Citation

Moon JE. Polit. Life Sci. 2008; 27(1): 55-77.

Affiliation

Fitchburg State College, 160 Pearl Street, Fitchburg, Massachussetts 01420-2697, USA. jevcm@comcast.net

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Association for Politics and the Life Sciences)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

19213304

Abstract

The use of chemical and biological weapons on the battlefield is considered by most commentators--and by international law--as more abhorrent than the use of nearly all other weapons, including ones meant either to kill secretly or to kill terribly, as do fire or burial alive. I ask why this is so. I explore this question through the study of imagery patterns in Western literature and campaigns against food contamination and environmental pollution. I find that the norm against chemical and biological weapons builds upon a taboo against poisons, a prohibition widely accepted in military manuals as distinguishing soldierly conduct from criminal conduct, especially those forms of conduct made criminal by the employment of treachery, invisibility, and transformation.

Language: en