Why Limit Collateral Damage?
Collateral damage is defined as “the damage and destruction of targets or personnel not considered as lawful military targets; for instance, accidental bombing of civilian population or medical facilities”.1 Given the definition, most would agree that bombing civilians, medical facilities, or other non-military targets is unethical because it targets people who have no part in military conflict. In World War II, there was little attention given to collateral damage. As a result, entire European cities were demolished and over 35 million non-combatants died. 4 In support of the claim that limiting collateral damage is ethically right, we look to an ethical framework called Virtue Ethics. Virtue Ethics, as the name would imply, is centered on what makes a good (virtuous) moral agent. The goodness of the moral agent is determined by the virtues and moral character of the moral agent. In our context, the decision by the U.S. military to limit collateral damage as much as possible is virtuo
