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If people are inclined to attribute race to humanoid robots, as recent research suggests, then designers of social robots confront a difficult choice. Most existing social robots have white surfaces and are therefore, I suggest, likely to be perceived as White, exposing their designers to accusations of racism. However, manufacturing robots that would be perceived as Black, Brown, or Asian risks representing people of these races as slaves, especially given the historical associations between robots and slaves at the very origins of the project of robotics. The only way engineers might avoid this ethical and political dilemma is to design and manufacture robots to which people will struggle to attribute race. Doing so, however, would require rethinking the relationship between robots and "the social," which sits at the heart of the project of social robotics. Discussion of the race politics of robots is also worthwhile because of the potential it has to generate insights about the politics of artifacts, the relationship between culture and technology, and the responsibilities of engineers.

If people are inclined to attribute race to humanoid robots, as recent research suggests, then designers of social robots confront a difficult choice. Most existing social robots have white surfaces and are therefore, I suggest, likely to be perceived as White, exposing their designers to accusations of racism. However, manufacturing robots that would be perceived as Black, Brown, or Asian risks representing people of these races as slaves, especially given the historical associations between robots and slaves at the very origins of the project of robotics. The only way engineers might avoid this ethical and political dilemma is to design and manufacture robots to which people will struggle to attribute race. Doing so, however, would require rethinking the relationship between robots and "the social," which sits at the heart of the project of social robotics. Discussion of the race politics of robots is also worthwhile because of the potential it has to generate insights about the politics of artifacts, the relationship between culture and technology, and the responsibilities of engineers.

The notion that some means of waging war are mala in se is a confronting one. Surely, any weapon can be used for good or ill? Philosophers often try to justify the category of mala in se by suggesting that some weapons are inherently incapable of being used in accordance with the just war principles of distinction and proportionality. This line of argument faces two obvious objections. First, claims about the limits of particular weapons typically fail to consider the different contexts in which they might be used. For example, anti-personnel mines can be used as defensive measures for fixed installations in marked locations that are fenced off from civilian intrusion. Second, deriving the category of mala in se from the principles of distinction and proportionality makes it redundant. The argument that some weapons cause disproportionate suffering is more persuasive, but it falters if one conducts an honest appraisal of the nature and extent of the suffering caused by weapons that are not held to be mala in se.

There is increasing speculation within military and policy circles that the future of armed conflict is likely to include extensive deployment of robots designed to identify targets and destroy them without the direct oversight of a human operator. My aim in this paper is twofold. First, I will argue that the ethical case for allowing autonomous targeting, at least in specific restricted domains, is stronger than critics have typically acknowledged. Second, I will attempt to defend the intuition that, even so, there is something ethically problematic about such targeting. I argue that an account of the nonconsequentialist foundations of the principle of distinction suggests that the use of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is unethical by virtue of failing to show appropriate respect for the humanity of our enemies. However, the success of the strongest form of this argument depends upon understanding the robot itself as doing the killing. To the extent that we believe that, on the contrary, AWS are only a means used by combatants to kill, the idea that the use of AWS fails to respect the humanity of our enemy will turn upon an account of what is required by respect, which is essential conventional. Thus, while the theoretical foundations of the idea that AWS are weapons that are "evil in themselves" are weaker than critics have sometimes maintained, they are nonetheless sufficient to demand a prohibition of the development and deployment of such weapons.

Would it be ethical to deploy autonomous weapon systems (AWS) if they were unable to reliably recognize when enemy forces had surrendered? I suggest that an inability to reliably recognize surrender would not prohibit the ethical deployment of AWS where there was a limited window of opportunity for targets to surrender between the launch of the AWS and its impact. However, the operations of AWS with a high degree of autonomy and/or long periods of time between release and impact are likely to remain controversial until they have the capacity to reliably recognize surrender.

A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the ethics of what they term moral bioenhancement. I argue that the society-wide program of biological manipulations required to achieve the purported goals of moral bioenhancement would necessarily implicate the state in a controversial moral perfectionism. Moreover, the prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian social and political ideals. Even if moral bioenhancement should ultimately prove to be impossible, there is a chance that a bogus science of bioenhancement would lead to arbitrary inequalities in access to political power or facilitate the unjust rule of authoritarians; in the meantime, the debate about the ethics of moral bioenhancement risks reinvigorating dangerous ideas about the extent of natural inequality in the possession of the moral faculties.