{"title":"Immersive: A Violent Interruption to a Visual Silence","authors":"Brad Evans, Chantal Meza","doi":"10.5840/wurop2022214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop2022214","url":null,"abstract":"This essay addresses the violence of the digital world through its relationship to the visuality of noise and how it shapes the image of thought. Noting how deep and contemplative silence is integral to any creative and critical process, it fleshes out the ways the hyper-technologization of life is throwing us into an immersive abyss. This represents another indicator in the digital colonization of the human condition, through which the poetic is being completely appropriated by a technological vision for species being. Calling for a revival in attentive silence, it draws upon literary thinkers and artists, to move beyond the mimetic understanding for art (including the mimicry of images and sounds) and reveal the violent depths of digitalization and its total noise seduction which ultimately devour its own content. Over-stimulation thus becomes an audible clamor for lives lost within a digital trace; lives which no longer find they are able to cast any meaningful shadow.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131378276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Defensive Liability and the Moral Status Account","authors":"G. Lang","doi":"10.5840/wurop2022210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop2022210","url":null,"abstract":"Jonathan Quong argues for the “moral status” account of defensive liability. According to the moral status account, what makes it the case that assailants lack rights against the imposition of defensive violence on them is that they are treating defenders as if those defenders lack rights against the imposition of aggressive violence on them. This “as if” condition can be met in some situations in which one person, A, commands very good but factually inaccurate evidence that another person, B, poses a lethal danger to her. In this “Mistaken Attacker” case, A will be entirely blameless. Nonetheless, A is defensively liable, because A assumes that B is defensively liable despite the fact that B is not defensively liable. In other cases, A may threaten B, who is innocent and hence defensively non-liable, without treating B as if B lacks rights. For example, in the “Conscientious Driver” case, A may have lost control of her car, having taken all due precautions, and be posing a lethal threat to an innocent pedestrian, B, but A is not treating B as if B lacks rights because B’s interests have already been taken fully into account in arriving at the verdict that careful driving is morally permissible. In this paper, I explore and criticize Quong’s account. I argue that the distinctions Quong draws between Conscientious Driver and Mistaken Attacker cannot be sustained in ways that uphold the moral status account, and I suggest that the moral status account’s focus on the “as if” condition is morally undermotivated. The drift of my argument is that we should take much more minimal accounts of defensive liability more seriously than we typically do.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114393133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Killing from a Safe Distance","authors":"Peter Olsthoorn","doi":"10.5840/wurop202227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop202227","url":null,"abstract":"Unmanned systems bring risk asymmetry in war to a new level, making martial virtues such as physical courage by and large obsolete. Nonetheless, the dominant view within the military is that using unmanned systems that remove the risks for military personnel involved is not very different from using aircrafts that drop bombs from a high altitude. According to others, however, the use of unmanned systems and the riskless killing they make possible do raise a host of new issues, for instance the question to what extent the willingness to take risks is part of the military profession. This article addresses that existential question, but also the question of whether the elimination of all risk would make the military profession a less moral one. To that end, it juxtaposes the military viewpoint that riskless killing by means of drones is morally uninteresting with the more critical viewthat such riskless killing is in fact highly problematic.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"264 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114440971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Fog of Peace: War on Terror, Surveillance States, and Post-human Governance","authors":"Nandita Biswas Mellamphy","doi":"10.5840/wurop202336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop202336","url":null,"abstract":"The War on Terror is an ambiguous term that has been used to circumvent the international laws of warfare. Instead of moving toward peace by way of limited warfare, and instead of preserving the independence of war and peace, War on Terror advances by masking itself in a fog of peace; it proliferates by overlapping the logic of “war-time” and “peace-time” operations. The fog of peace—as it shall herein be called—is a condition wherein the uncertainty qua “fog” of war,2 along with its militarized logic, overlaps with and eventually replaces civilian peace-time-and-spaces. The War on Terror is thus not a limiting of war by way of the conventional modern mechanisms of international law and diplomacy; it is a continuation of war by other means, including the use covert, often black-boxed methods of information-capture and surveillance. Globally, states are expanding the powers of intelligence organs and deploying covert mass surveillance programs in the name of counter-terrorism. In this manner, counter-terrorism policies become instruments enabling states to become predatory, especially in relation to civilians. Under the banner of fighting terrorism, peace-time has unwittingly become colonized by the logic of war.