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James Parsons is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Manchester.

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This was taken on just like that.

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Have if you think of the scenes in the area, humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect the ethics of war,

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the increased use of private military security companies, which is the subject not only of performance going to get today.

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Of course, the last time the subjects of the book, which will be published next year with Oxford University Press.

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So yeah, his book, Humanitarian Intervention and Responsible to Protect Who Should Intervene,

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was published in 2010 by AP and got the notable Book Award in 2011 for the International Studies Association International Ethics Section.

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He's come on paper for a copy, go get one, because there's a new focus on Libya,

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as you see his focus on human intervention and got the Ernest Booker Prize for best dissertation in fiscal theory on political studies.

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The situation is published the first articles on the ethics of force and currently working with four volume major work on humanitarian interventions,

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is also working on the second monograph on national issues, a study sort of this issue of possible funders and private security companies.

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Now today I'm going to take place because this fits very strongly with more things that we have to change of heart war, not just about let's change.

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You're uncomfortable already, have you understand what we talked about last week.

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But this we're not losing sight of these ethical, moral dimensions of techniques and technology.

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So just think about what's coming through resumes. Okay. Thanks very much.

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So my background is in political theory. In political theory tends to produce handouts.

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If you don't produce handouts, then you're not regarded as a proper political theory.

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So I've got handouts and PowerPoint and other exactly the same information is on both.

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So you can either look at the handouts from the handouts or you can you can look at me from PowerPoint.

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So I've just set those guys back. So. What I'm going to talk about today is, as Rob said,

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my recently completed manuscripts on the ethical issues surrounding the use of private military and security companies.

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So PMC for sure. And so what I try and do in the book, in short, is consider the central normative objections to private pension security.

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Come these and bring these all together to provide an overall assessment of the case for and against their use.

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Now, the way that I'm going to structure the talk is I'm going to give in the first half a brief overview of the whole book.

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Now, it won't be possible to do justice or or to discuss in any satisfactory manner the overall arguments of the book and to develop my case,

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you know, in 40, 45 minutes.

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So what I'm going to do is just give a brief overview in the first half and then the second half focus on one particular set of issues.

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And the issues that I'm going to concentrate on are those to do with the issues with individuals, with individual contractors.

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And these are the issues that one I've kind of discussed this topic with people previously.

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These are ones that people are often just most interested in. So I thought that's what I'd focus on.

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Okay, so let me start then by giving a bit of a brief overview of the book.

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Now I expect that most of you have a fairly decent understanding or some background knowledge of the privatisation of military force.

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I'm not going to go into this in great detail. I'm not in both houses here.

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But instead I want to make a few more introductory clarifications. 3.33 inspections are taking place.

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So first of all, I'm going to say something about the scale of PMC use.

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In Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. Now, this has been immense.

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The total number of D.O.D. contracts is pegged to approximately 163,000 in Iraq in September 2028 and 117,000 in Afghanistan in 2012.

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Now, these figures from the U.S. Congressional Research Service are only D.O.D. contractors, so only four Department of Defence contractors.

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The total number of contractors would be even greater when you consider other agencies and other states employing these firms.

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So the scale is huge. But it should be made clear that it should be made clear that this doesn't mean that there are or have been hundreds

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of thousands of American security contractors running around Iraq and Afghanistan as as often depicted in the media.

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So although much of the focus is being on security contractors and particularly on security contractors,

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these are, in fact a relatively small part of the industry.

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In March 2011, security contractors comprised about 18% of the DOD contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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By far, the largest part of the industry are those that concern logistical services, and these tend to receive a lot less attention.

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So logistical services services include things such as the setting up of bases,

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food production, delivery, sanitation and laundry, laundry and so on and so forth.

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In addition, the vast majority of contractors, including security contractors, all American operators in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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I saw it in Iraq, whereas my figures are 85% of security contractors were what are called tickets.

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So third country nationals in Afghanistan, 95% of security contractors with local national service Afghanis.

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Afghanistan is. So that's something just about the scale and a bit about the background of the industry.

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Now let me say something about the definition of private military and security companies, because these always come up.

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I think it's important to be very clear what it is we're actually talking about here.

