If Edward Snowden saw his government doing things that they don't have the constitutional right to do, does he have the ethical responsibility to alert the populace even if he signed a contract to not divulge anything being done behind closed doors?

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/jy5uq7/if_edward_snowden_saw_his_government_doing_things/

created by diogenesthehopeful on 21/11/2020 at 06:04 UTC

299 upvotes, 17 top-level comments (showing 17)

Few politicians (Tulsi Gabbard one notable exception) stand up for Snowden. Trump[1] called for his execution and Biden, as VP, threatened any nation offering Snowden asylum. When the law prevents the government from doing things and the government does them anyway, where does Kant's categorical imperative put the morality of the patriotic citizen in terms of his or her moral sense of duty? Should he be loyal to his people or his government?

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/tulsi/comments/jvs9m1/reminder_that_donald_trump_mentioned_executing/

Comments

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1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

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Comment by KaniffKaniff at 21/11/2020 at 09:24 UTC

98 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I think that his act was one if civil disobedience although some may disagree. The conditions for civil disobedience vary too, but I think its important to consider that what he did was not in self-interest, was not violent (at least not intended to be), and was done with reducing harm in mind (he carefully omitted names and info from the documents which might have been harmful to the US and which didnt serve his primary goal of showing how the government had been abusing their power). There is another conditions for civil disobedience sometimes given about how one ought to warn the government of how they're going to disobey before they do it, but this hardly seems possible in the case if whistleblowing. It's hard to say for sure though, as each point I have given can be disputed.

Comment by Supreene at 21/11/2020 at 08:42 UTC

46 upvotes, 2 direct replies

You might be interested in the SEP article on civil disobedience[1]. William Scheuerman (here[2]) argues that we should interpret the Snowden whistle blowing example as a kind of civil disobedience.

1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/

2: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0191453714537263

Comment by [deleted] at 21/11/2020 at 07:50 UTC

12 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[removed]

Comment by [deleted] at 21/11/2020 at 09:01 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

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Comment by Ilyps at 21/11/2020 at 13:02 UTC

7 upvotes, 1 direct replies

There is no short easy answer to your question. The closest we can get to a TL;DR answer is probably something like: **Kant would say that Snowden's actions are not justified, but they are excusable**.

For more information, see