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Project Team
Project lead: Prof. Christian Enemark
Professor of International Relations
School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences
University of Southampton, UK
c.enemark@soton.ac.uk
Project funder: European Research Council (grant no. 771082)
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
Project overview
The increasing use of armed, uninhabited aircraft (drones) is a serious political challenge with implications for security and justice worldwide. Drone technology is attracting high levels of investment, drones controlled remotely are becoming more numerous, and technological momentum toward drones controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) is building. Many human lives are at stake in this, so the violent use of drones continues to raise ethical questions. This project - Emergent Ethics of Drone Violence: Toward a Comprehensive Governance Framework (DRONETHICS) - systematically addresses an urgent need to clarify the morality of ‘drone violence’, and it aims to generate research-based recommendations on how to restrain and manage this violence justly.
Around the world, more governments are acquiring and using armed drones for military and other purposes, but ethical uncertainty persists about what it means to use these aircraft ‘responsibly’. Going beyond the requirements of existing international law, an Armed Drone Code of Ethics could be an effective governance resource for reducing the risk of various injustices that potentially arise from violent drone use.
Context
Technologies for enabling drone-based violence are advancing and spreading rapidly. There is also a real possibility that more operational functions within drone systems could in future be performed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Research Findings
Through the innovative application of multiple moral theories, the DRONETHICS project (hosted by the University of Southampton) aims to provide a comprehensive framework for addressing ethical concerns about current and potential forms of drone-based violence. The project’s research findings show that armed drones have the potential to illuminate or exacerbate broader moral problems.
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