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So I'd like to find them premises of private funds that provide military aid or security

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services that involve or assist the use of force beyond the borders of their own client,

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of their own or their clients. Political community. I'll pick out three important features of this definition.

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Firstly, since promises are funds, this means that they are for profits.

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Second, since they are private actors, they are separate independent actors.

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So not part of the regular military or the state. And the third is that they are to some extent, transnational.

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Now private contractors are simply on my account. Those who work for penises say they don't.

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They may not necessarily possess some of the defining features.

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Appendices. And this is going to be important to get into the second part of the paper.

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So private contractors don't necessarily need to be for profit, if you like, so they don't need to intend to make a profit.

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And they might not necessarily be motivated by financial concerns.

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Second, they might not be separate from the regular military, but rather they might moonlights from the regular military as this as has happens.

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I thought they don't need to be foreign as as we've already seen.

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Now, in similar vein, I'm going to view regular soldiers, simply those that are employed by the regular military.

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So as such, the difference between private contractors and regular soldiers doesn't hang on any account of personal characteristics,

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such as the motivation or nationality. What's important is who the employers actually are.

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Mm hmm. Now. On this account on the on this definition,

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there isn't a strong difference between private military and security companies and mercenary organisations.

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So there isn't an analytically or analytically necessary or a categorical difference between mercenaries and premises,

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despite various accounts in the literature and various industry attempts to claim that there are.

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There is, I think, a degree of difference. So premises are more likely to be professional, more like to be corporate,

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and more like to provide a wider range of services than traditional accounts of military mercenaries.

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But mercenary organisations still seem to have the same defining features of being intending to make a profit,

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being separate from their regular military and being to some extent, transnational.

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Okay. Third introductory point. It's worth noting that the use of panaceas, especially in that time, especially in the past,

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has at times been subject to quite extensive negative media coverage on the court.

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I'm sure a lot of you have seen this. So the criticism tended to focus around four related problems.

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The first is that premises are ineffectively regulated,

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and that is to say there is not an effective system of national or international laws to govern their use.

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The second problem is a number of contractors have been alleged they're involved in the violations of civilians, human rights.

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And this has been exacerbated by the apparent lack of effective accountability to prosecute those who commit wrongdoing.

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So one very widely reported incident was in this square in central Baghdad in 2007,

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where Blackwater employees allegedly opened fire on civilians, killing 70.

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And there's yet to be a successful prosecution of those involved.

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The third problem throughout the lack of competitiveness of the industry and the integrity of the bidding processes and the full problem

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surrounds a lack of government oversight and proper number of insufficient number of contract offices to oversee these capacities.

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Now, these very well-documented problems have led to some initiatives to improve the accounts of pregnancy appliances and contractors,

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to improve contract procedures and their oversight.

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So the has been some, albeit limited, improvements in the way that the US in particular and to a lesser degree the UK have been using contractors.

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More recently, the industry, along with various states,

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have developed the International Code of Conduct to govern PMC, which is a form of industry self-regulation.

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Now notwithstanding these various efforts. There is, I think, tends to be unquestioned.

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The more basic issue of whether private military force is a morally acceptable way for a state to organise its armed forces.

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And there seems to be a general acquiescence that premises are here to stay

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and that the use of PMCs in certain roles has gone increasingly unquestioned.

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No. I think for a fuller assessment of the case for and against premises, it's necessary to go beyond simply considering these for more well document.

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For more well documented problems surrounding oversight and accountability.

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It requires consideration of some more fundamental issues which ultimately, I think,

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lie at the light, the heart of the case for and against the use of premises.

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And these include things such as the alleged mercenary motives of private contractors, the use of PMCs to circumvent democratic control.

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The issues of energy inequality and access to security created by market force.

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The effects of a market proposal on international instability and the efficacy, desirability and meaning of a stated monopoly on force.

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So in the book, what I try and do is consider these concerns the more well documented problems,

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but also consider some of the more fundamental issues as well. And to do this, I divide the analysis into three levels.

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So the first concerns the employees of private military force and focuses on the just the viability of being employed by PNAC.

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And these are where you find some of the most vociferous objections to private military force, such as those famously advanced by Machiavelli.

