Margaret Somerville on WikiLeaks

Very interesting analysis at Comment Magazine:

So, one important question in deciding on the ethics of the WikiLeaks is whether the world is a better and safer place because of them, or a worse and more dangerous one. Here is where I find myself agreeing with Hillary Clinton's assessment. For while we do not yet know the full harm that may come from the leaks, there is no evidence at all to show how they will contribute to a countervailing good. Indeed, we have seen how the one good they are overtly intended to achieve—an augmented state of openness and transparency—is not in itself necessarily ethically justified. Worse, neither Assange nor his WikiLeaks colleagues have shown publicly any concern to balance harms against goods which, at the very least, is recklessness—that is, conscious unjustified risk-taking—if not intentional wrongdoing.

And Assange is not the only person whose ethics should be scrutinized. Frequently, as in WikiLeaks, there's still an old-fashioned transgressor involved. In this case, it's the person who stole these documents. What breaches of ethics did he commit? I've already queried the ethics of the media, who are "associate leakers", in relation to WikiLeaks, but what about their ethics, more generally? Ethical responsibility is like a cake not a football: one person cannot throw it away and have someone else catch it; everyone can have a slice and not all the slices might be the same size or have the same icing or taste.

Let me end as I began: As I continued to read and think even more about WikiLeaks, I found it easier to know what was the ethical path to take with respect to it and its perpetrators. I believe that, overall, WikiLeaks involves grossly unethical conduct, some of which is also illegal.