Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military
Marion Hersh
Overview
The chapter discusses the ethical issues arising from military work by scientists and
engineers. It includes an overview with some depressing statistics of global military
expenditure and its consequences and a presentation of a three-part model of the
causes of confl ict. The different types of military technology are presented from
nuclear weapons to small arms and the various arms control agreements and the
arms trade, including corruption in it, are discussed. Further contributions are a case
study of military research in the UK and discussion of the (large negative) impacts
of military expenditure on the economy.
1
Introduction
National security is generally focused on military preparedness, including highly
sophisticated weapons technologies (Jackson
2011
) rather than peace building and
resolving underlying problems (Abbott et al.
2006
). Engineers and scientists have a
critical role in developing weapon technologies and maintaining military preparedness.
However, this raises a number of ethical issues, including the ethics of military
research and development and the diversion of resources from other important
areas, such as education and health, and the contribution of new military technolo-
gies to arms races. There are also the questions of the type of society we want to live
in, the undue infl uence of the military on political decision making and whether
military applications are the best or an appropriate use of human creativity. These
questions are particularly relevant in the context of the existing large stockpiles of
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