Are they to blame? An examination of the moral responsibility of current and former child soldiers

Sutherland, Jessica Tait ORCID: 0000-0001-8076-6150 (2024). Are they to blame? An examination of the moral responsibility of current and former child soldiers. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis examines to what extent the experiences of child soldiers undermine moral responsibility. I combine philosophical and psychological research to assess the moral responsibility of child soldiers, with a particular focus on how trauma and conflict exposure affect psychological complexity and moral competency. Current legal discussions adopt a view of the moral responsibility of child soldiers as wholly diminished – they are ‘victims’ not ‘perpetrators’ (United Nations, 2017b). My project argues these concepts need not be mutually exclusive. Child soldiers can possess a dual victim-perpetrator nature because there are grounds for attributing a degree of moral responsibility to them.

Though child soldiers are victims of many responsibility-diminishing conditions, it does not follow that their moral responsibility is completely extinguished. I explore whether they can be exempt from their moral responsibility because they lack psychological complexity, or moral competency, or excused because of ignorance, force, coercion, duress, or manipulation. I argue that these conditions may not always apply to child soldiers. We should therefore see child soldiers as both victims and perpetrators since they do possess a degree of moral responsibility. I then use this account of the moral responsibility of child soldiers to assess how they should be treated in war, in particular, I argue that child soldiers should be offered special protection as responsibility-diminished combatants.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):