The purpose of this paper is the analysis of both legal and ethical ways of justifying targeted killings. I compare two legal models: the law enforcement model vs the rules of armed conflicts; and two ethical ones: retribution vs the right of self-defence. I argue that, if the targeted killing is to be either legally or ethically justified, it would be so due to fulfilling of some criteria common for all acceptable forms of killing, and not (...) because terrorist activity is somehow distinguished and gives special privileges to a state that fights it. The practical implication of my analysis is that one of the most spectacular targeted killings, which was the targeting and killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, was not justified, because it was only supposed to be a retribution for the September 11th terrorist attacks. (shrink)

The controversy surrounding targeted killings represents a crisis of conscience for policymakers, lawyers, philosophers and leading military experts grappling with the moral and legal limits of the war on terror. The book examines the legal and philosophical issues raised by government efforts to target suspected terrorists without giving them the safeguards of a fair trial.

The moral justification for targeted killing turns on it being justified as an act of self-defense. That justification can be assessed by addressing five questions: Is the targeted person a threat who lacks the right to threaten? Has the targeted person forfeited some of her claim not to be killed? Even if the answer to the first two questions is positive, is targeted killing a necessary and proportionate response? Is the evidence in favor of (...) targeted killing high enough to meet the relevant standard of proof? And insofar as a person is selected for targeting from a larger group of possible targets, is the selection justifiable? The legal justifiability of targeted killing should aim to track, as much as problems of administrability and limiting unwanted effects allow, the answers to those moral questions. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a philosophical defense for targeted killings in the wars against terror. The paper argues that if one accepts the moral legitimacy of the large-scale killing of combatants in conventional wars, one cannot object - on moral grounds - to the targeted killing of terrorists in wars against terror. If one rejects this legitimacy, one must object to all killing in war, targeted and non-targeted alike, and (...) thus not support the view, which is criticized here, that targeted killings are particularly disturbing from a moral point of view. (shrink)

The question of how to contend with terrorism in keeping with our preexisting moral and legal commitments now challenges Europe as well as Israel and the United States: how do we apply Just War Theory and International Law to asymmetrical warfare, specifically to our counter terrorism measures? What can the classic moral argument in Just and Unjust Wars teach us about contemporary targeted killings with drones? I begin with a defense of targeted killing, arguing for the advantages (...) of pin pointed attacks over any alternative measure available for combatting terrorism. Assuming the legitimacy of killing combatants in wartime, I argue, there is nothing wrong, and in fact much that is right, with targeting particular terrorists selected by name, as long as their assassinations can be reasonably expected to reduce terrorist hostilities rather than increase it. Subsequently, I offer some further thoughts and comments on the use of remotely piloted aircrafts to carry out targeted killings, and address the various sources for discomfort with this practice identified by Michael Walzer and others. nema. (shrink)

Targeted killing is a subspecies of assassination, deployed against irregular combatants such as terrorists. The justification for targeted killing bypasses the usual ‘war paradigm’ and ‘criminal enforcement paradigm’, and is thus unusual. There are various ways of securing such a justification, but also a number of dangers attending these arguments.

Known terrorists are often targeted for death by the governments of Israel and the United States. Several thousand have been killed by drones or by operatives on the ground in the last twenty years. Is this form of killing justified? Is there anything about it that should disturb us? In this for-and-against book, political theorists Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels engage in extended debate to illuminate these issues. They consider the actions of targeting and hunting down named individuals, (...) and they address concerns about the possibility of this practice getting out of hand and being extended beyond the realm of counter-terrorism. (shrink)

This article critically engages with Christian Braun's article “The Morality of Retributive Targeted Killing” from the Journal of Military Ethics. Braun argues that retributive targeted killing can...

This paper by Prof. Daniel Statman, moral philosopher at the University of Haifa in Israel and author of the books Moral Dilemmas and Religion and Morality , offers a philosophical defense for such targeted killings or assassinations as those by Israel of Palestinians. The paper argues that if one accepts the moral legitimacy of the large-scale killing of combatants in conventional (what may come to be called 'old-fashioned') wars, one cannot object -- on moral grounds -- to the (...) targeted killing of terrorists in what are called wars against terror. If one rejects this legitimacy, one must object to all killing in war, targeted and non-targeted alike, and thus not support the view, which is criticized here, that targeted killings are particularly disturbing from a moral point of view. (shrink)

This article responds to Anh Le’s critique of my Journal of Military Ethics article entitled “The Morality of Retributive Targeted Killing.” Le argues that while retribution can in theory function...

