Abstract

One of the most prominent technologies of the twenty-first century is remotely piloted aircraft, commonly called drone. Drones offer their users seemingly risk-free participation in war, through remote conducted from afar. However, personal testimonies of former drone operators and psychological studies among current drone operators reveal that these remote warriors suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental issues in the same way as soldiers deployed in harm’s way. To explain this situation, I propose to look at drone operators through the perspective of the extended mind theory. I argue that the cognitive processes, and potentially the minds of drone operators, are extended into drones that fly over war zones. Thus, drone operators are prone to psychological dangers of war. In this paper, I elaborate on this proposal in depth.