| Abstrakt: |
Cyberattacks raise tricky and important moral questions. When is it permissible to attack an opponent's Information and Computing Technology systems (ICTs)? Or obligatory? Could a cyberattack be a legitimate casus belli, being justifiably responded to by physical force, or are the only justifiable responses those that are in-kind? Existing discussion of the moral framework with which to evaluate the ethics of cyberattacks has consisted either in the application of Just War theory, or in claims that Just War theory is not fit-for-purpose for twenty-first Century warfare and that a new kind of ethical theory is required. Both sides are partly right and partly wrong. Advocates of Just War theory are correct that it applies to cyberattacks, but are wrong to suppose that this constitutes a sufficient basis on which morally to evaluate all cyberattacks. The dissenters are correct that an alternative framework is required for the ethical evaluation of cyberattacks, but they are wrong to suppose it must be novel. This judgment is justified by my substantive thesis: we already have a concept which is fit for purpose in evaluating a great proportion of the moral significance of cyberattacks, namely that of harm to property. Property rights provide an ethical framework within which cyberattacks should be assessed. An important advantage of such an approach is that it makes sense of how cyberattacks can be both bloodless but constitute real harm. A result is that a cyberattack could be a legitimate casus belli, given sufficient harm to property that was sufficiently (morally) valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
