PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Michael J. Robillard is a research fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies. Prior to his time at Notre Dame, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford's Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics, focusing on issues of counter-terrorism ethics. As a former U.S. Army officer and Iraq war veteran, his academic research has focused on a variety of contemporary issues within moral and political philosophy, just war theory, and philosophy of technology. He also has several popular editorial articles concerning artificial intelligence as well as free speech in academia in Aeon, Quillette, and the New York Times. Bradley J. Strawser is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Dr. Strawser, himself a US Air Force veteran, received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut and has lectured on the ethics of war and peace, military ethics, bioethics, and development ethics throughout the United States and Europe. He has published in such peer-reviewed journals as Analysis, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Philosophia, Journal of Military Ethics, Public Affairs Quarterly, Journal of Human Rights, and Epoché. Dr. Strawser has published books with Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and Routledge.
In compelling detail, Outsourcing Duty describes the moral exploitation of American soldiers by citizens who profess to support the troops but are derelict in the performance of their own civic duties. It is a profound, persuasive, and deeply troubling book. * Andrew Bacevich, author of After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed * Outsourcing Duty is the first serious and detailed analysis of the ways in which societies and governments expose their soldiers to moral as well as physical risks. The authors, both philosophers with backgrounds in the military, argue that when soldiers are compelled to fight in wars about which they are given little information, they must take responsibility for life and death decisions that involve a grave risk of wrongdoing. Because burdening them in this way is a form of exploitation in which the citizens in a democracy are implicated, this powerful book poses challenges to all of us that demand a response. * Jeff McMahan, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford * This new volume takes up a critical issue in military ethics and national security: the nature of the moral sacrifices that we ask of our uniformed members and whether the burdens they willingly assume are reasonable. The authors address the nature of the problem and provide needed insights and solutions in an excellent, clearly argued, and accessible read. A must read for all those concerned with morality, justice, civilian/military relations and moral injury. * Pauline Shanks Kaurin, James B Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics and Professor, US Naval War College *
