The thought of a company going (somewhat naturally, it would seem) from pet cameras to armed drones, to say nothing about the 5 stages of drone autonomy in warfare, throws me back on something that I think will be increasingly important: everyone will need to work moral overtime if we want to avoid becoming Günther Anders’ “murderers without malice.”
Martha Nussbaum has drawn this lesson thoroughly from Greek tragedy. I’ve mentioned Agamemnon before, but another example she gives comes from Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes. Eteocles, king of Thebes, son of Oedipus, upon realizing the seventh Argive fighter at the gate is his own brother, chooses to go with the other six Theban fighters so that he may oppose his brother himself. After a brief lament, Eteocles declares “it is not fitting to weep or grieve” and seems to conclude that “brother against brother” is as fitting and just a conflict as “foe against foe.”
It’s important to note that Nussbaum is willing to grant, at least for the sake of argument, that Eteocles has made the best decision he can, that, given the circumstances, it may in fact be the right decision to have made. But the Chorus of Thebes is struck not by his choice but by the way he faces and embraces it:
The Chorus of Theban women, themselves mothers of families, feels this strangeness, reproaching their king not so much for his decision — or at any rate not only for his decision — but, far more, for the responses and feelings with which he approaches the chosen action. ‘O child of Oedipus, dearest of men’, they implore him, ‘do not become similar in passion (orgēn) to a person who is called by the worst names’ (677-8). He is showing the feelings of a criminal, although he may have reasoned well. Again they implore him: ‘Why are you so eager, child? Do not let some spear-craving delusion (ata) filling your spirit (thumoplēthēs) bear you away. Cast out the authority of this bad passion (kakou erōtos)’ (686-8).
Nussbaum calls this a perversity of imaginative and emotional responses to a serious practical dilemma.