Jody Williams, a Nobel Peace Prize
recipient for her work to stop the use of landmines recently spoke at DePauw to
discuss her international humanitarian work. I was lucky enough to be able to
attend her lecture as well as participate my Humanitarian Intervention class
where she was present to tell us her story as well as some Q&A.
After hearing her speak I remain
fascinated by her rise to activism. She describes the primary driving force in
activism as “righteous indignation” or the discovery of a rightful emotional
disgust, not quite broaching on the ventings of “anger”, that she felt at a
young age towards the injustices that her deaf brother experienced at school as
a child. She recalls this feeling of righteous indignation as her
motivation to
stand up for human rights in the international sector. Not only was her use of
righteous indignation inspirational as she told a room full of college students
that an individual really can make a difference, but I also believe it also
helped justify some ethical dilemmas that are brought to light by her work.
From an ethics standpoint, it is
also interesting to address Ms. Williams’ endeavors. For example, in class, she
prided herself on the first time she was arrested in a human rights
demonstration. While most would agree that in her demonstrations she is
standing up for a just cause, she manages to be lumped into the same category
as thieves and murderers when she is ‘arrested’ for breaking laws and other
stratified social norms.
I was very intrigued by (and find myself
still thinking about) a point that a student made in response to her newest
campaign to stop the development of killer robots (drones that are not
automated by humans) having the ability to save our own children from the front
lines. While both types of machines seem incredibly inhumane and unethical,
couldn’t they also have the potential to save the children of the working class
(as she mentioned they were the majority of the demographic that makes up the
military) as well as the president’s own kids?
I remember her argument about this, and I agree with her that the use of these robots would have one major issue. If someone is wrongly killed, where would the responsibility for this fall? For example, if it were one of our robots, would the head of some branch of the military be responsible? The President? The person that wrote the code for the robot to make decisions on who to kill? None of these people are actively telling the robots what to do, and so if the robot is acting on its "own", it will be difficult for anyone to sort out accountability. I do agree that it would save many lives, but she also made a good point questioning the robots' ability to distinguish its allies, enemies, and civilians. At least for me, these two points alone make the use of these killer robots a bad/ frightening idea, but as Kacy pointed out, it does seem to have both pros and cons.
ReplyDelete