Biosecurity, National Security Intelligence and Ethics

The focus of this chapter is on biosecurity problems that constitute national security problems and, therefore, require national security intelligence activity and, specifically, the ethical dimension of such national security intelligence activity. It provides conceptual distinctions between biosecurity and biosafety, and between national security and national interest, and introduces a normative framework based on the concepts of collective moral goods and collective moral responsibility. It discusses in general terms three fundamental biosecurity problems with an ethical dimension, namely data security (broadly construed), pandemic control and dual use issues (specifically ones arising from developments in synthetic biology in respect of pathogens).