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133058559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Three Questions about Violence","authors":"Vittorio Bufacchi","doi":"10.5840/wurop2022213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop2022213","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores three philosophical issues regarding the concept of violence. First, violence is not just an act, it is also an experience. The study of violence should not focus exclusively on understanding actions that cause harm. Instead, a more phenomenological approach is required, one that prioritizes the experience of violence, especially those of victims and survivors of violence. Second, it is necessary to distinguish between “unwanted” and “unconsented” violence. Third, the definition of violence as violation of integrity or wholeness will come into scrutiny. In particular, to what extent does integrity as intactness apply to human beings, and if violence is defined in terms of breaking something intact, can violence be done to something that is already broken?","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129838984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Privacy, Propaganda, and Digital ID: Why Our Delicate Values Must Be Deliberately Defended","authors":"Matthew Tiessen","doi":"10.5840/wurop202333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop202333","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I explore privacy as a concept that becomes relevant and sometimes necessary under specific circumstances, but unnecessary in others. Privacy, I suggest, can be thought of as the right to be left alone and is integral to related concepts such as freedom, liberty, and independence. In light of the ongoing expansion of data-mining technologies, business models, and emerging modes of governance, I suggest that privacy is simultaneously more necessary and more at risk than ever. Privacy, in other words, is fragile and must be appreciated, understood, and defended. At the same time, privacy is increasingly an obstacle for businesses, governments, and financial interests, all of whom are eager to extract our data, manage our expectations, and shape and control our desires. To achieve their objectives, I describe how these organizations have long used propaganda and persuasive techniques to shape and manage the opinions, values, and expectations of the public. These days, I argue, the meaning of privacy is being made to evolve in order to bolster these organizations’ interconnected efforts to expand their power and control and to pave the way for the imposition of digital IDs. I also reflect on the way propaganda is being used today, the ways it has been described in the past, and the ways it will evolve in the future—either in defense of freedom, liberty, and independence, or in service of organizations intent on expanding their power and control over managed populations.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130956314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"2022 Editorial Team","authors":"","doi":"10.5840/wurop2022215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop2022215","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122619181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Against Enemies: A Negative Politics for Contentious Times","authors":"J. Gardner","doi":"10.5840/wurop202228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop202228","url":null,"abstract":"The world is a contentious place, both politically and personally. As a result, virtually all people have enemies both at home and abroad. This essay argues that we should annihilate these enemies, all of them, future as well as present, and do so forthwith. It begins with a metaphysical sketch of enemies, which reveals how such an annihilation is possible and much easier than we generally suppose. It continues by arguing, first, that general prudential considerations yield a prima facie case that it is in our best interest to annihilate our enemies and, second, that moral reasons require this because enemies are persons. The essay ends by briefly considering some implications of this destructive proposal.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123420499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Afghanistan War and Jus Post Bellum","authors":"E. Patterson","doi":"10.5840/wurop202224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop202224","url":null,"abstract":"How should we think about justice at war’s end (jus post bellum) in the case of Afghanistan in 2022 and beyond? The basic principles of jus post bellum include order, justice, and conciliation; and there have been numerous policy attempts to realize these principles since the fall of the Taliban and flight of al Qaeda in December 2001. With the precipitous abandonment of Afghanistan by the Biden Administration and other allies in 2021, we have a sober opportunity to reflect on three periods of jus post bellum efforts: an initial humanitarian and human security phase (2002–2005); the surprising resilience of the Taliban and efforts at some sort of national grand bargain circa the 10-year mark (2009–2012); and now a future based upon Western withdrawal and the re-emerging dominance of the Taliban.","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133829757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"2023 Editorial Team","authors":"","doi":"10.5840/wurop2023312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/wurop2023312","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":276687,"journal":{"name":"Washington University Review of Philosophy","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130568258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}