Professional Development: Ethical Issues of Non-Military Drones

This essay, prepared for ITECH 3203 Professional Development, delves into the ethical considerations surrounding the use of non-military drones, focusing on surveillance and its broader societal impacts. The assignment begins by defining drones and their various applications, extending beyond military uses to include areas like medicine delivery, wildfire control, and photography. The core of the essay examines the ethical dimensions through the lenses of utilitarianism, deontology, social contract theory, and character-based ethics, highlighting the conflicts between the benefits of drone technology and the potential infringements on privacy and safety. It discusses how the utilitarian perspective might weigh the positive outcomes against the negative consequences, while deontology emphasizes adherence to moral rules and duties. The essay also explores the social contract, which addresses individual rights to privacy, and character-based ethics, which evaluates ethical conduct. The analysis references the ACS code of ethics and concludes with a balanced perspective on the evolution of drone technology and its ethical challenges. The essay uses references to support the arguments and provide context to the ethical considerations.

Running head: NON- MILITARY DRONES: SURVEILLANCE
NON- MILITARY DRONES: SURVEILLANCE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
Non- military Drones:
The drones, or the unmanned aerial vehicle, is a form or type of aircraft that can be flown
without human assistance. The drones can be controlled with the help of the computers, from the
ground. It has mechanized communication pattern or system. The trip of Drones may work with
different degrees of independence: either under remote control by a human administrator or
independently by locally available computers (Lidynia, Philipsen, & Ziefle, 2017).
The drones have been essentially, created as a help for the government for the military purposes.
However, apart from the military services, the drones can also be used for other non- military
exercises. For example, the drones are one of the best possible way to reach medicines and other
essentials to an inclusive region, or a region affected by natural calamities or any other natural or
manmade accidents (Braun, Friedewald, & Valkenburg, 2015). Also, it can be used to transport
medicines and medicinal equipment. Since the drones are much faster, therefore, it is often used
to send over medical equipment, blood, and the like to the areas or region in need. Ghana is
extensively using the drones for the transportation of vaccines to the rural areas. Another two
great and important usage of the drones are to control the wild fire and to control a situation of
epidemic in ap particular area. The drones have ben proved to be very much effective to control
the wild fire, as it is very difficult to control wild fire, from the ground, and if it is not controlled,
then there can be and there are usually many casualties. Also, it has been often seen that the
usage if drones have proved to be very helpful and useful while controlling a situation of
epidemic (Enemark, 2013). Usually, the epidemics are virus borne and contagious, therefore, it is
often much difficult to reach to an area of epidemic and help out the people affected. Also, the
drones can be greatly used for the purpose of photography, and in the modern days of
photography, the drones are increasingly used to get a better, proper and clearer picture.

2Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
However, as the drones are increasingly used by the private bodies and by the civilians, there are
certain ethical and legal ground that are broken and not being maintained. There are also certain
safety issues related to the usage of the drones by the private bodies and by the civilians.
Therefore, in the following essay, certain ethical grounds will be considered to discuss upon the
ethical issues related to the usage of drones.
Utilitarianism:
Utilitarianism refers to the moral theory of consequentialism. The basic notion is that the
consequences and the impacts of the actions will decide whether an action is morally correct or
wrong. More specifically, the utilitarianism states that the result of any action or decision can
only be either good or bad. The utilitarians believe that the basic aspects of life is to make and do
more god things in order to create a good surrounding, and only thus can life be better.
Therefore, this has a philosophical aspect, and the utilitarian apply this method in all aspects of
life and all aspects of socio- political, and economic conducts. Therefore, the utilitarians also
have a take on the usage of the Drones, especially by the private organizations or the civilians.
According to the utilitarians, the usage of drones in the personal and social life are hampering the
private spaces and safety of other civilians (Germen, 2016). It is often seen to have put into
negative usages, for example, gaining private photos or footage, and further those footage are
used for malicious purposes. One of the major negative usage of the drones are the usage of the
drones for the purposes of corporate espionage, whereby the private footages are taken in order
to black mail and other purposes. Thus, the usage of drones, completely negate the aspects of
Drones.

3Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
Deontology:
As the utilitarianism states that the morality of an action depends upon the consequences of the
action, the deontological ethics states that the morality of an action depends upon the action
itself. The deontological ethics states that an action must be morally or ethically correct under
certain circumstances and situations, and rules or regulations. These can include the duties and
obligations. From a military perspective, the use of the drones may be correct and ethical, but
when it is used on a more personal ground then there can be and often are immoral issues. The
deontological belief talks about the safety issues that are associated with the drone usage. The
most important safety issue related to the drones is the activation operations of the drones. The
drones that are usually used by the private organizations are very powerful and quite developed
as they are a major concern near the low aircrafts, where an airplane is supposed to be landing. It
can collide and cause major crash, which can be proved as life threatening (Jarvis, 2014). Also,
the crash can also result into affecting the engine of the airplane. Therefore, according the
deontologists, the drones do not follow the deontological ethical grounds.
Social Contract:
The social contract is moral theory or model of the political philosophy, which came into being
during the time of enlightenment. The theory talks about the right of the state over an individual.
The basic notion of this theory is that the individuals have their right to privacy and they have
their own personal space where the state cannot interfere or intervene. Therefore, the social
contract issue regarding the use of the drones refers to the individual privacy that may get
affected or are getting affected by the usage of the drones. According to the social researchers,
the use of the drones affects the private space of the individuals thus, violating the rules (Kerner

4Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
et al., 2017). As it is difficult to track the drone, and as they can cover more space, aerially,
therefore, it is often seen that the drones get footages, of the private lives of people. This is
especially true in the suburban areas, from where the footages of people doing their private
chores have been videoed or photographed (Jensen, 2016). Also, it is illegal to track people and
their lives, without their permission, only under certain circumstances, kit is legal, and this usage
of the drone completely stand against the social contract.
Character Based:
The character based approach includes all the aspect of the ethics. It is also termed as the virtue
ethics, whereby all the forms of ethical approaches are included, and the ethical conduct of a
particular action is evaluated. Therefore, as per the above mentions, it is evident, that although,
there is a noble and very useful purpose being the evolution of the drones, however, the usage of
the same is wrong on the ethical grounds, and should not be practiced for the personal usage and
by the private organizations.
ACS code of ethics
The ACS code of ethics include,
 The Primacy of the Public Interest, this refers to the public interest for the purpose and
use of the drones.
 The Enhancement of the Quality of Life, this refers to the improvements that are issued
by the uses of the Drones.
 Honesty, refers to the maintenance of the ethical conducts by the proper usage of the
drones.

5Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
 Competence, refers to the issue of competency of the drones, as issued by various
countries.
 Professionalism, refers to the proper usage of the keeping to the business of the drones
(Levulis, DeLucia, & Kim, 2018).

6Non- Military Drones: Surveillance
References:
Braun, S., Friedewald, M., & Valkenburg, G. (2015). Braun, Friedewald & Valkenburg:
Civilizing Drones–Military Discourses Going Civil?. Science & Technology Studies.
Enemark, C. (2013). Armed drones and the ethics of war: military virtue in a post-heroic age.
Routledge.
Germen, M. (2016). Alternative cityscape visualisation: drone shooting as a new dimension in
urban photography.
Jarvis, J. (2014). The ethical debate of drone journalism: flying into the future of
reporting. Research papers, (475).
Jensen, O. B. (2016). New ‘Foucauldian Boomerangs’.
Kerner, M., Berry, M., Zammit, B., & Chongolnee, B. (2017). Drones vs. Privacy In The Modern
Era.
Levulis, S. J., DeLucia, P. R., & Kim, S. Y. (2018). Effects of Touch, Voice, and Multimodal
Input, and Task Load on Multiple-UAV Monitoring Performance During Simulated
Manned-Unmanned Teaming in a Military Helicopter. Human factors, 60(8), 1117-1129.
Lidynia, C., Philipsen, R., & Ziefle, M. (2017). Droning on about drones—acceptance of and
perceived barriers to drones in civil usage contexts. In Advances in Human Factors in
Robots and Unmanned Systems (pp. 317-329). Springer, Cham.