>>113551893In our contemporary non-conscription setting, soldiers are those who knowingly risk their lives for state interests. Civilians don't. Soldiers fight for their civilians. it's more inherently cruel because a) soldiers volunteer their lives to the nation in the place of civilians, and b) you attack the heart of the soldier by denying them their purpose to protect (and enrich) those back home.
Volunteer soldiers don't deserve to die more than civilians, but it's more fair, because they made the choice to put their lives directly on the line.
Things get much dicier when you factor in conscription, which I think is still a thing in many smaller countries like Singapore.
I can't say it's more justified that those kinds of soldiers die and not civilians from the viewpoint of pure justice, but in terms of practice, it is much more fitting. Piss is the fine in the toilet, but abominable on the kitchen table. It's one thing to kill the armed hordes approaching your shores. It's another to blitz their unarmed families with death from above. From a less robotic mindset, one could say that's dishonorable. But back to attempting objectivity - families mean children, anon, and how can you reasonably say children, from 4-year olds playing with dolls to 11-year olds shining soldier's helmets, could ever consciously contribute to the war effort?
By our moral standards, a child cannot drink, or drive, or marry, so it would be equally unreasonable to say they have a say in times of war, when it's not only their own lives they would govern, but the lives of others. They are innocent by definition. When you attack civilians, it is inevitable that you will target innocents who may not even know there is a war, or people who were against the war in the first place. With soldiers, however, even conscripted, it is much likelier (not guaranteed) that they agree with the war and have willed themselves to kill for it. So yes. It is less justified to take the lives of civilians.