ABSTRACTThis article assesses whether the contemporary consensus of just war thinking to allow only for defence as just cause for war between states should also be applied to the practice of target...

abstract During the current round of fighting in the Middle East, Israel has provoked considerable controversy as it turned to targeted killings or assassination to battle militants. While assassination has met with disfavour among traditional observers, commentators have, more recently, sought to justify targeted killings with an appeal to both self‐defence and law enforcement. While each paradigm allows the use of lethal force, they are fundamentally incompatible, the former stipulating moral innocence and the latter demanding the presumption of (...) criminal guilt. Putting aside the paradigm of law enforcement which demands due process and forbids extra‐judicial execution, the only possible avenue for justifying named killings lies in self‐defence. While named killings might be defensible on the grounds that there are no other ways to disable combatants when they fight without uniforms, the costs, including the cost of targeted killing emerging as an acceptable convention in its own right, should be sufficient to view the practice with a good deal of caution. (shrink)

Anti-war pacifism eschews modern war as a means of attaining peace. It holds war to be not only evil and supremely harmful, but also, on balance, morally wrong. But what about force short of war? The aim of this paper is to analyse targeted killing, a specific form of force short of war, from an anti-war pacifist perspective, or, more specifically, from two related but distinct pacifist perspectives: conditional and contingent. Conditional pacifism deems war to be unjustified if (...) the condition that innocent persons are killed in war is satisfied. Since this condition is always fulfilled, conditional pacifism implies the impermissibility of modern war. Contingent pacifism concedes that war would be morally acceptable if its harms were sufficiently outweighed by its benefits, but maintains that no (or very few) wars meet this criterion. The empirical reality of war is such that it cannot be justified, because it harms too many innocents in proportion to the harm it prevents. Pacifists’ treatment of targeted killing short of war should thus concentrate on the harm it does to innocents. Conditional pacifists should focus on whether targeted killing kills innocents, while contingent pacifists should focus on whether the harm it does to innocents is disproportionate to its benefits. (shrink)

More so than in the past, the US is now embracing the logic of preventive force: using military force to counter potential threats around the globe before they have fully materialized. While popular with individuals who seek to avoid too many “boots on the ground,” preventive force is controversial because of its potential for unnecessary collateral damage. Who decides what threats are ‘imminent’? Is there an international legal basis to kill or harm individuals who have a connection to that threat? (...) Do the benefits of preventive force justify the costs? And, perhaps most importantly, is the US setting a dangerous international precedent? In Preventive Force, editors Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer Ramos bring together legal scholars, political scientists, international relations scholars, and prominent defense specialists to examine these questions, whether in the context of full-scale preventive war or preventive drone strikes. In particular, the volume highlights preventive drones strikes, as they mark a complete transformation of how the US understands international norms regarding the use of force, and could potentially lead to a ‘slippery slope’ for the US and other nations in terms of engaging in preventive warfare as a matter of course. A comprehensive resource that speaks to the contours of preventive force as a security strategy as well as to the practical, legal, and ethical considerations of its implementation, Preventive Force is a useful guide for political scientists, international relations scholars, and policymakers who seek a thorough and current overview of this essential topic. (shrink)

Armed Palestinians are not combatants according to any known legal definition. They are civilians and can only be attacked for as long as they actively participate in hostilities.

This article provides an ethical evaluation of the CIA's use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to target so-called terror suspects and insurgents. It utilises Christian informed deontological and virtue-ethical criteria to assess this practise. These criteria include just intent, charity, proportionality, moral consistency, truthfulness, mercy, courage and prudence. The article concludes that the UAV target programme is morally problematic. The United States’ ‘kill not capture’ policy as exemplified in the use of ‘signature’ strikes defies the virtues at stake. By using UAV's (...) as tools for preventive warfare, utilising armed UAV's that are weapons of war outside areas of armed conflict and disregarding the principles of transparency, last resort and proportionality, the United States is employing UAV's in a morally illegitimate and imprudent way, and is setting precedents that might have dire consequences for global peace and the security of future generations. (shrink)

