram Shock Experiment, Google it!

[CapnAwesome]

No Geneva Convention prohibition or anything I'm aware of.

There have been reports of our enemies really hating their use. That constitutes a major ++good reason to use them.

I note they can use smaller munitions to achieve goals, and by reducing personnel from forward positions and the logistics difficulty in supplying them, the drones are far more green than any other weapon we've fielded that I can think of.

If that's the case why do people make such a big deal about the use of drones?

---

Milgram Shock Experiment, Google it!

Maybe I'm missing something, what does that have to do with drones?

[The Reality Salesman01]

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.

---

@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.

[Jackalope]

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?

I understand fully what you're saying. In the Army, I was responsible for (amongst other things) the maintenance and repair of antitank missile systems (BGM-71 and associated launch equipment), and I am quite certain that the systems I worked on were used to kill people during the first gulf war in 1991. For that part of my involvement in the war, my conscience is clear. It's quite a different psychological "thing" from actually sighting down your weapon at another human being and pulling the trigger.

Is there a difference in morality, though? I don't know. I've come to be of the mind that once you commit yourself to offensive warfare, any claim to morality is dubious at best.

That being said, what makes me uncomfortable regarding the use of autonomous and remotely piloted vehicles (colloquially, "drones") is that the moral actor is removed from or at least substantially separated from the consequences of action - making it that much easier to engage in warfare. I don't know that it's immoral (see previous paragraph), but I can't see the removal of the human factor from warfare to be a step in the right direction.

[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.

---

@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.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Both good points. I think that the initial question of "Should we employ deadly force" to be considered all the more carefully. Everything I said presupposes that the conclusion of using deadly force was ethical in the first place. From then on, the means doesn't really change the ends. But I see what you guys are saying. The more separation we create, the more detached we may feel from being involved. Sounds like two separate but very connected pools of thought.