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.

自杀战是9/11后世界中的及时主题 - 占据了世界各地的重要空间，尤其是自20世纪以来。该项目在国际比较范围内探索了国土安全性工程伦理。在战争中的任何国家，在似乎是不合理的问题上采取行动可能是合理的，自杀任务是这种现象的关键实例。尽管反对敌军，但为国土防御的自杀战而需要人类牺牲，因此比技术问题更具道德问题。该项目的重点是使用自杀作为形式或战争的两个国家的工程社区，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攻击对国土防御？ （2）和平时期的道德敏感性如何支持绝望的行为是邪恶但必要的？ （3）战争中的社会从给定的工程项目中受益什么（与谁）？ （4）自杀作为一种可以接受的国防技术可接受的成本是多少？项目结果将用于创建教育材料，公共演讲和流行渠道的出版物。该项目使用历史方法来分析1914年至1961年的这一时期，在此期间，第一次世界大战，第二次世界大战和冷战都提高了爱国自我规定对国家事业的重要性。对这些材料进行的批判性分析能够对社会实践和技术维度进行一系列比较，通过这些比较，不同国家通过积极塑造自杀的票据以供国土辩护创造出空中自杀战的版本。流行文学，海报，政府出版物等被用来揭示空气中的自杀战在空中形成的社会技术环境，以及在社会环境中的不同之处。总体而言，该项目有助于工程伦理学，技术历史以及科学与技术研究的奖学金。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准，认为通过评估被认为是珍贵的支持。