The 20th century itself is an example Of this inherent human contradiction, paving brought forth at least three major arms races, two m ajar worldwide wars, and the greatest number of casualties of war ever imagined. On the other hand, the 20th century has also seen many efforts by individuals, pressure groups, and governments or governmental organizations, trying to appeal to the masses in order to try to stop wars, and limit arms races, arms trafficking, the production of nuclear weapons, and the production of all sorts of other devices that have been designed to be harmful.
Now, well into the 21st century, we may ask ourselves to what extent these retreat efforts have had their effects, and we are morally required to take the problems that still lie waiting into consideration. One of these problems, the problem which shall be discussed in this paper, is the vast supply, demand, and trade of arms worldwide.
With military expenditure being the single largest spending in the world -? with an estimated annual total budget of 900 billion dollars (Shah, 2007) with a globalization trend (Shah, 2007), and highly politically – instead of morally – motivated, this problem might well be the most serious threat to global peace and overall human wellbeing in the near true. 2. Paper structure, definitions and explication In the next two chapters, following the three-stage scheme for moral reasoning about concrete cases, the ethical aspects of the production and the trade of arms will be analyses.
The fifth chapter will deal with the deliberation stage. The first stage the explication stage will be considered in this chapter. In order to keep the extent of this paper within the required framework, it has been necessary to greatly narrow down the research question. First, some definitions of the narrowed subjects will be presented, with a number of reasons. Secondly, the structure into which this paper has been divided shall be explained. In this paper, the armament trade will necessarily be reduced to the definition “large industrial firms legally supplying considerable amounts of large weapons to governments”.
In this definition, it is to be noted that 1) small companies and individual traders are not being considered, nor are other more shady non-legal business deals. In order for an ethical discussion to make sense, 2) considerable amounts of weaponry must be traded, to exclude an occasional “mistake”, which might not be based on the company’s logic. The definition of 3) large weapons rules out the considerable ethical problem of the small arms trade, as well as the inexhaustible subject of land mine usage and trade.
Finally, 4) guerilla bands and other non-official customers have not been taken into consideration, while the definition leaves room for an ethical discussion on the kind of governments that should be considered as potential customers. One more remark is required here; in this paper it will not be attempted to solve or discuss problems in levels of industrialization between different countries, and the possibility Of some entries to make product that other countries cannot make.
When taking into account the ethical considerations of the various questions, a systematic way of reasoning shall be used, as indicated in the article Introduction to Ethics: three varieties of moral reasoning by H. Van den Belt, and the article A three-stage scheme for moral reasoning about concrete cases by H. Van den Belt. There are many facts and figures to be found on the various topics to be discussed in this paper, as the armaments trade is a major source of discussion, and a great amount of pacifist organizations collect data on arms reduction and trade.
Most would seem to be reliable, but it is hard to acquire any data from other parties but the anti-parties, as this would require great amounts of data to be processed and analyses, which would be beyond the reach of this paper. Therefore, further research may require more factual data. Two research questions shall be discussed in this paper, encapsulating the main elements of the ethical issues of armaments trade business. After these questions have been discussed, some generally applicable ethical conclusions will be presented. The two questions are:
Question 1: Under what circumstances is it ethically acceptable to produce weapons ? Question 2: Under what circumstances is it ethically acceptable to sell and trade weapons ? 3. Under what circumstances is it acceptable to produce weapons ethically ? Companies that produce weaponry for the market have a very negative public image, even though they do sell their products to organizations and countries that do their best to exercise beneficence to society. Therefore, this negative image may not be wholly merited, and the purpose of this chapter is to try to enumerate a number of objective arguments.
Stakeholders are weapon producers, governments of countries where weapons are being produced, and supranational or non-governmental organizations. One way to examine the situation is to use the four basic moral principles as described by H. Van deer Belt in the article Introduction to ethics. This modern synthesis of ethical theories has been put forward by Tom Béchamel and James Childless in 1979, and the four core principles are as follows ; 1. The principle of malefaction ; 2. The principle of beneficence ; 3. The principle of respect for autonomy ; 4. The principle of justice.
As the principle of respect for autonomy, implying a respect for authenticity and uniqueness of others and of their choices, does not seem to apply much in this situation, this principle shall not be further discussed here. The principle of justice, implying a just and fair treatment of others and an equitable distribution of costs and benefits, is also not an aspect to be considered when looking solely at the production of arms, because producing arms in itself does not lead to justice or injustice, nor does it per SE lead to an inequitable distribution of some kind.
Principles that do apply are the principles of malefaction and of beneficence. The former requires no harm being done upon others, the latter requires good being done and promoted upon others. It is quite clear that the main aim of any weapon system is to eliminate other human beings, or at least to inflict harm upon them, therewith violating this principle and giving a good reason to consider the whole process of manufacturing arms as unethical and unwanted.