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So they often revolve around the claims that individuals are involved in private military forces depraved,

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that brutal, that merciless fight for only for financial gain with little concern for who their employer is.

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Now, if there is something to these objections, then it would seem that there'd be really serious reasons to oppose these appendices.

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And that's because the individuals involved in the practice would be doing something wrong.

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So the contractors have the right to use in the system military force or the strong reasons

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to hold the only regular soldiers permissible to use lethal force or assist lethal force.

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And these are the issues that I'm going to focus on in the second part of the paper.

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Now the second level concerns the employees of private military force and focuses on the just the viability of employing premises.

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The issues that arise at this level include most fundamentally whether employing premises threatens the legitimacy of the state.

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So sometimes it's argued that states or other actors undermine the social contract when they employ premises

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because it should be citizen soldiers that do the fighting themselves as part of their civic responsibility.

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Now in the book, I largely reject these claims and argue that premises don't fundamentally threaten legitimacy of the state.

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I argue that issues to do with effectiveness, democratic control, the treatment of military personnel and criminal liability,

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criminal solidarity give us reason in general to doubt the rectitude of using premises.

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So that's the second level to do with employers. The third level is the international,

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and this concerns the more diffuse collective effects of the privatisation of military force on the

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international system and potential negative and even positive externalities of a market for force.

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So what I mean by this are things such as the potential for the market for force, leading to greater circumvention of the formal constraints on war,

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such as international laws, and the more informal constraints such as the prevailing norms that we have in the international system.

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For instance, Pemex often alleged to lead to more proxy wars.

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And I also argue I argue that I also argue that these appear misses in the market for ports can undermine criminal security within

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societies and decrease increased disorder in the international system by making it much easier for other states to resort to force.

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So my central claim is that private military force raises problems at all levels and should generally be assumed now.

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In making this claim, I votes for things and I'll briefly run through this.

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First, deeper and contingent problems.

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So certain theorists and industry analysts argue that although there are some problems with the use of premises,

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if there were an adequate system of regulation put in place, there would be little wrong with their use.

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That is, there is nothing deeply problematic about the use of premises or that we simply need to do is sort out the current regulation of them.

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Now I challenge this argument. I argue that in addition to some of the more obvious contingent problems, the other dimensions,

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the use of premises poses some more fundamental moral concerns which ultimately give us reason to prefer public false.

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Now, I should say something about the strength of what I'm saying here, so I don't claim that these are a poor or immoral problems.

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What I mean by that is they're not necessary to all contractors and are not unique to all.

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They're not unique to premises and contractors. Rather, there are objections that would apply.

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Even the premises were effectively regulated by a system of national or international regulation.

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And these are often the sorts of objections that I run, the objections more generally that you find against markets in other basic services,

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such as against halal markets, for health markets, for education, and include issues of motivation.

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The fact that contractors can't be easily compelled to fight,

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can't be so easily compelled to fight wars and operations and the undermining of communal cohesiveness by commodities provision.

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So that's the first thing. There are about different contingent problems.

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Now, second thing I argue is that despite these notable problems, it can be permissible,

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all things considered, some sometimes sometimes to use premises.

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And this in particular is when they use with limits extremely beneficial consequences.

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So I'm not presenting an absolutist case that says you can never use them, because I think that would be far too strong.

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So you might conceive of, say, a humanitarian crisis and the UN is looking to try and launch a military operation.

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Most states are willing to provide logistical support. It can hire PMC to do so despite all the various problems with premises.

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I think there are the extremely beneficial consequences in this case would outweigh those other considerations.

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The third theme is that I argue for a global public monopoly on the provision and authorisation

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of military force in order to respond fully to the challenges posed by not only PMCs,

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but also the statist system of military force.

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And fourthly, I argue that we need to rethink some of the existing frameworks on the ethics of war.

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I think there are some seats down here if you.

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So for one, I suggest that the privatisation of the military force and the predominance of individual contracts and the high level of subcontracting.

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Demonstrates that collective response to collectivist responses to individualistic, reductionist approaches to just war theory largely,

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largely failed, ensure the rise of premises provides more risks to the revisionist just war theorists mill.

