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Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
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The rules of war draw a sharp contrast between combatants and non combatants.
Civilians shouldn't be intentionally targeted, for example, in recent years, some philosophers have argued that the distinction between those who fight and those who don't is unsustainable.
It can't be justified, morally or otherwise.
Seth Lazar from the Australian National University, however, insists the combatant non combatant distinction is vital and must be retained.
Seth Lazar, welcome to philosophy bites.
Thanks very much for having me.
The topic we're going to focus on is civilians in war.
Now, there is a common view that it's morally wrong to target civilians.
Right?
So there is this trans historical, cross cultural agreement that there have to be some kind of limits on who can be killed in war, and that some kinds of killing in war are more wrongful than other kinds.
And this is built into international law.
It's a commonly felt appropriate division between the military and the.
The people who are around the military.
Yeah, that's right.
So in international law, there are principles that protect civilians from direct attack, that require soldiers to take precautions in attack when civilians might be affected, and that prevent the infliction of excessive unintended harm on two civilians at the same time.