Dr David Kelly was a government expert but, in his desire to put the record straight about Iraqi arms, found himself crushed between the grindstones of government determination to impose it own views about the weapons of mass destruction, whatever the truth, and the sense of duty he had to ensure that the public was properly informed. The issue boils down to one of morality, as the opening of Plato’s Republic shows.
Socrates and his friends are trying to define ‘morality’, and Thrasymachus asserts that morality is ‘acting to the advantage of the stronger party’. His reason is that the government defines what is right and moral for citizens to do; it has the power (being the ‘stronger party’) to make laws to enforce its views; and these laws will be designed to get citizens, ‘the weaker party’, to serve the stronger party’s interests.
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