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More generally,

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I argue that considering issues that debate the private privatisation of military force shows that just war theory needs to consider issues.

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The theory, the legitimacy of the military, the military undertaken the war.

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So whereas we've got traditional categories of views that BLM and yes.

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Symbolised we don't tend to consider.

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When considering the particular case for a war or what's going on during a war.

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This is the theory with who's actually doing the fighting.

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And what I suggest is that in antebellum terms, a war could potentially be even worse if it's,

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say, fought by patsies or conscript army than an all volunteer force.

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Okay. So that's a brief overview of the whole book.

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I know that's quite a lot to cover and it's very difficult to do justice to it in a short space of time.

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So what I want to do now is focus in particular level on the issues to do with the individuals and private military force.

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So I'm going to focus on whether it's permissible to be a contractor, so whether it's okay to be a contractor.

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And if so, what? I'm to do this. I'm going to consider the three leading objections to being a private contractor.

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I'm not going to say that these objections failed to establish that it's morally wrong to be a private contractor.

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But I do highlight the contractors need to meet certain restrictions.

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Towards the end, I'm going to say that these restrictions are even greater than those for regular soldiers.

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Okay. So to start with, and what I call the violation of human rights objects and the whole you alluded to

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this and this is one of the most vociferous and commonly encountered objections.

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So, for instance, Enrico Ballesteros, who used to be the U.N. special rapporteur on mass tourism,

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said that mercenaries based on comparative advantage and greater efficiency on the

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fact that they don't regard themselves as being bound to respect human rights,

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the rules of international human law,

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greater distain for human dignity and greater cruelty are often considered efficient instruments for winning the fight.

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More precisely, the objection is that the de facto immunity for certain contractors removes a major disincentive to commit abuses.

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So as I've already indicated, there are numerous allegations of human rights abuses by PMC personnel in Iraq.

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Now. I don't buy this objection. I think there's an obvious problem with that.

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And this this is that it doesn't show that there's anything wrong with being a private contractor.

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All that is simply required is for a contractor not to violate civilians human rights.

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So contractors who don't violate civilian human rights would not be subject to this objection.

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So there's nothing at least inherently problematic about being a contractor on this objection.

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Moreover, I think it's clear that most contractors don't go.

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I could at least commit violations of human rights.

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So I don't think that this objects and provides a presumptive objection to contractors either.

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So it's not something that we can presume that generally applies. So I don't think this one has much force.

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Let me now turn to what I call the state's objection.

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And the state's objection says that there's something simply wrong with having the status of being a contract.

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So.

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So there's something wrong with the very the very essence of being a private contractor, but being someone that can go to war as a private individual.

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Now this objection has a bit more prima facie plausibility. I'm not going to consider it in a bit more detail.

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It's been most substantively defended by Adam Perel, who's a legal theorist,

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including a very recent paper in a leading philosophy journal of Philosophy of Public Affairs.

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Now, Harel argues that private contractors lack the permission to use force since they aren't public agents,

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they act on their own private judgement about whether to go to war.

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According to Harel,

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private sanctions soldiers such as those apparently required in private prisons that he also considers by private contractors are impermissible.

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This is because in such circumstances, private individuals are required to act on their own judgement.

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Yet, he argues the parts of conflict to inflict criminal sanctions or to go to war is what he calls an agent dependent power.

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And that can be only successfully exercised by the state.

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Now he thinks this objection applies even when private actors such as those involved in private prisons or Princes al-Masri,

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for purposes, follow the state's orders and comply with its decisions.

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Now to substantiate his case, he gives the following example.

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A public official asks you to participate in the infliction of criminal sanctions against the convicted criminal.

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In this case, you are required to consider as a private citizen the justify bility of your imposition of sanctions on the individual.

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Now for Pharrell, this is really problematic because the public authorisation of the action isn't exclusively an execution of the will of the state,

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but is rather dependent on your own private judgement about whether to actually inflict sanctions.

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And for this reason he thinks it would be impermissible. It depends on your own private judgement rather than that of the state.

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And so he thinks it would infringe the autonomy of those subjects, of the sanctions.

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By contrast, the things that public officials possess special role base duties to enforce the state's decisions without exercising any discretion.

