Given the history modern societies have lived through, including wars and constantly evolving threats, we are arguably past the point of needing to justify either the existence of intelligence or the need for ethics within it, although understanding the historical developments that brought us here remains essential. Likewise, words such as “challenge” or “dilemma” do not fully capture the difficulty of building principled ethical frameworks in a domain where power, secrecy, and potential harm are structurally unavoidable. That said, several key arguments in this week’s readings stood out to me because they highlight ethical tensions that remain unresolved and continue to shape how intelligence is practiced today. Collectively, these debates emphasize enduring tensions between security and human rights, individual versus institutional accountability, and the struggle to apply traditional ethical theories to intelligence work.
Out of concern for length constraints, I will focus on one of these areas while briefly acknowledging others, such as Shelton’s call for moving beyond the traditional binary between teleological and deontological ethics (Shelton 2011). Her proposal to shift away from viewing intelligence ethics as a choice between outcomes (such as national security) and moral absolutes offers a practical roadmap for understanding ethics not as a constraint or “chain,” but as a guiding framework. This is particularly relevant given the broad scope of intelligence work and the concern, shared by both newcomers and experienced professionals, that ethics may hinder operational effectiveness rather than inform responsible decision-making.
One area highlighted in these debates concerns the scope of intelligence ethics and the question of who ethical responsibility extends to. As Kira Vrist Ronn (2016) notes, moral responsibility can reasonably be applied not only to individual intelligence practitioners but also to institutions and private actors who participate in intelligence processes such as collection, analysis, and dissemination. Because all these actors contribute to decisions that affect security, privacy, and human welfare, they share an ethical obligation to uphold moral standards in intelligence work.
Building on this expanded notion of moral agency, Mark Phythian (2013) argues that ethical accountability should not rest solely on intelligence professionals or institutions. Instead, in democratic societies, the moral burden of intelligence activities must be shared more broadly through public debate, oversight, and collective acceptance of the ethical trade-offs associated with national security. This is where the ideal scenario Phythian envisions becomes more complicated, as he acknowledges practical obstacles such as secrecy, crisis-driven decision-making, and the tendency for ethical judgments to remain shaped by national interests. Although Phythian emphasizes the importance of public participation in shaping ethical intelligence frameworks, he does not directly address a growing modern complication: the vulnerability of public opinion to foreign influence and disinformation campaigns. In an era where adversarial actors actively attempt to shape democratic discourse, expanding intelligence ethics into the public sphere introduces additional risks that may further complicate efforts to establish stable ethical consensus. This risk does not negate the importance of public involvement, but rather underscores the need to approach it with greater awareness of the informational vulnerabilities that shape contemporary democratic discourse. This dynamic suggests that, like many other aspects of intelligence ethics, the debate may be less about reaching permanent solutions and more about managing enduring tensions.
References:
Omand, David, and Mark Phythian. 2013. “Ethics and Intelligence: A Debate.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 26 (1): 38–63.
Ronn, Kira Vrist. 2016. “Intelligence Ethics: A Critical Review and Future Perspectives.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 29 (4): 760–784.
Shelton, Allison M. 2011. “Framing the Oxymoron: A New Paradigm for Intelligence Ethics.” Intelligence and National Security 26 (1): 23–45.