With the advancement of technology, just war theory can no longer account for the acceptability of war, rather these pervasive issues of the morality of war can only be solved through pacifism.
In the current day, just war theory operates as the most often applied moral framework with which the ethics of war are analyzed. Just war theory cannot properly morally account for the uniquely increased scope of harm that occurs in contemporary war. The tenets that just war theory lays out for a war to be deemed just are: just cause, proper authority, last resort after exhausting all peaceful measures, proportionality, and reasonable prospect of success (Global Ethics by Kimberly Hutchins, 2018). However, with the evolution of military technology, all of the stated requirements of just war theory can be considered absent the element of human interaction. It is now possible to enact widespread suffering and death without having to look the person in the eye that you killed, without having to watch the missile decimate a cluster of buildings that families call home, or without having to drive past the smoking remains of human beings. Even with the requirements that just war theory maintains, the theory itself can only be used under the assumption that war can, in some specific cases, be just. While the stipulations of the just war theory are helpful in retrospect and must be applied critically, they do not provide any effective guidelines to govern the increasing ease with which unjust actions can be accomplished using technology.
Just war theory is inadequate to address the distinctive nature of contemporary warfare because it cannot account for the development of technology which removes human morals from combat. Contemporary wars, as compared to the conflicts of the past, are novel in terms of the sheer capacity for violence technological innovation grants. The development of semi-autonomous weapons, artificially intelligent weapons-based systems, cyber attacks, robots, and drones have made wars not only more deadly, but also more thoughtless. The current state of modern warfare allows for the mass killing of targeted people with the simple press of a button, effectively removing the deep emotional response previously incurred by war and instead leaving hollow morals and reflexive actions. No longer is war fought by humans and their will; rather, it is technology that creates a barrier between humans, allowing for unconscious and unthoughtful actions to be taken more easily in modern warfare. This differs greatly from those of the past in that individuals no longer have to walk up to the enemy, look them in the face, aim their gun at them, and pull the trigger to personally end a life, thereby seeing and experiencing the blood, death, and destruction that war brings. The profoundness of killing in war was once a very harsh reality, so much so that in World War II, only 25% of American soldiers actually fired their weapon at the enemy (Soldiers of Conscience, 2007). The simple fact that one must actively choose to take away a partner from their family, a parent from their children, or a friendly face from the world should force one to stop and consider the morality of their actions. In some cases, it should make one stop those actions entirely. Just war theory was once sufficient when war was driven by human nature, and its consequences were felt personally, making morality a deeply considered factor. Technological advancements, however, have made warfare easier to conduct with less rational deliberation. No longer is one man directly killing another; instead, a soldier operates behind a wall of screens, pressing a button to decimate countless others.
Any sort of modifications proposed for the just war theory can not succeed in addressing the issue of technology removing human morals from combat. Rather, just war theory is an incorrect approach for evaluating the moral dimensions of war, and instead, the ethical approach of pacifism may prove to be a more moral guideline. When you have to tell yourself that the foreign man walking across the sight of your machine gun is subhuman in order for you to pull the trigger, that is our collective humanity telling us to stop. In war, humanity is the most important guiding factor of moral actions, and technology takes that away. There can be no humanity when you have a robot pulling the trigger. The countries involved experience destruction of infrastructure, the communities involved experience destruction of relationships, and the people involved experience destruction of their very mental state. While the reality is that you do not know war until you yourself have gone to war, those who have gone and come back may offer us some insight into the inner moral workings of their state of mind: “You see the dead, you stand at the mass graves, you smell the decomposing bodies, you see the young girl standing on the side of the road with third-degree burns on her arm. You see how it affects you and everyone around you and you think, ‘Why are we even doing this anymore?’” says one of the individuals from the documentary Soldiers of Conscience. It is an unarguable truth: some soldiers die in war. No soldiers die without war. We do not want to be killed, so why should we kill others? It is important to recognize that there is something about the harsh truth of killing that feels innately wrong, so much so that it is unfathomable to justify killing in war.
Related Posts
