Treason is one of the most serious legal offences that there are, in most if not all jurisdictions. Laws against treason are rooted in deep-seated moral revulsion about acts which, in the political realm, are paradigmatic examples of breaches of loyalty. Yet, it is not altogether clear what treason consists in: someone’s traitor is often another’s loyalist. In this paper, my aim is twofold: to offer a plausible conceptual account of treason, and to partly rehabilitate traitors. I focus on informational treason, as the act of passing secret intelligence to foreign actors without authorization. I argue that informational treason is sometimes justified, indeed morally mandatory; even when it is morally wrong, its beneficiaries are sometimes justified, indeed obliged, to make use of the intelligence thereby provided.

中文翻译：

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叛国的道德

叛国罪是最严重的法律犯罪之一，在大多数（如果不是所有）司法管辖区都有。反叛国的法律植根于对行为的根深蒂固的道德反感，在政治领域，这些行为是违反忠诚的典型例子。然而，叛国罪是什么并不完全清楚：某人的叛徒往往是另一个人的忠诚者。在这篇论文中，我的目标有两个：对叛国罪提供一个合理的概念解释，并部分地让叛徒改过自新。我专注于信息叛国，即未经授权将秘密情报传递给外国演员的行为。我认为信息叛国有时是合理的，实际上在道德上是强制性的；即使在道德上是错误的，其受益人有时也有理由，实际上有义务利用由此提供的情报。