New Weapons Between Utopia and Apocalypse: An Intellectual History, 1860s–1970s

Why It Matters

The analysis reveals how evolving moral frameworks have historically dictated arms‑control outcomes, offering crucial guidance for contemporary debates on emerging technologies such as AI and biotech.

Key Takeaways

• Industrial Revolution sparked rapid weapons innovation, prompting early prohibitions.
• Unnecessary suffering doctrine limited individual combatant injuries in law.
• Anti‑apocalyptic rhetoric framed weapons as threats to civilization.
• 1960s bio‑weapon debates emphasized unknowable genetic mutation risks.
• Modern prohibitions reflect shifting moral frameworks amid technological change.

Summary

The seminar traced the intellectual history of weapons prohibitions from the 1860s through the 1970s, focusing on how legal, moral, and cultural ideas shaped which new arms were banned. Elena Kemp highlighted three overlapping conceptual frameworks—unnecessary suffering of the individual combatant, anti‑apocalyptic threats to civilization, and the unknowable consequences of biological weapons—that guided early and later treaty efforts.

Key insights include the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration outlawing small‑caliber explosive bullets, the 1899 Hague conventions on expanding bullets and gas weapons, the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol, and the post‑World‑War II resurgence culminating in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. A half‑century hiatus between the Machine Age and the second age of prohibitions underscores how technological breakthroughs repeatedly forced the international community to renegotiate moral boundaries.

Illustrative examples range from John Stuart Mill’s 1867 warning about “terrific engines” of destruction, to contemporary press reactions at the 1867 Paris Exposition condemning explosive bullets, to Norton and Valentine’s paradoxical endorsement of torpedoes as war‑shortening tools. Visual cues—a Diego Rivera mural warning of civilizational collapse and a molecular biologist’s article cover—underscore the cultural resonance of these debates.

The lecture argues that today’s arms‑control challenges—autonomous weapons, synthetic biology, and hypersonic missiles—will be framed by the same shifting moral logics. Understanding the historical interplay of humanitarian, civilizational, and uncertainty‑driven arguments can help policymakers craft more resilient, ethically grounded treaties.

Original Description

In our upcoming Wednesday Seminar, Professor Elena Kempf will discuss the history of weapons prohibitions during the 19th and 20th centuries.

🗓️2/11 at noon ET

📍MIT community can join in person at E40-496

📡Bookmark the livestream