Constructive conflict culture

I.
This conference deals with future air combat systems (FCAS / SCAF) on a meta-level, against the background of a Franco-German-Spanish program to develop an air combat system of systems including manned multi-purpose combat aircraft, unmanned escort aircrafts, as well as new weapons and communication systems. Presenting at such a conference can only mean, for a Catholic Military Bishop of the German Armed Forces, being able to relate to the entirety of these topics on a meta-level, since he is neither familiar with these fields of work nor can he be an expert in genuine ethical reflections on the challenges they present. This is due to the fact that an integrated system that combines the tasks of drones, fighter planes, satellites, and command and control aircraft has to deal with hitherto unfamiliar network capabilities, possibly also with cyber war capabilities and with new forms of energy weapons. The consequences of their possible use, in the field of responsible ethics, are at stake.

Hence, in view of the high degree of challenge posed by the scientific and technological development of military aircraft, the question of the responsibility of the actors in these systems must be addressed anew. For all artificial intelligence applied here, at whatever level, remains as before, in the form/along the lines of the harmony of science and technology, assigned to the well-being of humankind and must not be directed against humankind as such. Therefore, it is a reflection on the ethical knowledge about humans, their nature and the responsibility that goes along with it, especially with regard to the forms of new system technologies that are used. In an entirely new way, what Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have emphasized and continue to emphasize when they speak of an ”ecology of the human being“ is redeemed here. Humans do not only owe themselves to themselves, they are, at the same time, responsible for themselves and others. With regard to this, they carry out human freedom, which at the same time includes responsibility for the freedom of others.

II.
Building on this, I will start out with the image of who has an anthropocentric view, in which perceptive reason, active will and responsibility are brought together. This perception needs to be analyzed with regards to the latest techniques. For the unrestricted dissemination of digital technologies makes it unlikely that people would limit and decelerate the associated power by themselves - through politics and/or their own insight of reason. Here, the human being is questioned and challenged in their ethical dimension.

Because, the more powerful the deadly effect of weapons is, the more necessary it is that the people behind these systems and who are responsible for them, know what they want to do and take ethical responsibility. Developing an ethical awareness of this is therefore indispensable. The exact determination of the autonomy of humans remains highly important in view of the possibilities of their decisions, as well as in view of the resulting consequences. For this reason, it is essential to formulate ethical and legal significant principles with regard to the use of appropriate weapon systems in such a way that they offer practical orientation and the greatest possible legal security. These ethical problems are different from the fundamental question of whether the use of such weapons systems can be justified at all.

I therefore tend to formulate guard rails in the hope that they will be able to answer the questions that arise in as complex a manner as possible. Developing an ethos regarding technical controllability and personal responsibility in the use of such systems of artificial intelligence and comprehensive automation can serve an important goal, namely to ask how ethical knowledge gained can be technically operationalized, or, in Christian terms, how it can be turned into a responsibility before God and humankind to serve peace.

III.
It is obvious that the potential for conflict increases in the actual context. Modern, globalized and digitally oriented societies are structurally susceptible to ethically qualified conflicts. At the same time, however, the culture of conflict itself changes in such disputes, developing new dynamics, some of which will remain constant. It is therefore necessary to avoid describing the ethical conflicts that arise in the above-mentioned context of applications of new weapon systems in a one-sided negative way. Such a conflict can be described in its destructiveness, dysfunctionality and negativity as a - classically speaking - ”malum“ that should be avoided, especially in view of the ethical principle of St. Thomas Aquinas “Bonum faciendum, malum vitandum”. However, a one-dimensional devaluation and stigmatization of the conflict does not help, because it is precisely in the context of armed military and only as ultima ratio legitimate violent conflict outcomes that it is relevant to deal with conflicts both ethically constructively and institutionally. This is linked to the claim that conflicts, in all their destructiveness, should be dealt with constructively, in the sense of the most effective de-escalation possible. The problematic is: How can the soldiers, who are directly involved in complex conflict situations and often plagued by persistent conflicts of conscience, contribute to the most constructive conflict management possible through their service, even if there are no visible successes or even positive effects for the individual ?. Such action not only deserves high esteem and appreciation, but it also requires ethical, comprehensive and advanced personal development and, if necessary, pastoral care.

In that respect, it is helpful tofully and without bias- grasp the concept of conflict in its complexity as a social and political factual element, regardless of its specific context, constellation of causes or forms of expression. Conflicts can be productive, even though reality may often be less ideal. However, they preserve the ethically qualified adaptive thinking and decision making by making errors or grievances visible or by acting as indicators for necessary changes, thus enabling joint solutions despite all oppositions.

