BACKGROUND

As an academic philosopher I surely know less about archaeology than anyone else contributing to this book. My research is in various fields of applied ethics, including bioethics and the ethics of war. While these usually occupy separate programmes, they came together during the 2004–5 academic year, when I was on a research fellowship at the Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association (AMA). Just after I began the fellowship two articles were published in The Lancet by Steve Miles in which he discussed alleged violations of military medical ethics that may have transpired through physician involvement in hostile interrogations (Miles 2004a; 2004b). Then, immediately before the holiday break, we received notice that the New England Journal of Medicine would be publishing a similar essay by Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks in its first issue of 2005. The AMA in general, and the Institute for Ethics in particular, was extremely concerned about Miles’ papers and the forthcoming one by Bloche and Marks. Not only were these extremely visible publications, but many thought that the allegations they contained were of grave ethical concern. The AMA, which publishes The Code of Medical Ethics, takes very seriously the moral status of the medical profession and therefore was very interested in these articles. (The AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has since published an opinion on physician involvement in interrogation, which represents the culmination of its thinking on these topics (AMA 2006).)

I already had a background in some elements of the ethics of war, and torture in particular (Allhoff 2003; Allhoff 2006a), and my fellowship year quickly evolved to explore physician involvement in interrogations. One element of this project was research into some of the underlying moral issues, while another was to talk to those responsible for military ethics (including military medical ethics) education. This research led me to speak with those teaching military ethics at the US Military Academy at West Point, the US Naval Academy, and the US Air Force Academy, as well as those teaching military medical ethics at the US Army Medical Department Center & School (Fort Sam Houston, Texas) and the University Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland). After I left the AMA I was also able to spend some time at the Australian Defence Force Academy (Canberra, Australia).