At the heart of Seth Lazar’s arguments in support of what he calls Moral Distinction – ‘In war, with rare exceptions, killing noncombatants is worse than killing combatants’ – is his treatment of eliminative and opportunistic killing. He adopts the standard line, that eliminative killing is easier to justify than opportunistic killing. And he acknowledges that there are various circumstances in which one might be able to justify killing noncombatants on eliminative grounds. Nonetheless, he (...) relies on the notion of a mixed kind of agency to argue that intentionally killing civilians is normally ‘more opportunistic than intentionally killing soldiers’, and is therefore normally more wrongful. I argue that his argument in favor of this claim fails. If we distinguish objectively available reasons from subjectively motivating ones, and pay attention to the limited relevance of subjectively motivating reasons, then it becomes clear that mixed agency cannot do the sort of work for just war theory that Lazar wants it to do. This failure need not impugn other parts of his defense of Moral Distinction. But it takes the heart out of his defense of it, putting a greater burden on the other parts of his argument. (shrink)

A new powerful military weapon has appeared in the skies of world and with it a new form of warfare has quickly emerged bringing with it a host of pressing ethical questions and issues. Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military brings together some of the best scholars currently working on these questions.

Can phenomenology contribute to the burgeoning science of consciousness? Dennett’s reply would probably be that it very much depends upon the type of phenomenology in question. In my paper I discuss the relation between Dennett’s heterophenomenology and the type of classical philosophical phenomenology that one can find in Husserl, Scheler and Merleau-Ponty. I will in particular be looking at Dennett’s criticism of classical phenomenology. How vulnerable is it to Dennett’s criticism, and how much of a challenge does his own alternative (...) constitute? I will argue that there are some rather marked differences between these two approaches to consciousness, but as I also hope to make clear, Dennett’s own account of where the differences are located is off target and ultimately based on a somewhat flawed conception of what classical phenomenology amounts to. (shrink)

Targeted killing has become a staple tactic in the “war in terror”. Since the beginning of the second Intifada, Israel is estimated to have killed over four hundred Palestinians in targeted strikes, while the US has killed over two thousand in Pakistan alone since 2004. These statistics include the deaths of innocent bystanders caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—“collateral damage”—as well as the deaths of the terrorists themselves. Be that as it may, the American (...) and Israeli publics have largely settled into an acceptance of the targeted killings carried out in their name.In Anna Goppel’s Killing Terrorists: A Moral and Legal Analysis, even the staunchest defender of targeted killing will find good reason to reconsider. The book does not bother developing an absolute, in-principle objection to targeted killing; it concedes to advocates of the practice that there are conceivable circumstances under which it might be justified. But these circumstances are shown to b .. (shrink)

Terrorism, the use of military force in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and the fatal police shootings of unarmed persons have all contributed to renewed interest in the ethics of police and military use of lethal force and its moral justification. In this book, philosopher Seumas Miller analyzes the various moral justifications and moral responsibilities involved in the use of lethal force by police and military combatants, relying on a distinctive normative teleological account of institutional roles. His conception constitutes a novel (...) alternative to prevailing reductive individualist and collectivist accounts. As Miller argues, police and military uses of lethal force are morally justified in part by recourse to fundamental natural moral rights and obligations, especially the right to personal self-defense and the moral obligation to defend the lives of innocent others. Yet the moral justification for police and military use of lethal force is to some extent role-specific. Both police officers and military combatants evidently have an institutionally-based moral duty to put themselves in harm's way to protect others. Under some circumstances, however, police have an institutionally based moral duty to use lethal force to uphold the law; and military combatants have an institutionally based moral duty to use lethal force to win wars. Two key notions in play are joint action and the natural right to self-defense. Miller uses a relational individualist theory of joint actions to construct the notion of multi-layered structures of joint action in order to explicate organizational action. He also provides a novel theory of justifiable killing in self-defense. Over the course of his book, Miller covers a variety of urgent topics, such as police shootings of armed offenders, police shooting of suicide-bombers, targeted killing, autonomous weapons, humanitarian armed intervention, and civilian immunity. (shrink)

A drone industry has emerged in the US, initially funded almost exclusively for military applications. There are now also other uses both governmental and commercial. Many military drones are still being made, however, especially for surveillance and targeted killings. Regarding the latter, this essay calls into question their legality and morality. It recognizes that the issues are complex and controversial, but less so as to the killing of non-combatant civilians. The government using drones for targeted killings maintains (...) secrecy and appeals to non-traditional justifications. Most scholars who assess these killer drone practices support citizen immunity, either by favoring a modified just war theory that prioritizes civilians’ right to life or by challenging official deviations from applicable laws. They accordingly declare such killing immoral if not a war crime. The manufacturers of these killer drones are not themselves the killers, but they are abetters, i.e., sine qua non facilitators. So, I argue that any company concerned about its corporate social responsibility should cease manufacturing them. (shrink)

Do innocent civilians who will be killed in a justified attack on a nearby military target have a right to defend themselves by shooting down the bomber pilot? I argue that they do not, and that Jeff McMahan's view that they do have such a right—that there is a moral equivalence between pilot and civilian—is flawed in much the same way that Michael Walzer's moral equivalence of combatants—a position that McMahan has so persuasively refuted—is flawed.

