Moral Equality of Combatants
The moral equality of combatants (MEC) is a doctrine about the principles governing the conduct of combatants in a war (where “conduct” is taken to include not only how combatants are permitted to fight, but whether they are permitted to fight). According to MEC, the principles governing the conduct of combatants in a war do not depend on what side in the war the combatants are fighting on. Thus, if MEC is correct, then for any side in a war, the principles governing the conduct of the combatants do not depend on whether that side is fighting a just war. Consequently, if it is permissible to fight in a just war, combatants do no wrong by fighting in an unjust war. The most distinguished supporter of this application of MEC is Michael Walzer. In his influential book Just and Unjust Wars (2000), Walzer argues that the responsibility for waging an unjust war rests with military and civilian leaders – not with combatants who typically have no control over the decisions made by their leaders, and who typically are subjected to deception, indoctrination, and coercion by the state. Thus, in a war with a just and unjust side, the combatants fighting on the unjust side (unjust combatants) are typically no less morally innocent than those fighting on the just side (just combatants). Walzer argues that since both just and unjust combatants are morally innocent (unless they commit war crimes) the principles governing combat ought not to distinguish just combatants from unjust combatants. 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
practical (applied) ethics; 
war and conflict
AI-Powered Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems in Defence Transformation. Impact and Challenges
Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing business, and transforming defense and warfare. In particular, the paper addresses the challenges from the easy availability of AI resources to be applied to drones that are already an asymmetric threat, and the issues concerning the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) that promise military advantages like the reduction of deployed soldiers, loss of civilians, damage of infrastructures, and the rapid support to decision-making. Autonomous systems can also help in disaster and humanitarian operations. However, the deployment of systems that are more and more autonomous from humans poses multidimensional challenges for their certification, compliance with ethics and international humanitarian law and present risks to security. Mechanisms for the mitigation of their proliferation to malicious non-state actors and a meaningful human control should be implemented. War gaming in a theoretical, risk-safe environment can assess the threats and impact of robotic weapons on future defense planning and operations. From the example of the lessons learned in the automotive industry, simulation can be applied to digital twin models of the AI system and the environment to train and test under unexpected and extreme conditions, unanticipated hardware and software failure situations and in complex dynamic operational contexts including interaction with civilian entities.
THE COLLECTIVE WORK OF CITIZENSHIP
I. INTRODUCTION Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love opens with a scene as powerful as any novel has given us in recent years: The pilot of a hot-air balloon, down in a field, is struggling against a sudden gust to get control; the balloon’s basket contains a child, perhaps the pilot’s son. The novel’s narrator, lunching in the countryside, realizes with horror that the pilot cannot gain control, that the balloon will be lifted up by the wind and almost certainly blown into high-tension lines nearby. Fortunately there are some others who have also spotted the problem, and the narrator and they converge on the balloon to help the pilot secure it. They are eager but uncoordinated; as McEwan says: “There may have been a communality of purpose, but we were never a team.”