Dr Alex Leveringhaus awarded British Academy project grant

Congratulations to Alex Leveringhaus, who has been awarded a British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant.

The funding will support a project entitled 'Just War Theory 2.0: Ethics, Technology, and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century'.

What will be the nature of armed conflict in the 21st century? In answering this question, one must not ignore the impact of new and emerging technologies on future conflict. In this respect, two areas are of special interest. First, recent years have witnessed the development of cyber weapons, such as computer viruses and other software robots, which can do enormous damage to an enemy's (civilian) infrastructure. Secondly, in recent years, we have also seen advances in neuroscience and biotechnology. For instance, we now have a much better understanding of how the brain works or how to manipulate an organism's genome. It is likely that armies will use these insights in order to enhance their soldiers. Faced with the prospect of cyber war as well as biomedical enhancement for military purposes, we must ask what kinds of ethical principles should govern the development and use of new military technologies. Is the existing framework provided by just war theory sufficient in this regard, or does it need to be revised? The proposed project sheds light on this and related questions.

This project will run from 1 September 2013 to 31 December 2014.