Under the leadership of PsySR members Jean Maria Arrigo and Stephen Soldz, PsySR has received grant awards from the Open Society Institute and the Arca Foundation to develop a Psychology and Military/Political Intelligence Casebook for Interrogation Ethics.
The Casebook will address a broad range of ethical issues surrounding psychologists’ involvement in interrogations, including: situational, financial, and career pressures on psychologists; interrogations in combat zones where coordination with local counterterrorist police is necessary; and discrediting of dissident personnel through clinical assessment of psychopathology. Pertinent historical cases, such as the CIA behavioral modification Project MKULTRA will also be explored, because procedures tend to persist in organizations.
The press release announcing the grant awards also presents a useful overview of the project. It is available HERE. Please check back regularly for updates on this important project.
NEW: Introducing the Workshop Website for the Psychology and Military Intelligence Ethics Casebook on Interrogation Ethics
The new Casebook workshop website presents transcripts from the June 2008 Casebook meeting with scholars and intelligence professionals, a growing collection of true cases, and summaries of case consultations with subject-matter experts.
To participate in the Casebook project, contact Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, at jmarrigo@cox.net, or Jancis Long, PhD. at JLong@psysr.org.
Below are sample comments from our consultations on a series of Cold War “Psychological Stress Experiments on Soldiers.”
* A retired intelligence officer, field interrogation trainer, and political scientist doubted the experiments added value beyond what could be obtained through military training and observation: "It's very difficult to compose a situation in which everyone will feel the way you want them to feel so you can measure how they feel.”
* A social science expert on obedience to authority reasoned: "However you look at it, if soldiers are shooting at others on the field of battle, the ethical standards have been lowered,” so the bar is necessarily lower for psychological ethics in military settings.
* A military chaplain prodded psychologists into another dimension: "We hope the military is doing something right at the national or international level. But then we question, are we doing right at the transcendent level? And I live within that tension all the time. Psychologists have to live within that tension, too.”
* A moral philosopher advised: "In a pluralistic system, the big question is whether we can partition the moral domain in a way that conflicting factions can tolerate.”
Join the End Torture Action Committee Today!
More information about the End Torture Action Committee's projects and recent actions is available HERE. To join the committee, please email co-chairs Jill Flores (jillflores@centurytel.net) and Stephen Soldz (ssoldz@bgsp.edu) or contact PsySR's Central Office at info@psysr.org. You can join the committee’s listserv by sending an e-mail message with a blank subject and body to psysr-endtorture-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.