Targeted killings have traditionally been viewed as a dirty tactic, even within war. However, I argue that just combatants actually have a prima facie duty to use targeted strikes against military and political leadership rather than conventional methods of fighting. This is because the leaders of a military engaging in aggression are typically responsible for the wrongful harms they threaten, whereas significant numbers of their solders usually will not be. Conventional warfare imposes significant risks on soldiers who are (...) not liable to be killed, violating their rights. Narrowly targeted strikes frequently provide a less-wrongful alternative. Consequently, there is a prima facie duty to conduct such strikes, and to exercise “due care” if engagement with conventional forces becomes necessary. (shrink)

In this paper, we are concerned with the morality of killing human shields. Many moral philosophers seem to believe that knowingly killing human shields necessarily involves intentionally targeting human shields. If we assume that the distinction between intention and foresight is morally significant, then this view would entail that it is generally harder to justify a military operation in which human shields are knowingly killed than a military operation in which the same number of casualties result as a (...) merely foreseen side effect. We argue, however, that only some cases of knowingly killing human shields should be regarded as intentionally targeting human shields, and thus only those cases face higher bars of justification. We shall formulate different principles that help us to distinguish between cases where a military operation involves the deliberate harming of human shields and cases where it does not. As we shall see, these principles are relevant in scenarios that are all too realistic and common, such as the bombing of legitimate military targets located amid civilian populations. (shrink)

The title of this book echoes a phrase used by the Washington Post to describethe American attempt to kill Saddam Hussein at the start of the war againstIraq. Its theme is the notion of targeting (skopos) as the name of an intentionalstructure in which the subject tries to confirm its invulnerability by aiming todestroy a target. At the center of the first chapter is Odysseus’s killing of the suitors;the second concerns Carl Schmitt’s Roman Catholicism and Political Form; thethird and (...) fourth treat Freud’s “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death” and“The Man Moses and Monotheistic Religion.” Weber then traces the emergenceof an alternative to targeting, first within military and strategic thinking itself(“Network Centered Warfare”), and then in Walter Benjamin’s readings of“Capitalism as Religion” and “Two Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin.”. (shrink)

This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants (...) who bear a significant degree of moral responsibility for a wrong, when the prevention or rectification of that wrong constitutes a just cause for war. (shrink)

Terrorist violence is often condemned for targeting innocents or non-combatants. There are two objections to this line of argument. First, one may doubt that terrorism is necessarily directed against innocents or non-combatants. However, I will focus on the second objection, according to which there may be exceptions from the prohibition against killing the innocent. In my article I will elaborate whether lethal terrorism against innocents can be justified in a supreme emergency. Starting from a critique of Michael Walzer’s account (...) of supreme emergency, I will argue that the supreme emergency exemption justifies the resort to terrorism against innocents to avert moral disasters such as genocide and ethnic cleansing, provided that the criteria of last resort, proportionality and public declaration are satisfied. (shrink)

It’s a commonplace that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke draws his policies from Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States. With that in mind, this article establishes five points. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, Friedman and Schwartz merely insinuate their claim the Fed caused the Depression in MH. Second, their criticisms of Fed policy during the Depression, which turn on its refusal to adopt open market purchases, repudiate Friedman’s famed libertarianism and market fundamentalism. Third, Friedman (...) and Schwartz don’t refute the practical objections of bankers who opposed OMPs in the 1930s. Consequently, Bernanke’s policies for addressing the financial crisis risk doing precisely what Friedman’s targets warned against—encouraging financial speculation without addressing problems of unemployment. Fourth, Friedman and Schwartz’s prescriptions entail a neoliberal, not a libertarian, state, one governed by technocrats and answerable to financial markets. Finally, what accounts for and unifies Friedman’s contradictions is the beneficiary—finance. (shrink)

This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants (...) who bear a significant degree of moral responsibility for a wrong, when the prevention or rectification of that wrong constitutes a just cause for war. (shrink)