The Moral Arguments against Military Research

Abstract

Insanity in individuals is something rare‐but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche SUMMARY Military research has become part of the established order in scientific inquiry throughout the world. Because of the awesome power of the military arsenals and the potential for ending or altering many forms of life, the questions associated with military research cannot be regarded as purely scientific or political. More than in any previous period of history, the issues associated with military research have become a moral problem. It is argued that the moral responsibilities of scientists are not altered because a country has a more democratic form of government. In fact, scientists with the most personal freedom should be the ones pressing the moral arguments against military research. It is further argued that research tends to follow paths pointed out by authorities, and when that authority is the military the research will always have unwanted side effects that are immoral and counterproductive for the scientific enterprise and the well‐being of the citizenry of that country. The problems raised by military research bring to the fore basic issues associated with the appropriate size and funding of a country's scientific enterprise, and the question of how best to achieve the goals associated with that enterprise.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.