Can violence ever be justified? What if it’s in the name of revolution? These are among the questions Chloe Cairncross asks when looking at the bloody results of large-scale battles like the 1973 Chilean coup d’état and the 1979 Salvadoran Civil War. 

Cairncross, a senior double-majoring in anthropology and philosophy, is studying “Just War Theory” and the ethics of revolution.

Philosophy was always her thing. In high school, she loved debating ethical quandaries and falling into rabbit-hole existential discussions with her classmates. However, it was only after she participated in the Source Project during her freshman year at Binghamton University that she truly realized her passion in political and cultural studies.

“I just found it fascinating to sort of talk with people and to learn about other cultures,” Cairncross says. “That’s what brought me to anthropology and it just clicked. The combination of anthropology and philosophy is all about studying people — why we do what we do and how we interact with people.” 

The same semester the war in Ukraine began, Cairncross was accepted into the philosophy department’s Pell Honors Program, meaning she would write a thesis and present her work to a panel of judges. At that point, she was enrolled in an ethics course that zoomed in on moral dilemmas. Its political relevance to Ukraine made her want to delve more deeply into the subject and its relation to war and conflict as a potential research focus. In conjunction with the terrorism and extremism course she took while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, she had a lot of material to work with. 

“There’s something really special to be found because you’re stripping away all these layers and finding out what’s really at the core of what makes us human,” Cairncross says. “The classes pushed me toward interesting questions like: How do we justify using violence? How do we justify doing things that are ‘immoral’ or seen as bad?”

Combining her wide range of anthropological interest was proving to be complex but under the guidance of her mentor, Associate Professor Mattias Iser, she found a connecting piece: the justifications for violent revolution in relation to human rights violations. More specifically, she wants to provide evidence that governmental rulings considered to be lesser rights violations are equally as detrimental to a community and its succeeding generations as major rights violations are. 

“There are major harms, which would be things like if your government is actively killing people, maiming them or torturing them,” Cairncross says. “Lesser harms are more so restrictions of  freedom, speech or movement. Really just all these layers upon layers of saying, ‘Hey, the government’s watching you and if you step out we may hurt you, but as long as you stay in line, you’re OK.’”

Iser referred Cairncross to literature and theorists related to her study, and he found that her high level of engagement with her research sets her apart from other students. While she looks for works that align with her stance, she also makes sure to find differing opinions. 

“She really takes her research seriously, it’s not just a thought experiment,” Iser says. “She looks at the real-world implications and wants to contribute something so that we can understand the moral problems, the political problems, in a more insightful way. I think that’s where she really stands out.”

For the seminar, Cairncross navigated archives to do with “Just War Theory,” or the belief that war is not always the worst option to gain peace. Cairncross noticed that two theorists in particular, David Rodin and Jeff McMahan, concluded that lesser rights violations do not justify violent revolutions. In her opinion, they hadn’t fully examined the harmful implications any rights violation may have on society. 

“A lot of theorists don’t believe lesser harms are as bad as they were since there was no violence actually happening,” Cairncross says. “I actually emailed one of the philosophers that I wrote about. I said ‘Hey, I have some issues with your theory and some questions. I don’t think you take into account lesser harms and it makes me angry.’ He emailed me back a really long conversation and he even agreed with me about the shortcomings of his own theory. It was so gratifying.”

Being aware of methods to rights violations and their effects is important because it allows people to recognize an infraction and plan a response in advance. 

“It’s important to think about what you want to do when you think that your rights have been violated,” Cairncross says. “The government’s supposed to be this steward of our rights and protect them for us, but we also have to stand up when they’re being violated. And a lot of the time they are — it’s a really big issue for a lot of social groups in the United States right now.”

The best part of the Pell program for Cairncross was the culminating presentation she did at the December colloquium. A week before the judging, she reworked her speech as she realized she wanted it to be as accessible as possible — the crowd was going to include philosophers as well as families and friends. Cairncross felt her message was just as important for them to understand. 

“The presentation was the pinnacle of things I’ve done so far,” Cairncross says. “That’s one thing I really appreciate, no matter who I talk to about my thesis or research, they’re always really interested. The positive responses of other people encourage me to go on and [tells me] that my ideas are interesting.”

Cairncross is revising her thesis and hopes to publish it. She’ll be returning for a master’s degree following graduation this spring. 

“I have committed to doing a master’s degree here at Binghamton, in Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, so my interest in conflict and war is only getting deeper and deeper in a way,” Cairncross says. “I think trying to figure out what drives us toward evil and what drives us for good is a really important thing to know, and I just find it absolutely fascinating.”

Binghamton University professor George Catalano has a possible solution. But it calls for a wholesale re-examination of the engineering profession’s notions of ethical responsibility. In his latest book, Tragedy in the Gulf: A Call for a New Engineering Ethic, Catalano, a professor of bioengineering, uses the events leading up and to and including the oil spill as the catalyst for a broader discussion of engineering that not only considers the technical side of the profession but also its impact on the environment and society.

“Many different engineering disciplines contribute to the oil industry, as is also the case for nearly all the technologies we use and take for granted,” Catalano said. “So, while the oil spill triggered a personal reflection of my own ethical responsibility in this particular field, the truth of the matter is that it is much greater than just this one industry.”

Catalano said engineering has always been a profession with strong ethical dimensions.  These principles have helped propel technical advancements in every facet of our daily lives. But these developments are being made at such incredible rates that the question Catalano challenges his fellow engineers to answer is whether ethical responsibility both as a profession and through their roles as individual practitioners has kept pace. Catalano argues that it hasn’t.

“Too often, it is only after a tragedy — when we’ve seen the dramatic images and heard from the victims of the devastation — that we pay attention,” he said. “As a profession, we seem even more reluctant to tackle the ethical issues involved. Given the damage of the disaster in the Gulf has done to the environment and to our profession, it’s time to regroup and construct a different vision of the responsibilities we have as engineers.”

Catalano’s proposed set of engineering ethics calls for a union of disparate fields such as quantum mechanics, eco-philosophy and complex systems. When brought together, they present a new understanding of the world.

“In the quantum world, all things are interconnected far beyond the limits of space and time,” Catalano said. “From this, we can learn to draw from the vast array of potentialities rather than limited certainties. To this we must add an eco-philosophy sensibility — one that incorporates a strong grasp of the evolution of the universe and our place and role in that process. Finally, we must incorporate an understanding of complex systems, which in essence is an understanding of indirect effects — meaning if we push a complex system ‘over here,’ it often has effects ‘over there.’ When we put these elements together, we have a profoundly different sense of ethical responsibility both as practitioners and as a profession.”

As this new set of ethics presents a change to business as usual for engineering, Catalano knows it will take time for his peers to even consider it. But there is growing support for his call to action, as demonstrated by an increase in the number of  like-minded colleagues around the world, ranging from a group led by materials scientist Caroline Baillie at the University of Western Australia, to Jens Kabo and his team of budding engineers at Queen’s University in Canada.

“Whether or not anyone finds my arguments compelling doesn’t matter in the long run,” Catalano said. “What does matter is that as a profession we are doing everything we can to safeguard our planet and all of its inhabitants. And for me, that begins in my classroom. I know that I may not be able to change things overnight but I do know I can help influence the next generation of engineers by helping them to think differently about their place in the engineering world and the ethical responsibility that comes along with it.”

Available through Amazon, Tragedy in the Gulf: A Call for a New Engineering Ethic was published earlier this year.