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So the central objection that he pressed is against private contractors then is that they

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need to make private judgements rather than simply enforcing the will of the state.

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Now. I'm not persuaded by this argument.

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And here's the reason why. It seems that this argument is too strong in saying that regular soldiers are not sometimes required to act

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on their own private judgements about whether to go to war or whether to question whether their war meets.

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The start of the council of say you set about just war theory to.

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I accept that soldiers may sometimes have role base duties to give significant weight to what their state says.

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So being a soldier might provide them with quite a significant number of reasons to accept.

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As a general point, what their state or their commanding officer says,

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regardless of the contents of this report, regardless of the content of the commands.

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In technical language, there's a pro tanto content, independent duty to obey.

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Now. It seems too strong, however, to say that there is an in the feasible reason why,

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an absolute reason for regular soldiers always to follow the dictates of the state regardless of what it commands.

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Sometimes the role, basically the role based duties of soldiers may outweigh the duties not to participate in the war.

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And what they based on their private judgement, just judge unjust.

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Yeah. Other times this won't be the case.

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So sometimes I think regular soldiers are required to go along with what their own private judgement says that they should do.

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So I'll give you an example. Suppose that there's a regular soldier, let's call him.

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Fred joins the army of the Democratic state that tends to fight just wars.

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The greater resources of the state to access the justice of the law.

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And the fact that it is going to be democratically authorised by this nice democratic state gives further potential content.

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Independent reason. A general reason, if you like, to fight any war ordered by the state.

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But doesn't seem to follow that this consideration always outweighs the case for Fred acting on his own private judgement.

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So a particular war might contravene Fred's deeply held moral or religious convictions.

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Or Fred might have access to particular information that the proposed war is going to be unjust.

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Say he speaks to a friends who works intelligence services and so forth.

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Alternatively, although Fred's state may be likely to fight just what is in most cases a particular war,

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this particular war may still be unlikely to be just.

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And Fred's refusal to participate in it might not do anything to actually harm the military.

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So it might. Nor can it persuade other others in the future to take a similar role as it did to take a similar position.

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So my point is that both private contractors and regular soldiers are permitted and sometimes required to act on their own private judgement.

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And so I guess, Carol, there isn't a major categorical difference here.

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The argument would, I think, also rule out the permissibility of having regular soldiers.

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Okay. So I reject the status quo. Thirdly, the most remote is an objection.

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This is probably the most common objection is that private contractors possess an inappropriate motive for waging war,

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namely financial gain, and therefore acts impermissibly.

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Now, I think this objection is to some extent correct, although I'm not sure how weighty we should regard it.

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So let me explain what I mean by that. There are three basic premises of the argument I'm going to run through reach inside.

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The first is. Less controversial.

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This is something that motives matter and moral judgement.

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So this is based on the Kantian notion that individuals should be motivated by the right sorts of reasons for their actions to have moral worth.

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Secondly, the premise is the second premise is that it's problematic individuals and predominantly motivated by financial gain.

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Now this notion relies on the premise that to be moral individuals should be motivated by duty.

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And duty regarding duty requires to some extent other regarding action.

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So we should be motivated by concern for others rather than our own self-interest.

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Now, the motive of financial gain seems to be particularly problematic because it's typically self-regarding,

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not always, but typically self-regarding.

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So individuals who pursue financial gain often but not always do so because they seem to want to benefit themselves.

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So competence should be motivated not by financial gain, at least predominantly,

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but by other regard, such as patriot, such as, for instance, patriotism.

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Now, against this, Tony Lynch and A.J. Walsh in a piece in the journal Political Philosophy in 2000 replied

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to such arguments by arguing that the motive of patriotism is potentially worse,

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more dangerous, they argue, because, for instance,

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it can lead to dehumanisation of the enemy and the lack of questioning of the war aims at the state.

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No, I do not find this response persuasive. So there can be mild forms of patriotism.

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But more fundamentally, the second premise isn't saying that individuals have to be motivated by patriotism,

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saying they should be motivated by either a god before their family, humanity, state humanity, or even fellow soldiers or or patriotism.

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Now, another response to the second premise is to say it's too demanding.

