[LINK] Cyberwar: Hypothetical Scenario for Teaching ICT Ethics

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2016-02-27 at 10:18 +1100, Tom Worthington wrote:
> will be happy if they think about: "Is it ethical to be involved in 
> planning such an attack?"

It's a fascinating question. Watch out for, and point out to the class,
the tendency people have to construct hyper-detailed watertight
scenarios where the only option the protagonist has is some particular
action (or inaction).

The armed forces during periods pf conscription were notorious for this
when dealing with conscientious objectors. They would lead the (usually
principled but callow) youth down a simple progression until they got
him to admit that yes, there were circumstances where he would kill
another person. Then they would say triumphantly "well, there you go,
not so conscientious after all, it's off to the front with you!"

This approach is a perversion of the idea that a principle not held
under stress is not really a principle. There are unbearable stresses,
and there are ethical dilemmas that have no answer, where any solution
is as bad as any other.

Soldiers do not be make their own decisions about who the enemy is. They
are the tools of other minds. With rare exceptions, their scope for
making ethical choices is gone. 

The actual ethical decision thus has nothing to do with the duties of a
soldier; the actual ethical decision is about whether it is OK to
abrogate (nearly) all responsibility for your actions.

The real choice is whether to become a soldier or not.

The military in this country, as in others, runs recruitment campaigns
that show smiling young people learning trades. helping out during
natural disasters, sharing a close cameraderie and having enormous fun
with extremely expensive hardware. But the ultimate purpose of a soldier
is to kill - or help kill - other people. That is just as true of
someone engaging in cyber-warfare as any other kind of warfare.

It's a sobering starting point.

Regards, K.
 
-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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