It is not always so that conflicts only destroy known orders. As dynamic and constructively on-going processes, conflicts have the potential to form structures, develop new orders on the basis of what already exists, and initiate necessary change, albeit not as an end in itself. However, it remains important not to idealize the challenging change, i.e. to take the fears associated with it seriously and to credibly convey that change and the preservation of the existing are not (have to be) mutually exclusive.

IV.
It is precisely this insight into the productive potential of conflict in ethically significant attitudes and decisions, especially with regard to the challenges of artificial intelligence, that is of lasting relevance and must be kept conscious as such. I would like to briefly remind you that two great teachers of the Church, namely St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, have shaped the thinking of many people precisely through their strongly order-centered concept of ethics, which is oriented towards harmony. Since, for them, order was to be thought of as a binding guideline from God in nature and in society, they could usually only describe conflicts negatively, because they were capable of endangering or even destroying order. Nevertheless, both of them still thought of conflicts as positive and productive factors. In this line the political philosophy of the modern age, visible for example in Emmanuel Kant, assigns the conflict, whose origin is in his opinion to be looked for in the dialectical counterplay of human sociability and unsociability, with all possible degenerations nevertheless it is also a powerful driving force for the human progress. With all these theories, came a growing awareness of the positive effects of conflict as an inevitable phenomenon of human society. And even Pope Francis, in one of his first great letters in 2013, in the Apostolic Letter ”Evangelii Gaudium“, is able to approach the idea of conflict in a similar way. He warns against ignoring it, glossing it over or even getting lost in it. The Pope describes the readiness to suffer such conflicts, to resolve them and thus make them the starting point of a new process as the best option to face the conflict and to maintain the inherent possibilities of it. Out of conflict, communities can develop, out of incompatibilities a multiform unity can develop. For the conflict could often be described in a broad sense as morally indifferent and ambivalent with regard to its function. Its evaluation depends on the ability to contain and transform violent conflicts and to reveal and utilize the productive potential of the conflict.

V.
It should be remembered, and particularly with regard to the responsibility to be assumed in conflict resolution, that a constructive culture of conflict defines a spectrum that includes both the delegation of the conflict to institutions and thus the institutionalization of the conflict, and dialogue solutions in the form of compromise and consensus. However, putting aside one's own claims in favor of other conflict parties or to enable cooperation, demands a great deal. All conflict parties have to reflect on their co-responsibility for conflicts as well as on their attitude and inner attitude with which they carry out the conflict.

The ethical tradition speaks here of virtues that need to be practiced. These include moderation, prudence, truthfulness, patience and tolerance. It also requires courage to tackle controversial and difficult issues that question old certainties. Confrontation is not to be denied by exclusion. Rather, a decisive and clear confrontation must be made wherever limits are reached and the framework of constructive conflict culture is often deliberately abandoned or even attacked, namely by fundamentalisms and extremisms that demonstrate anew how polarization is encouraged. The brutalization of language is available as an indicator for this.

It is clear that not every type of conflict can be constructively dealt with in the same way. Unlike fake conflicts, in which the conflict degenerates into an end in itself, real conflicts assigned to a specific goal can be dealt with constructively. Here again divisible conflicts, which permit a ”more or less“ outcome regarding the conflict object, are easier to handle than indivisible conflicts, which only know an ”either or“ outcome.

In any case, tensions and fundamental discrepancies arise with regard to the respective levels of the individual conflict. If they are to be dealt with at the inner-societal level, this has different implications than at the international level. Especially for the soldier, in view of the traditional ideal of conflict management, important perspectives arise here, namely to strengthen the ethical dispositions of the bravely fighting, wisely judging and moderate peacemaker in such a way that they is empowered in their ability to react reliably and consistently and responsibly in stressful situations. This competence for responsibility is at their disposal when they possesses the virtues mentioned above and when their will is strengthened in and for the good, especially through the virtues of bravery, wisdom and moderation already mentioned, strengthened in the attitude of wanting to serve peace. The principle of proportionality, which is always aimed at achieving a significant goal by gentle means, is to be observed. Therefore the soldier must bind their bravery to justice, as well as to prudence, since no ethical and legal knowledge, however appropriate, can clearly dictate how they should behave in a given situation. They often have to perform actions under great uncertainties and in a field that can only be roughly measured in ethical terms. It may be that, although they have acted with the best of their knowledge and conscience, they must subsequently determine that their judgement was based on ethical guidelines and/or an assessment of the situation, which in subsequent reflections proved to be inadequate. This applies not only to their actions. Also their omissions need to be justified. Thus, if it is often difficult to distinguish right from wrong in many situations, this creates a pressure of conflict on different, interwoven levels, which must be accepted and productively used. What exactly does this mean for the military ethic of responsibility?

