Description
The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was officially launched in 2013, bringing together a range of activist groups aiming to prevent the development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). The primary aim of the group is to ensure that ‘meaningful human control’ is maintained over new weapons systems, on the grounds that delegating killing to machines is contrary to human dignity. In this paper I undertake a close examination of the ‘human dignity’ arguments being advanced by anti-LAWS campaigners. I argue that this approach represents the latest example in a long history of attempts to humanise war, which Samuel Moyn (amongst others) argues has instead led to the perpetuation of war.Thus, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots approach is not only unlikely to succeed, but also runs the risk of reinforcing the war system by implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) endorsing the ‘dignity’ of humans making decisions to kill others. A pacifist critique of the anti-LAWS campaign could engender a more radical and morally-consistent position from which to criticise and resist the emergence of new weapons technologies and sustain anti-war politics.
