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So, the police have dealt with the villian Dorner, who's caused so much grief and panic. I'll note that they didn't capture him, they didn't have a trial, they didn't do the whole 'due process' thing. A public official made the decision to kill him if he wasn't going to submit to arrest, and he gave them no other choice.
How, exactly, does this time-honoured method of dealing with a violent criminal differ in any meaningful way from a drone strike? Dorner was an American citizen. He had already killed Americans, and it was obvious that he intended to kill more. Police trying to physically arrest him would have been at serious risk of death. The only difference here are the distances involved, and the fact that this case involved technology to which people are long accustomed. The moral issues are precisely the same.
Killing an enemy of society from half a world away through the agency of a robot is no different than doing it from 50 feet with a gun*.
*Or by burning a building down around him, as they apparently had to do here.
How, exactly, does this time-honoured method of dealing with a violent criminal differ in any meaningful way from a drone strike? Dorner was an American citizen. He had already killed Americans, and it was obvious that he intended to kill more. Police trying to physically arrest him would have been at serious risk of death. The only difference here are the distances involved, and the fact that this case involved technology to which people are long accustomed. The moral issues are precisely the same.
Killing an enemy of society from half a world away through the agency of a robot is no different than doing it from 50 feet with a gun*.
*Or by burning a building down around him, as they apparently had to do here.
