"My soul aches, it is unbearable ..."

The pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia recently released a letter by Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK 47 assault rifle, addressed to the Russian Orthodox Church's top leader, Kirill I. The letter was written in April 2013, eight month before Kalashnikov’s death on Dec. 23^rd. In it, the designer of the most famous (and probably most deadly) gun in recent history considered his responsibility for the death of a vast number of people all over the globe that his invention caused, thereby joining the ranks of countless inventors who regret their inventions.

In a previous post I explained my view on Kalashnikov’s moral responsibility. Since the issue is in the media again, I want to look at the topic once more and explain my opinion from a more ethical perspective.

First of all, imagine a gun designer who invents an assault rifle and produces a prototype. "Unfortunately", his product is inferior to other guns and therefore never enters production, thus never gets used in battle or anywhere else. After a while other designers disassemble the prototype in need for some of its parts. Regardless of the designer’s intention, some people would intuitively say that his action could hardly be considered as morally objectionable since its effects were insignificant. These people who judge the moral value of an action by its outcome are called consequentialists. The most famous consequentialist school is called utilitarianism, a normative approach that holds the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good or the least bad. Scholars of ethics speak of a teleological approach from "telos", ancient Greek for aim or goal (while "logos" stands for science or study).

Utilitarian scholars should condemn Kalashnikov’s action due to the vast amount of evil it created. Of course one might try to evaluate the good that the Kalashnikov rifle caused (due to deterrence, freedom fights etc.) and trade it off against all the bad things, but this seems to be an illusionary approach. To keep things simple we should assume that the invention of the AK 47 produced much more detrimental consequences than good ones. But there are several schools of utilitarianism. The one that might be especially interesting in this context is called rule utilitarianism. It states that it is not the actions that we should judge according to their consequences, but the rules that they were based on. If we agree that defending the motherland and designing the means for it is generally good, then even the invention of the AK 47 was a morally good action regardless of its bad consequences.

Another very important normative approach is the Kantian categorical imperative. Kant suggests that actions should not be judged by its outcome but just in itself. In this deontological approach one might argue that producing the means to kill must be considered bad because killing is bad. On the other hand, creating the means to deter or defend oneself or one's motherland against an external enemy might be perceived as morally good by some as well.

Of course these two are not the only normative approaches but are often considered the most influential ones. I’m leaving it up to the reader which of the theories sounds more convincing, especially because I personally disagree with both of them regarding their attempt to rationalize ethics.

The Kalashnikov rifle was by no means the only invention that had ambivalent outcomes. Just think of the invention of the synthetical production of ammoniac by Fritz Haber in the beginning of the 20^th century. Right to this day it ensures the food supply of billions of people worldwide while it is also an integral component of explosives and ammunition.

Patriarch Kirill II. personally responded to Mr. Kalashnikov’s letter, but his answer was not published. According to the press secretary for the Russian Patriarch, Cyril Alexander Volkov, the “Church has a very definite position: when weapons serve to protect the Fatherland, the Church supports both its creators and the soldiers who use it”.

Last year was not the first time Mr. Kalashnikov expressed his worry about the great calamities his invention causes. In a letter to the United Nations in 2006 he wrote: “It is a source of great sorrow for me that the assault rifle which I designed has produced many casualties. I myself fought and defended my country during the Great Patriotic War and was seriously wounded. I am no stranger to the pain of losing comrades in battle. But the tragedy of innocent lives lost at the hands of terrorists is beyond compare.”

I still find it difficult to judge an engineer for the efficiency of his invention. Instead, I rather look at the person's intention. I can see no evidence that it was Mr. Kalashnikov's intention to support armed violence and genocide in certain developing countries. It was surely not his intention to cause the deaths of innocent civilians or to arm child soldiers. At least to me his statement about his motivation to protect his motherland and to save the lives of his comrades sounds much more plausible. And that again doesn't sound so heinous after all.