Everyone wants to think they’re the good guy: selective moral disengagement in crimes against national security

A timeless question is why good people sometimes do bad things. Moral disengagement theory suggests that people cognitively restructure harmful conduct to preserve a positive self-image. While widely applied to unethical behaviour, research often treats moral disengagement as a unitary construct and studies of espionage or insider offences frequently rely on single cases. The present study examines the structure of moral disengagement among 16 individuals charged with crimes against national security after systematically mapping classified military infrastructure. Using frequency analysis and hierarchical clustering, the analysis identifies a stable empirical core of mechanisms: euphemistic labelling, diffusion of responsibility and minimization of consequences. The findings suggest that individuals do not draw equally on all moral disengagement mechanisms but instead rely on a smaller set of recurring justifications for unethical and unlawful behaviour.