Philosophy 2083F/G Chapter Notes -Military Technology
6 Dec 2012
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What jeff mc mahan means to provide in this essay is a careful and precise account of individual responsibility in time of war. War: it is a coercively collectivizing enterprise; a tyrannical enterprise; it overrides individuality, and it makes the kind of attention that we would like to pay to each person"s moral standing impossible; it is universally oppressive. His paper is a bit stingy with applications. Coalition soldiers were also required to accept greater risks to themselves to reduce the harm inflicted on the conscripts. Note first how far mcmahan is in this example surely there were some members of the guard for whom service was an offer they could not refuse and who were privately opposed to the invasion of kuwait. Mcmahan does in fact recognize the collectivizing impact of war. What he regards as significant differences of responsibility between the guard and the regular army just aren"t going to make a difference on the battlefield.