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It's too demanding to ask. The individuals should not be predominantly motivated by other regarding concerns.

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Now, in order to reply to this or two, clarifications is necessary to start with.

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Individuals are required to be other regarding only so far as the motivation concerns their duties to others.

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So it's only when they're thinking about considering issues to do with the rights and interests of others.

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When their sites are home watching TV, they don't need to be other regarding.

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They can. They can watch what they want. In addition, individuals are only predominantly required to be out of a garden.

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They are still allowed to have some degree of self interest.

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So, for instance, a regular soldier might possibly join the military in order to help defend others in his state from aggression.

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But also as a secondary consideration because it's a good career option with good pay and good benefits on offer.

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Okay. That's the second premise.

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Third premise, private contractors are more likely to be motivated, predominantly motivated by financial gain than regular soldiers.

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This is probably the most controversial part of the party's objection against this suggestion.

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It's sometimes argued that regular soldiers are motivated by financial gain, such as wanting to pursue a career with generous remuneration.

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On the other hand, there's claimed that some private contractors are motivated by other reasons,

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so sometimes they are motivated by patriotism or sense of adventure, or even sometimes wanting to do something for people, anything.

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You can conceive of that. Now I accept these points.

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Individuals, individual contractors, just like regular soldiers, are, of course, likely to possess a variety of motives.

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That kind of influenced the decision to become a contractor. Some will be motivated predominantly by financial gain.

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Others won't be. Yeah, it still seems that we can reasonably expect that financial considerations will figure more

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predominantly into decision making a PMC personnel than lots of their public counterparts.

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Now it is extremely difficult to prove this is the case.

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And I think to do this, you need to have a huge comparative study across the regular military campuses, private contractors,

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including all the local national laws and third country nationals,

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and compare similar personnel and actually try to establish what the actual motivations are.

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It's going to be very difficult to do this also.

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But nevertheless, I think we can still reasonably expect that this is the case without having that kind of degree of proof.

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And this is for three reasons. Firstly, the sympathy seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests that this is the case.

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Secondly, it seems very odd that it would seem it would seem to be very old if this was the case,

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if the high wages on offer for private contractors wasn't.

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What the key motivating factor in the decision of private contractors to take on contracts?

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So there's a clear justification or reason for this reasonable expectation, financial incentives.

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And thirdly, in the various surveys that there have been of private contractors, financial considerations are often highlighted as influential.

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So there have been some surveys, although they're income, but they're not such a bruiser.

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So I think overall that this must be motives. Objection has some validity.

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Yeah, it's only a presumptive objection. So it clearly doesn't apply to those contractors who don't possess mercenary motives.

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In other words, like the violation of human rights objects.

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And it only sets forth a restriction that contractors should meet if private contractors are motivated by predominately by the right sorts of reasons.

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Then this objection won't apply. And it's conceivable that they could be motivated by the right sorts of reasons.

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Remember what I said in the first part of the talk where contracts are simply need to be those who want the pieces that

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don't need to have the intention or motive of being motivated by financial gain to be deemed a private contractor.

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Furthermore, even if contractors don't meet this condition. This doesn't seem to be important.

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Consider more generally when considering the grand scheme of war.

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So I think this objection, we can presume, generally applies to private contractors.

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More generally, this objection is going to be one that's going to hold against a lot of contractors.

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Not all of them, but a lot of them. It's a restriction they should meet. I don't think a lot of them are going to meet it.

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However, this consideration doesn't seem to be a major consideration when considering the whole grand scheme of war,

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when we're thinking about things such as mass human rights violations, international stability, responding to aggression.

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These much higher moral stakes when considering the case for and against, say, an all volunteer force,

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seems to be much more important in determining the case rather than issues to the motivation of those actually fighting the force.

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So then I've considered three objections and rejected them, at least in part.

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I think there must be more motives. Objection has some validity, but it's not particularly weighty.

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None. The objections establish that it's impermissible to be a private contractor.

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Now in the final section of the play from the very briefly consider the restrictions that contractors should meet.

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I'm not going to suggest that these are more demanding than those for regular soldiers.

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I suggest the contractors should always make judgements in war.

