Epistemology and Intelligence – Some Philosophical Problems to be Solved

Pili, Giangiuseppe

doi:10.1080/23800992.2018.1532180

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For instance, a valuable avenue for future research would be to investigate how being an analyst can modify one's intuitions about key notions of authority, social power, justice, war, knowledge, and in general morality in the context of the intelligence process. This research may usefully inform the current debate within intelligence community about the definition of the moral boundaries related to intelligence process (e.g., Goldman, 2013Goldman, , 2018Erskine, 2004;Herman, 2004;Petrauskaitė & Šaltenis, 2018;Quinlan, 2007; see also Pili, 2018). Another fruitful direction could be to investigate whether there are significant differences among intelligence agencies, where the question is whether the culture of the specific institution shapes intelligence analysts' morality and perception.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Social Dominance Orientation Predicts Civil and Military Intelligence Analysts’ Utilitarian Responses to Ethics-of-Intelligence Dilemmas

Margoni¹,

Pili²

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What is the real ethical framework of an intelligence analyst? We addressed this question by presenting a group of civil and military intelligence analysts with a set of dilemmas depicting intelligence agents facing the decision about whether to violate a deontological rule where that would benefit their work. Participants judged how much violating the rule was acceptable. Next, we measured participants’ individual differences in social dominance orientation (the proclivity to endorse intergroup hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism), their deontological and utilitarian tendencies (using classical moral dilemmas), and how much they value rule conformity, traditions, and safety and stability in the society. Among these factors, only social dominance significantly helped explain variability in participants’ resolution of the ethics-of-intelligence dilemmas. Specifically, social dominance positively predicted the tendency to judge violating the deontological rule acceptable. For the first time in the open literature, we elucidated some key aspects of the real ethics of intelligence.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Social Dominance Orientation Predicts Civil and Military Intelligence Analysts’ Utilitarian Responses to Ethics-of-Intelligence Dilemmas

Margoni¹,

Pili²

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For instance, a valuable avenue for future research would be to investigate how being an analyst can modify one's intuitions about key notions of authority, social power, justice, war, knowledge, and in general morality in the context of the intelligence process. This research may usefully inform the current debate within intelligence community about the definition of the moral boundaries related to the intelligence process (Goldman, 2013(Goldman, , 2018Erskine, 2004;Herman, 2004;Petrauskaitė & Šaltenis, 2018;Pili, 2018;Quinlan, 2007). Another fruitful direction could be to investigate whether there are significant differences among intelligence agencies, where the question is whether the culture of the specific institution shapes the intelligence analysts' morality and perception (this point was suggested to one of the authors by Joseph Hatfield, US Naval War College & Intelligence Professional).…”

Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

Social dominance orientation predicts civil and military intelligence analysts’ utilitarian responses to ethics-of-intelligence dilemmas

Margoni

Pili

2021

Curr Psychol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What is the real ethical framework of an intelligence analyst? We addressed this question by presenting a group of civil and military intelligence analysts (N = 41), and a control group of non-professionals (N = 41), with a set of dilemmas depicting intelligence agents facing the decision whether to violate a deontological rule where that would benefit their work (ethics-of-intelligence dilemmas). Participants judged how much violating the rule was acceptable. Next, we measured participants’ individual differences in social dominance orientation (using the Social Dominance Orientation scale which measures the proclivity to endorse intergroup hierarchy and anti-egalitarianism), their deontological and utilitarian response tendencies (using classical moral dilemmas), and how much they value rule conformity, traditions, and safety and stability in the society (using the Value Survey). A multiple regression analysis revealed that, among all the factors, only social dominance significantly helped explain variability in intelligence analysts’ but not non-professionals’ resolutions of the ethics-of-intelligence dilemmas. Specifically, social dominance positively predicted the tendency to judge violating the deontological rule acceptable, possibly suggesting that analysts who show a stronger proclivity to desire their country or company to prevail over others are also more lenient toward deontological violations if these result in a greater good for the state or the company. For the first time in the open literature, we elucidated some key aspects of the real ethics of intelligence.

show abstract

Deciphering intelligence analysis: the synthetic nature of the core intelligence function

Pili¹

2022

Intelligence and National Security

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Epistemology and Intelligence – Some Philosophical Problems to be Solved

Cited by 6 publications

References 29 publications

Social Dominance Orientation Predicts Civil and Military Intelligence Analysts’ Utilitarian Responses to Ethics-of-Intelligence Dilemmas

Social Dominance Orientation Predicts Civil and Military Intelligence Analysts’ Utilitarian Responses to Ethics-of-Intelligence Dilemmas

Social dominance orientation predicts civil and military intelligence analysts’ utilitarian responses to ethics-of-intelligence dilemmas

Deciphering intelligence analysis: the synthetic nature of the core intelligence function

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About