Drone warriors, revealed humanity, and a feminist ethics of care

Abstract

How should the operators of armed drones conduct drone strikes? Specifically, how should those individuals make decisions (about killing another human being) in a way that avoids unjust harm to people within a strike zone? Our chapter approaches this question with an expanded notion of what constitutes ‘just’ drone warfare, using the feminist idea of an ethics of care to move beyond the traditional confines of Just War morality. Such expansion is worthwhile because it has the potential to illuminate injustices resulting from violent drone use which might otherwise remain obscure and unaddressed. It is an approach premised upon recognition of two morally significant claims. The first is a general claim that, when violence in war is targeted against one person, the potential unjust effects upon innocent others are not necessarily limited to immediate injury and death. Survivors of that violence can still suffer the lasting and non-physical harm of, for example, being deprived of a caregiver (the physical victim of lethal violence) upon whom they depend. The second claim is drone-specific: that, prior to a long-range targeted killing, an armed drone equipped with a satellite-linked video-camera has the capacity to reveal to its operator the prosaic humanity of a targeted individual. The features of that humanity include, critically, the human relationships in which a particular individual is embedded. In combination, these two claims generate a distinct ethical concern: that a drone operator might decide to kill an individual in circumstances where he or she would thereby knowingly deprive dependent civilians (e.g. family members) of a vital source of care.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Lindsay C. Clark: orcid.org/0000-0001-5121-5149

ORCID for Christian Enemark: orcid.org/0000-0002-1833-0927

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