Bulletin: PFC Bradley Manning pleads guilty to some charges against him for providing classified government documents to Wikileaks.
Manning’s statement is a remarkable document, illustrating many forms of reasoning we have identified as morally engaged, based on Albert Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement and engagement.
Essential to moral engagement is exercising moral agency—that is, acting as a moral agent and accepting responsibility for those actions. In my view, this is exactly what Bradley Manning did.
Regarding his release of materials, he says, “I felt I had accomplished something that allowed me to have a clear conscience based upon what I had seen and read about and knew were happening in both Iraq and Afghanistan every day….The decisions that I made to send documents and information to the WLO [Wikileaks Organization) and the website were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions.”
In this post and the next one, we provide excerpts from Manning’s confession that exemplify moral engagement. We begin today by providing examples of principled moral arguments that underlay his actions.
“In attempting to conduct counter-terrorism, or CT, and counter-insurgency (COIN) operations, we became obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists…ignoring the second- and third-order effects of accomplishing short-term goals and missions. I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information…this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general [and] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read and used a quote on open diplomacy…how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other.”
To be continued…
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology