Fighting Machines: Autonomous Weapons and Human Dignity, Dan Saxon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), 264 pp., cloth $75, eBook $75.

Abstract

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) are among the most frequently discussed developments in military technology. While these weapon systems, which select and engage targets without human intervention or control, raise numerous ethical, legal, and security policy questions, the international political response to regulate these systems has been slow moving. The ongoing political debate over LAWS is marked by controversies surrounding the scope and applicability of international law and the role of the human in increasingly autonomous warfare. In Fighting Machines, Dan Saxon draws on his extensive practical and academic experience and expertise in international law to argue that certain human responsibilities should not be delegated to autonomous weapons. Saxon’s argument against delegating responsibility to autonomous weapon systems centers on the impossibility of these machines ever possessing qualities of human reasoning and judgment. He deems these qualities necessary in the use of lethal force to preserve moral agency and human dignity. Unlike many scholars who are concerned with whether the use of LAWS can comply with moral standards and preserve the dignity of those who become targets or victims of the use of force, Saxon focuses on those figures operating these lethal systems. This includes, for example, soldiers, commanders, or law enforcement officers. With increasing operating speed and more autonomous functions in weapon systems, effective human decision-making, intervention, or control will become even less possible. Saxon argues that “the delegation of human responsibility for moral judgement to lethal autonomous weapon systems erodes human dignity and, consequently, international law” (p. ) when the space for human reasoning and judgment shrinks. Therefore, Saxon investigates how using LAWS to take human life constitutes a violation of the human dignity of those operating the systems. Drawing on Kant’s account, Saxon understands human dignity primarily as moral agency: only humans can make moral judgments, as they are the only ones who have the “ability to think and communicate about difficult concepts and values” (p. ), something that Saxon argues—in agreement with many other scholars—machines will never be able to do. Human dignity is more than an abstract concept that ought to guide international law. While it is not a rigid legal norm in