Suicide and Technology for War (Scholars Award)

自杀与战争技术（学者奖）

• 批准号: 2020976
• 负责人: Takashi Nishiyama
• 金额: $ 3.85万
• 依托单位: SUNY College at Brockport
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2020976&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Suicide; Technology; War; Scholars; Award

Suicide warfare—a timely topic in post-9/11 world— has occupied important space around the world, especially since the twentieth century. Internationally comparative in scope, this project explores the ethics of engineering for homeland security. In any country at war, it may be rational to act in what appears to be an irrational matter, and suicide missions are a key instance of this phenomenon. Suicide warfare for homeland defense, albeit against enemy forces, first requires human sacrifice, thus raising far more ethical issues than technological ones. Focusing on engineering communities in two nations that used suicide as a form or warfare, the project aims to answer a set of inter-related questions: (1) How and why did engineers support organized suicide attacks for homeland defense? (2) How was the moral sensitivity of peacetime reduced to support the desperate act as evil but necessary? (3) At what cost (and to whom) does society in war benefit from a given engineering project? and, (4) What are the acceptable costs of suicide as a technology acceptable for national defense? Project results will be used to create educational materials, public presentations, and publications in popular outlets.This project uses historical methods to analyze the period from 1914 to 1961, during which World War I, World War II, and the Cold War each elevated the importance of patriotic self-sacrifice for national causes. Critical analyses of these materials enable a series of comparisons of social practices and technological dimensions by which different nations created their versions of suicide warfare in the air by actively shaping the notions of suicide for homeland defense. Popular literature, posters, government publications, and more are used to uncover the socio-technological context in which suicide warfare in the air took shape, and how and why this differed across social contexts. Overall, this project contributes to scholarship on engineering ethics, the history of technology, and Science and Technology Studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

“自杀战争”是“9.11”事件后的一个时代性话题，自世纪以来，它在世界范围内占据了重要的地位。国际比较的范围内，这个项目探讨了工程的国土安全的道德。在任何一个处于战争状态的国家，在看似非理性的事情上采取行动可能是理性的，自杀式任务就是这种现象的一个关键例子。国土防御的自杀式战争，尽管是针对敌军的，但首先需要人的牺牲，因此引起的伦理问题远远多于技术问题。该项目聚焦于两个将自杀作为战争形式的国家的工程社区，旨在回答一系列相互关联的问题：（1）工程师如何以及为什么支持有组织的自杀式袭击？(2)和平时期的道德敏感性是如何降低到支持这种绝望的行为的，因为它是邪恶的，但却是必要的？(3)战争中的社会从给定的工程项目中受益的成本是多少（以及对谁有利）？（4）自杀作为一种国防技术的可接受成本是多少？项目成果将用于制作教育材料、公共演讲和大众媒体出版物。本项目使用历史方法分析1914年至1961年期间，第一次世界大战、第二次世界大战和冷战都提高了爱国主义自我牺牲对国家事业的重要性。对这些材料的批判性分析使我们能够对不同国家的社会实践和技术层面进行一系列比较，通过这些比较，不同国家通过积极塑造自杀式国土防御的概念，创造了自己版本的空中自杀式战争。流行文学、海报、政府出版物等被用来揭示空中自杀式战争形成的社会技术背景，以及这种情况在不同社会背景下如何以及为何存在差异。总的来说，该项目有助于工程伦理学，技术史和科学技术研究的奖学金。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。