Ethical dispositions designing the injuries of war

ABSTRACT

In War and the Politics of Ethics, Maja Zehfuss asks, “Would we take the risk of engaging in the highly destructive practice of war on the basis of ethico-political judgements that are inevitably precarious?” Why would we decide to fight war if ethical limits have a fragile hold on the monstrosities that might be unleashed by largescale violence? Said differently, would we fight war if the ability to prevent atrocity is demonstrably tenuous? Examining both the technical and ethical calibration of bullets, in this essay argue that we would and do. War is precarious because it is inherently about decisions to do all sorts of pernicious things – of which killing other human beings is not just the distinctive act but done in distinctive ways.

KEYWORDS:

• War
• weaponry
• wounding
• ethics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Until the mid-19^th century, the prevailing service weapon was the smooth-bored musket. Rifle use was limited to a select few rifle brigades. Although more accurate than muskets, difficulties in loading and reloading bullets, rendered the weapon inefficient as a general service weapon. With the introduction of conical bullets, in particular the Minie ball in the 1840s, however, such difficulties were overcome and rifle production as a general service weapon began in earnest. The British military was the first to adopt it, with the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle introduced into warfare in 1855 during the Crimean war.

2. In a letter to Sir John Ardagh, the British delegate to the Hague Conferences, W.T.Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, conveyed the growing anxiety around the proposed ammunition: ‘You see the announcement that we are sending expanding bullets to Africa in view of the contingency of having to fight the Boers, who are regarded as their own kith and kin by the Dutch people here, make the temperature very high.’

3. The protocol was titled ‘A Prohibition on the use of Bullets which can Easily Expand or Change their form inside the Human Body such as Bullets without a Hard Covering which does not Completely Cover the Core, or containing Indentations’. Declaration (IV, 3) concerning Expanding Bullets, The Hague (20 July 1899). It was adopted as part of the larger Hague Convention, “Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 29 July 1899“.

4. “Fleetwood, W. E. 1899. Immediate and Confidential Letter to Sir John Ardagh.” National Archives of the United Kingdom. Richmond: Sir John Ardagh-Personal Correspondence, PRO 30/40/3.

5. In conjunction with a series of agreements, the Convention and the Hague Declaration established in international humanitarian law a legal framework and ethics around weaponry in international warfare. Reinforced in the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, they remain in force today as the guidelines by which weaponry are governed in international humanitarian law.

6. As stated in the Declaration: ‘Inspired by the sentiments which found expression in the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 29 November (11 December) 1868…’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [430- 2013-000288].

Notes on contributors

Nisha Shah

Nisha Shah is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research explores infrastructures of governance and violence. Currently, she is working on a genealogy of lethality, which uncovers the ethics of killing in war through the design of weapons technologies.