VI.
An important level for ethically responsible decisions, which must be taken into account, is that of the soldier's conscience. For the soldier must not avoid the question of what is right or wrong, and must be conscious of their actions, because on the one hand it is a matter of their moral identity, but on the other hand - for religious people - in conscience it is a matter of the encounter between God and them as a human being. For conscience is the most hidden sanctuary in humankind, where they are alone with God, whose voice can be heard in their innermost being (cf. Vat II, Gaudium et spes 16). According to our tradition, this moral self-determination through conscience is understood as an important characteristic of the inviolable dignity of humans, which is important for the soldier. The formation of conscience aims at an imagination that develops alternative options for action. At the center of such conscientiousness is ethical judgment, which cannot simply be derived from general norms. Such a judgement essentially requires empirical knowledge of the situational context to which the norms should and must be applied. The person making the judgement must be clear about which norms, already assumed to be valid, is appropriate to be applied in a given case in the light of all relevant situational characteristics. For the recognition of norms does not replace their application in a given situation, nor does it exclude conflict with other moral obligations from the outset. A conflict of conscience is understood here to be a conflict in which the moral existence of the person making the judgement is at stake: If the person concerned were to act against their deep ethical convictions, they would betray and destroy their moral self-determination, i.e. the center of their personal existence. Then - and only then - is it a conflict of conscience. Since military service often takes place under ethically rather unclear conditions, this means a considerable increase in the burden on the conscience of the individual. But because conscience is so seriously the center of the personal existence of humans, the right to freedom of those who act accordingly must always be respected. Ultimately, it must be a matter of making peace in freedom by addressing such conflicts and carrying them out productively.

VII.
With regard to the use of autonomous weapon systems, the ethical problem is exacerbated by the fact that the human responsible person can disappear with their ethically qualified decision, or at least the impression is created that they can. For this reason, the fundamental ethical questions raised by the possible use of artificial intelligence in military robotics must be answered by the same moral principles, but also by international legal regulations, that have been raised by conventional weapon systems, which can harm the opponent and kill people in the process.

Especially with regard to the evaluation of artificial intelligence, however, it should not be forgotten that the undeniable military, political and ethical advantage of unmanned combat equipment lies in the fact that it can carry out its mission without endangering the lives of soldiers. This reference to the duty of care towards one's own combatants undoubtedly carries considerable ethical weight, but it must be brought into balance with the goal of sparing uninvolved civilians on the other side. Nevertheless, security gains and risk minimization for one's own troops represent a strong weight on the scales when weighing up the various options. Above all, it must be considered that such systems can possibly generate a second ethical conflict, which should not be underestimated if it is thought that they supposedly have a higher ability to solve problems and for this very reason ethical dilemma situations can arise. Such robotic systems could, according to the argument, limit the use of military force to the mildest, most promising means better than human actors, and thus be conducive to the observance of international humanitarian law of war.

It must be said, however, that the emotional disconnection of autonomously acting systems, which relieve humans of important subtasks in the run-up to the decision, can also conceal a highly ambivalent tendency. Although the use of robotic decision-making aids can compensate for human inadequacies, it also creates new problems because the role that human play in the hierarchical chain of decision and responsibility that ultimately leads to the triggering of weapons becomes unclear. Indeed, if the step towards fully automatic weapon systems that no longer require human control or monitoring were ever fully possible, the ethically and internationally unacceptable consequence would be that there would be no one who would have to be responsible for war crimes and could thus be punished. All the more so, the responsibility for killing people would become diffuse and could not be clearly attributed to any of the human leaders involved. The problem in such a situation remains the principle that the killing of a human being can never be legitimate unless a human actor takes responsibility for it according to verifiable moral and legal standards.

However, if military robotic systems can no longer just execute orders and pursue predetermined goals, but can themselves participate in the issuing of orders, and if the selection of goals in a system of human coac of humans and robotics, which undermines a central prerequisite of all ethics, namely the concept of autonomous autonomous action. For erroneous killing acts, potential violations of dignity and unjustified interventions in the bodily and psychic integrity of innocent people, it would then be impossible to identify a responsible individual, although these are all processes that touch the core area of ethically qualified responsibility. In this case, every actor would have deconstructed himself as an instrumentalizing instrument of a killing machine programmed to liquidate human beings. It cannot be ruled out that what must not happen, namely that human responsibility for the use of military force will in future be increasingly delegated to autonomous control systems, thus leading to an era of warfare in which the talk of the ”dehumanization of war“ could unfortunately acquire a new meaning.

Thus, the final criterion is once again that of the responsibility to be borne by those who, in the spirit of a constructive culture of conflict, must do or refrain from doing everything possible to serve the goal of solving the great political and military challenges of the present as peacefully as possible. Also in view of the shared responsibility of all those involved in the conflict, this must be done in the sense of a well-founded ethical tradition, which confirms the basic assumptions of the virtue doctrine, also with regard to the autonomy of the decision of the individual soldier and the political and military leaders, and which is repeatedly applied in their right.