With military technology increasingly reducing the risk of casualties on the side of those using the technology, traditional warrior virtues such as courage have become the preserve of the individual suicide attacker. Paradoxically, writes Alphonso Lingis, it was the photographs of Abu Ghraib that enabled Americans to reassert a sense of their own ethical correctness. In this respect, the photos stand in a line of images that have provided moral reassurance in the face of war.
Alphonso Lingis
(b.1933) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His books include: Excesses: Eros and Culture (1982); Foreign Bodies (1994); and, Trust (2004).
