The APA ethics code was rewritten under military influence to justify interrogation roles

Evidence

The APA convened a special task force, led by Stephen Behnke, director of the ethics office, to examine whether psychologists could ethically play the interrogatory role (Risen, 2015a). However, the task force was heavily stacked with Department of Defense (DoD) personnel interested in crafting an ethics code that placed no additional constraints on the DoD interrogation practices. … Based on this brief meeting, the group issued a report declaring that psychologists play a valuable and ethical role in training and advising interrogators. The APA altered its code of ethics, stating that psychologists have a dual ethical obligation—to refrain from inflicting harm on others and to protect the security of the nation. The latter addition to the code of ethics provided honorable justification in the name of national security for psychologists to participate in military interrogations. The APA board of directors declared an emergency meeting where they approved the report as official policy and then expedited its publication. The purpose for the hasty publication was to use it as an antitorture public relations statement in anticipation of a New Yorker article about to be published on the interrogation program. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2374

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: how professional associations’ ethics codes get captured by national-security interests when the standard-setting body is staffed by stakeholders — a mechanisms-of-capture piece contrasting with civil-society ethics bodies.
• XREF: Connects to institutional co-optation themes seen in the dog-training book and to how professional bodies rationalize participation in state violence.