Is Remote Warfare Moral?, Joseph O Chapa
Is Remote Warfare Moral?, Joseph O Chapa
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Is Remote Warfare Moral?
Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles

Author: Joseph O Chapa

Narrator: Joseph O Chapa

Unabridged: 6 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 10/11/2022


Synopsis

America is at an important turning point. Remote warfare is not just a mainstay of post–9/11 wars, it is a harbinger of what lies ahead—a future of high-tech, artificial intelligence–enabled, and autonomous weapons systems that raise a host of new ethical questions. Most fundamentally, is remote warfare moral? And if so, why?
 
Joseph O. Chapa, with unique credentials as Air Force officer, Predator pilot, and doctorate in moral philosophy, serves as our guide to understanding this future, able to engage in both the language of military operations and the language of moral philosophy.
 
Through gripping accounts of remote pilots making life-and-death decisions and analysis of high-profile cases such as the killing of Iranian high government official General Qasem Soleimani, Chapa examines remote warfare within the context of the just war tradition, virtue, moral psychology, and moral responsibility. He develops the principles we should use to evaluate its morality, especially as pilots apply human judgment in morally complex combat situations. Moving on to the bigger picture, he examines how the morality of human decisions in remote war is situated within the broader moral context of US foreign policy and the future of warfare.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Marina on March 23, 2022

Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7000 miles. The question on Morality is asked, but I don't know that it is necessarily answered or that Joseph Chapa aims to answer the question. The author presents arguments and real world examples in his exposition but still leaves the door wide open for the......more

Goodreads review by Dwight on April 08, 2023

I give this book a high rating because the topic is important and challenging, and while I don't wholeheartedly agree with the author, it was interesting to see a military insider's academic and methodical approach to a problem which, really, I wish we didn't need to think about. He unpacks the parad......more

Goodreads review by Elmwoodblues on October 29, 2022

I don't know who Chapa wrote this book for, exactly; given his military service history and current job with the Air Force, it seems aimed largely at addressing drone crews sitting on the ground, often within the continental US, killing bad guys half-a-world away. Time and again, he draws parallels......more

Goodreads review by Brian on June 19, 2023

Just finished “Is Remote Warfare Moral” by Joseph O. Chapa. While he makes some very interesting historical arguments as to why we shouldn’t necessarily tag drone attacks as immoral or truly novel…..I think, at times, he relies a bit too much on anecdotes from Predator and Reaper pilots to make his......more

Goodreads review by Gregory on January 13, 2023

I wish Goodreads had a ten star rating function instead of 5 so I could draw out subtle differences relatively ranking the 90% of books I give 4 stars. This book is a solid 7/10.......more


Quotes

“Chapa’s firsthand experience gives his philosophical conclusions weight… a well-informed study.”—Publishers Weekly

“[E]ven those who have already made up their minds about the morality of war will find a challenging examination of questions to which we are still developing answers…A hard-nosed look at the morality of drone warfare from a writer who has seen it close-up.”—Kirkus