The ethical implications of autonomous weapon systems is a highly debated topic. While research and development of autonomous weapon systems is ongoing, non-governmental organizations seek to ban the technology. Ethicists give conflicting answers as to what is right and what is wrong. Although, arguments opposing the use of autonomous weapon systems seem to dominate the debate, particularly when balancing deontological arguments that oppose autonomous weapon systems against those who advocate the technology.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate deontological arguments opposing the use of autonomous weapon systems using argument analysis. This is done in order to assess the deontological case for opposing autonomous weapon systems.
The findings of this study are that, although influential deontological arguments opposing autonomous weapon systems are more numerous than supporting ones, the deontological case for opposing autonomous weapon systems is weak in both tenability and relevance. The main tenability concerns are the application of theory in premises and conceptual incoherence. The main relevance concern is variations in the way autonomous weapon systems is defined. These weaknesses show that the analysed deontological arguments opposing the use of autonomous weapon systems should not alone dictate the direction of the ethical debate.