"Proportionate" collateral damage and why we should care about what civilians think

In their recent blog post “Surveying Proportionality: Whither the Reasonable Military Commander?” Laurie Blank, Geoffrey S. Corn, and Eric Jensen level three criticisms against the study of collateral damage with surveys, in general, and against the survey I recently started circulating entitled “The Meaning of Proportionate Collateral Damage” in particular. First, they criticize that the scenarios presented in the survey lack context. Second, they find fault with the fact that the survey asks people to judge the consequences of attacks rather than to evaluate their anticipated results in accordance with international law. Third, and this is the main thrust of their criticism, they disapprove of the survey’s intended audience: I am interested in the judgments of lay people rather than only in the views of military experts. The three choices underlying these features of the survey are interconnected. Nonetheless, I will address the three criticisms in turn.