Abstract
This article uses the George Smiley novels of John Le Carré to explore the moral attribution that occurs when individuals are asked to live lives of moral contradiction in the public service. The novels exemplify the moral, psychological, and institutional tensions upon individuals whose lives require them to act in contradiction to the professed norms of liberal democracy. The paper focuses upon the three types of character that inhabit this world—absolutists, bureaucratic careerists, and George Smiley, Le Carré's protagonist. The play of the characters illuminates the different qualities of judgment and loyalty that can sustain or break under the moral corrosion of espionage in liberal democracy.
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