Risk Taking and Force Protection

This paper addresses two questions about the morality of warfare: (1) how much risk must soldiers take to minimize unintended civilian casualties caused by their own actions (“collateral damage”), and (2) whether it is the same for the enemy\u27s civilians as for one\u27s own.The questions take on special importance in warfare where one side is able to attack the other side from a safe distance, but at the cost of civilian lives, while safeguarding civilians may require soldiers to take precautions that expose them to greater risk. In a well-known article, Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin argue that while soldiers must rank the protection of their own civilians above their own protection, they must rank their own protection above that of enemy civilians. Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer responded that the only morally relevant distinction is between combatants and non-combatants, not the identity of the non-combatants. The present paper concludes that Margalit and Walzer are correct. Although soldiers may take extra risks on behalf of their own civilians, the minimally acceptable risk for enemy civilians is the same as the minimally acceptable risk for their own.In response to the first question, the paper emphasizes two chief points. First is the equal worth of military and civilian lives, which implies a weak form of “risk egalitarianism”: even if morality often permits people to transfer risk from themselves to others, transferring large risks to others in order to spare oneself from smaller risks is morally wrong, because indirectly it treats oneself as more valuable than the other. Second, I explore the possibility that soldiers belong to a profession in which honor may require them to take risks for civilians. This is particularly true when the risks to civilians come from the soldiers’ own violence. The second question is whether soldiers’ special obligation to protect their own people (not other people) creates a higher minimum standard of care for their own people (and not other people). I answer no, because the special obligation is to protect their people from enemy violence, while the dilemma is whether to protect civilians from the soldiers’ own violence. The responsibility to protect the innocent from violence of one’s own making is a universal, not a special, obligation. Thus, in both questions 1 and 2, the fact that soldiers themselves create the violence that endangers civilians plays a crucial role in the answers.The concluding sections address two crucial loose ends. First is the question of whether soldiers might in fact be more valuable than civilians (including their own civilians) because they are not only human beings, but also “military assets.” The paper answers no, because this way of thinking involves illegitimate double counting of the soldier’s value, coupled with a refusal to double count the value of anyone else. Second is the related question of whether minimizing military casualties might turn out to be a military necessity because the civilian population is deeply casualty-averse, and the war effort requires their political support. Again the answer is no: otherwise, the less will to fight a country has, the less moral and legal obligation it has to fight well

Dynamic performance:the role of task and individual characteristics

Nowadays, it is expected from employees that they are flexible and able to deal with unforeseen changes at work. This is what has been called dynamic performance or adaptive performance. In Air Traffic Control, it is even more important that Air Traffic Controllers are able to deal with all the information they receive to ensure safe air traffic. In the light of sudden technological failures, it is important to find out which factors predict how employees can effectively respond to such a failure. In this way, information will be gained on how to cope with, for example, these technological failures and how we can assist professionals to cope with these types of unforeseen changes in the work. This PhD thesis describes a literature review and three empirical studies about how individuals effectively respond to unforeseen changes in their work, and which characteristics of the task and the individuals can predict dynamic performance

Earconsampler: a tool for designing emotional auditory driver-vehicle interfaces

Presented at the 15th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2009), Copenhagen, Denmark, May 18-22, 2009EarconSampler is a simple tool for designing and modifying auditory driver-vehicle interfaces. It allows for creating melodic patterns of wav-snippets and easy adjustment of parameters such as tempo and pitch. It also contains an analysis section where sound quality parameters, urgency and emotional response to the sound is calculated / predicted, so that the user directly can see how a certain parameter affects perception and emotional response

Unconstrained design: improving multitasking with in-vehicle information systems through enhanced situation awareness

In the age of information, in-vehicle multitasking is inevitable. The popularity of the automobile in combination with the demands of everyday life presents a demand to do more than simply focus on the road. Situation Awareness (SA) is a theory that allows designers to understand how operators interact in dynamic, complex environments. Unconstrained Design is proposed as a way of enhancing multitasking performance in-vehicle. This paper presents an experimental investigation into human-machine interface concepts that aim to support drivers to multitask in-vehicle when frequent task switching is required. Two SA-based approaches were investigated, one which focussed on supporting preparation for a Non-Driving Related Activity (NDRA), and one which focussed on supporting the Driving Related Activity (DRA) when an NDRA is active. While multitasking, Contextual Cueing, using a Head-up Display, produced significant reductions in NDRA response time while an auditory lane keeping aid increased the amount of time a driver spent in the central region of a lane. This provides evidence to suggest that using SA and Unconstrained Design as a philosophy for the design of IVIS that supports drivers’ ability to multitask in-vehicle, could lead to task performance improvements.Jaguar Land Rove

Research Synthesis for the California Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force

This research synthesis consists of a set of white papers that jointly provide a review of research on the current practicefor setting speed limits and future opportunities to improve roadway safety. This synthesis was developed to inform thework of the Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force, which was formed in 2019 by the California State Transportation Agencyin response to California Assembly Bill 2363 (Friedman). The statutory goal of the Task Force is to develop a structured,coordinated process for early engagement of all parties to develop policies to reduce traffic fatalities to zero. Thisreport addresses the following critical issues related to the work of the Task Force: (i) the relationship between trafficspeed and safety; (ii) lack of empirical justification for continuing to use the 85th percentile rule; (iii) why we need toreconsider current speed limit setting practices; (iv) promising alternatives to current methods of setting speed limits;and (v) improving road designs to increase road user safety

Risk Taking and Force Protection

time: 2.30-4.30pmroom: Osgoode Hall – IKB 4034speaker: David Luban (Georgetown)respondent: Dan Priel (Osgoode