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That is as far as they can raise and studies are clearly just so clearly make all of the relevant just war theory criteria,

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whereas regular soldiers are required to make contributions that that's only probably just.

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Now I'm realising I'm running a little bit out of time when I practice this on my wife.

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It took about 40 minutes, so I'm kind of slow and that's not so particular.

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So restrictions from private contractors and what I call the deferral view soldiers are more required

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to follow the assessments of the leaders of your self club of traditional just war considerations.

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Avista disagree with this assessment. So this is in essence Harold's view that we looked at earlier.

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Now there are sort the very sorts of considerations he might think give us reason to adopt the federal view.

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So you might think that route is what better access to information about justice of laws.

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There they sit on high level committees briefed by intelligence community.

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So on the site for second you might think the route is a democratically elected and authorised by the people to make decisions about war rather than,

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say, regular soldiers. Thirdly, you might think that the continuing function of the military.

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And successful fighting of wars requires obedience rather than conscientious refusal of or objection.

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A fourth thing you might think the soldiers largely agree when they join to fight the wars decided by their leaders.

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Now as opposed to suggested. I don't think these objections these reasons provide.

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A strong reason and in the feasible reasons to say the contracts, to say that the soldiers should always follow the dictates of the state.

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They still sometimes look to their own private judgement. But that's only sometimes.

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I do think that these reasons generally have some force. We should give them some way, if not somewhere else, as in the feasible way now.

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By contrast, it's very clear that this deferral view doesn't apply for private contractors.

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So private contractors aren't under the authority of the regular military.

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They're largely phrases like the wars in which they fight because they're recruited on the basis of online databases on a single contract basis.

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So they don't possess any pretence or institutional duties to obey that study or that commanding officer.

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They haven't got a commanding officer before they signed up.

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So consequently, contractors, I suggest, should always look to their own judgement of the acceptability of their participation in the conflict.

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So they should always try and make judgements about them, about whether particular contracts it's going to meet the relevant just war considerations.

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And they should always follow that judgement. So by contrast, the regular soldier lot to some extent be excused, if you like,

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because of these four competing considerations for the role base duties.

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Now. Final final point.

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There's an interesting upshot of this argument is that it may, in fact, be preferable to be a private contractor in principle, at least.

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Joining the regular military always poses the risk that one could be asked to make an unjust contribution in the war conflict, unjust wars.

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It may also be that disobeying orders will have detrimental effects on the military

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more generally and undermine the military's likelihood of fighting effective wars,

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which may turn out to be just overall. So given the potential harmful effects of conscientious refusal and the risk of fighting unjust wars,

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it may be better to choose to become a private contractor.

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If an individual you can choose and contracts when you're supremely confident that you're only going to be fighting unjust wars.

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In addition, you might know that it'll be hard for you to conscientious refuse if you join the military, regular military,

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because, for instance, the costs of doing so, say imprisonment or being ostracised and potentially respect for authority figures.

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So if you're a bit you hold in very high regard.

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By contrast, you might think that it makes it very much easier for you to do the right thing if you're a private contractor.

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So if you were really moral person,

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you might think the best thing to do is to go off and actually be a private contractor rather than to join the regular military.

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That's in principle.

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Of course, as a practical matter, it's it's a further question whether contractors take on the options to pursue to fight only unjust wars.

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Given the financial considerations I've already alluded to and other considerations that kind of

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influence their decisions to take on board and indeed I'm going to finish on a more sceptical note.

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So although it might in principle be permissible to be a private contractor

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and even in principle be preferable to be a private contractor in practice,

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it's likely that many private contractors act impermissibly.

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First, as I've already suggested, many may lack the right motive for participation in war.

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Second, most, I think,

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will not take advantage of that free choice and will participate instead in wars that are unjust according to just war theory conditions.

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This is because, although I'm not going to argue the point here, most wars are, I think, unjust.

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If this is correct, then it seems to follow that most of those who participate in unjust wars will also act impermissibly.

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So fine. The point then is that although I think that it can in principally the.

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Permissible to be a private contractor, given that most wars are unlikely to be just given them financial motives.

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Presumably a private contractors. I think in practice this is unlikely, I think.