You are cordially invited to the Book Launch with Adam Henschke - Intelligence, Surveillance, and Cognitive Warfare: An Ethical Perspective!
The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, TU Delft Safety & Security Institute and The Delft Digital Ethics Centre are pleased to host the launch of 'Ethics of National Security Intelligence Institutions‘ and 'Cognitive Warfare: Grey Matters In The Ethics Of Information Conflict.' together with the author Dr. Adam Henschke, Assistant Professor at the Philosophy Section of the University of Twente.
We open the launch on September 25th, at 16h and we will conclude the launch around 18.15h, after which drinks will be served for those who would like to continue the conversation. The location is the The Hague Campus of the TU Delft (Bezuidenhoutseweg 63, 2594 AC Den Haag). Please make sure to register in advance. We have a limited capacity, so we are monitoring registrations closely. Participants have the option to deregister at a later point in time.
Book abstract:
The ethical tensions of intelligence practices and institutions are notoriously difficult to address given their opacity, exceptional conditions, and distinctness from open conflict. Additionally, developments in technologies like AI, biometrics, and encryption change how intelligence can be done. Henschke’s new books address not only the ethics of intelligence and information operations, but the institutions that conduct them, the technologies they use, and the other actors they interact with. Further, Henschke argues that without norms for these ethically exceptional activities, liberal democracies risk sliding into the abuses of unrestrained authoritarian states.
Intelligence and information warfare are among the most opaque of state activities, often shrouded in secrecy and concealed from both policy makers and the public. Philosophically, to treat these institutions and practices as the subject of ethical scrutiny invites skepticism on its own. Some even describe intelligence ethics as an oxymoron, as though it is so exceptional as to be exempt. Meanwhile, theorists struggle to translate ethical concepts traditionally at home in the grey area of intelligence and information operations which fall outside both diplomacy and open conflict. Handling these challenges, Henschke shows how a practice can be both exceptional to standard ethical norms but not exempt.
Henschke not only anticipates the authoritarian risks of intelligence and information operations, but gives an aspirational vision of how intelligence institutions should function. Henschke proposes a teleological and institutionally relative account, which centers the purposes of specific institutions, their goals, the roles of practitioners, and the specific tools they use.
About the author Dr. Adam Henschke
Dr. Adam Henschke is an Assistant Professor with the Philosophy Section at the University of Twente. He is an applied ethicist, working at the intersection of ethics, technology, and national security policy. His recent work has looked at ethical issues with intelligence institutions, and with the ethical and political concepts relating to cognitive warfare. He has written extensively on the ethics of military conflict, cybersecurity, terrorism/counter-terrorism, surveillance, human military enhancement, cyber-physical systems, and medical ethics. His current research concerns the ethical and political challenges facing liberal democracies when they seek to protect against cognitive warfare and the problem of ‘brainwashing’.