There are, however, some advantages to arms production and trafficking that might give some counterweight to this argument, and these arguments nearly fall under the principle of beneficence. For example, many of the more developed countries to which armament companies deliver their goods use their military capacity to enforce peace upon other countries, or simply to protect a fragile peace on request of the United Nations. Delivering sound, capable weapon systems to these countries has a clear beneficent goal, and has the ambition to reduce maleficent of third parties.
Over the 20th century, a number of arms races have led to great tensions between the world’s great powers. The naval arms race of the early asses, the gig guns arms race of the asses, the global re-armament race of the 1 9305, and the nuclear arms race in the Cold War during the 1 sass, ass, and ass do not clearly show if it may be a morally good or bad thing to stimulate arms races. It has been argued of all these arms races that they have helped to prevent or at least delay the inevitable major war, but on the other hand, once war did break out after all, the increased power of the weapons stockpiled would lead to more and graver casualties.
Overall, it may be best to allow a reasonable amount of weaponry build-up of any country, but the reduction and storage of large quantities of weapons in the stockpiles of a country armory is doubtlessly not a good thing, at least in the long run. Some advances in technology lead to more advanced weaponry. One aim of any peace-keeping force being to minimize friendly, neutral as well as enemy casualties, a market is developing for less harmful weapons. These non-lethal weapons may temporarily eliminate the adversary from the battle zone, or prevent the battle to take place altogether.
While this development is in itself a good thing, the practical and realistic issues – a lot of this seems to be more bout more propaganda and image-forming than reality -? of this still remains to be seen, and the reality of having casualties In any conflict cannot be waved away. The idea, however, of being able to apply beneficence in peacekeeping operations, without being required to commit maleficent, is still very appealing, and probably more governmental efforts should be directed to this end. Producing sophisticated weaponry gives a great economic advantage to the manufacturing country.
If the weaponry does not fall into wrong hands, and its trade is well regulated and used only in ethically correct circumstances, the economic stimulus it provides to a country economy is a good thing to the inhabitants. Nowadays, however, most weaponry is produced in developed countries (see Figure 2). Though this discussion is part of a wholly different ethical dilemma, and lies outside of the scope of this paper, it is clear that SSH fitting prod action facilities to less developed countries has other negative side effects, and will not be a realistic option besides.
All in all, the production Of weaponry does have a great positive economic significance on the producing countries, therewith exercising the principle of beneficence. 4. Under what circumstances is it acceptable to sell and trade weapons ethically ? It is one thing to produce arms, but the trade and trafficking of arms is a wholly different story. The illegal trafficking of small arms and land mines is a highly noxious business, triggering and triggered by a whole range of other shady businesses.
Even when looking at trade on an organized national level, many times it can be suspected that economical, political or even personal motives play an important role. When looking at the ethical aspects of arms trade, these non-legal ways of traffic will not be considered, and instead there ill be a focus on the legitimate trade, as would be authorized by supranational organizations. Stakeholders are weapon producers, governments of countries where weapons are being sold, governments of countries where weapons are being bought, opposition forces within these latter countries, and supranational or non-governmental organizations.
It is perhaps most difficult of all to decide on which countries are legitimate receivers of arms. While it may be ethical at one instance to provide weaponry to a poor and oppressed people, that same people may use the name weapons for non-ethical suppression of their own, or even use them against the benefactor. It is all dependent on the situation whether the weapons will be put to good use, and used for defense, not for oppression.
Even though such a situation would be nowadays mostly hypothetical, it is not unthinkable that a country that is being considered an international pariah does not do harm to any other country, or its own population, and simply needs a protection barrier in the form of weapons to protect itself from foreign interference. The whole international community would decide that it old be unethical to supply this country with weapons, but as this example illustrates, the decision on whether or not a rgame is “good” or “bad” depends on the countries that are geopolitically important, not on a ethical decision with arguments from both sides.
An argument that many weapons traders use, is that if they would not do the trading, within the boundaries of legitimate and regulated arms trade, the weapons trade would flourish anyway without them, but outside of these boundaries. As there is clearly a need for means of defense all over the world, his sounds like a valid argument. This is, however, a utilitarianism way of looking at the problem, and does not address the intrinsic good or bad aspects of the problem. After all, any company that sells arms does this to make profit, and it is usually profitable to stay (just) within the boundaries.
What happens when the deal has been concluded is not part of the companies’ deliberations. 5. Conclusions and deliberations Taking the previous arguments into consideration, it is hard to formulate whether the production and trade or arms is morally a totally good or a totally bad thing. Probably, the world would be better off without, but, from a utilitarian viewpoint, and considering that defense and aggression are primary human instincts and could not be banned anyway (in the near future), it would be morally acceptable to allow a limited production and traffic of arms.
