Ethics and the Enhanced Soldier of the near Future

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

We live in a world of rapidly advancing, revolutionary technologies that are not just reshaping our world and wars, but also creating a host of ethical questions that must be dealt with. But in trying to answer them, we must also explore why exactly it is so hard to have effective discussions about ethics, technology, and war in the first place?-P.W. SingerThe super soldier is on the way-maybe not tomorrow, but soon. As technological inventions are changing our society, so will technology ripple through our battlefields and soldier ethics. enhancement possibilities are often discussed, but less so are the ethical challenges of the new technologies.In the near future, science and technology will offer many startling choices to enhance or equip the soldier. Like any innovation in warfare, the Army must discuss the ethics of enhancing soldiers. Planning must begin on how to incorporate the enhanced soldier into the Army. A comprehensive planning effort could prevent the unintended repercussions of technology implemented without consideration for ethics, concepts, and doctrine. The Army must come to terms not only with creating-or fighting against-enhanced soldiers but also with understanding the unforeseen ethical challenges and the second- and third-order effects of such warfare.At the very basic level, all items soldiers carry and use could be considered enhancements to aid them in battle. In 480 BCE at the battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans' enhancements were in the form of their shields, spears, and swords. At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, English King Henry V and his forces had their enhancements: English knights rode atop warhorses and wore armor plate while the English bowmen fired arrows with the long bow.Today, U.S. soldiers carry enhancements of body armor, weapons, radios, and batteries that weigh in excess of 75 pounds. However, the way of exterior enhancement soon will be augmented with technologies yet to be developed.The soldier of the future likely will be enhanced through neuroscience, biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetics, and drugs. According to Patrick Lin, writing in The Atlantic about the ethics of enhancing soldiers, Soldier enhancements, through biological or technological augmentation of human capabilities, reduce warfighter risk by providing tactical advantages over the enemy.1 Lin describes efforts to develop a super-soldier who can perform more like a machine.Why Are Ethics Important to the Enhanced Soldier?A 2010 report prepared for United States Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory about the appropriateness of cognition-enhancing drugs for troops says that the Army has tested modanifil and caffeine (to promote wakefulness) for use in military operations and that Army policy already approves some drugs for cognition enhancement.2 The report's authors expect that more drugs will be considered for enhancing warfighters. However, the authors barely mention the ethical concerns of using drugs such as modanifil for enhancement rather than for their intended therapeutic purposes. Moreover, their review of the literature and issues on ethics is based on about six sources and takes up about one page of a 50-page report.A definition of enhancement. According to the Oxford Dictionaries Online, enhancement is increase or improvement in quality, value, or extent.3 One working definition of an enhancement as it might apply to warfighters, according to Lin, is that enhancement is a medical or biological intervention to the body designed to improve performance, appearance, or capability besides what is necessary to achieve, sustain, or restore health.4Dangers of enhancement to soldiers. The risks that accompany enhancement are not new. Throughout history, armies have used risky enhancements such as addictive drugs to improve soldiers' performance in combat. For example, high-dose caffeine, modanifil, and amphetamines all have been shown to be highly effective in temporarily reversing mental performance degradation in sleep-deprived soldiers. …