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Moral Disengagement: The Theory

Hindrik’s observation: reason and atrocity

Observations of

reason’s role in enabling atrocious acts

appear to provide grounds sufficient to reject the view that

moral judgements are characteristically consequences of feelings.

Hindriks (2014); Hindriks (2015)

To understand this idea, we need to understand what the role of reason in enabling atrocious acts is. This will take a long time—it requires understanding the notion of moral disengagement.
humans, over the course of development, adopt standards of right and wrong. They judge their own actions in the light of those standards. And that they apply sanctions to themselves when their actions fail to live up to those standards—and perhaps reward themselves when they do.

self-regulation

adopt standards

judge own actions

apply sanctions

Moral conduct is motivated and regulated through the ongoing exercise of evaluative self-influence,

which can sometimes prevent you getting things you want.

(Bandura, 2002, p. 102).

so this is bandora's key idea he thinks that ethical reasoning and action is bound up in a process of self-regulation moral conduct according to him is motivated and regulated through the ongoing exercise of evaluative self-influence
so if we were to put this very crudely we might say something like this typically if you do something which is by your own lights wrong you're likely to feel bad the more wrong you think the action is the worse you're likely to feel doesn't always work that way but quite often and if you've ever done anything pretty terrible right i know i have um you'll know that you can as a consequence of that spend quite a long time punishing yourself afterwards and quite harshly so when we talk about bad feelings that appears to be playing it down but those of us who have done terrible things in the past will know that that bad feeling right can actually be pretty pretty severe it can be pretty crippling the sanctions are actually more serious than that suggests but here's the thing the fact that we apply these self-sanctions that we influence our own behavior can sometimes prevent us from getting things that we want
and of course in in a way that's that's the whole point isn't it you know there are things that you want but getting those things would involve inflicting harm on other people um and the process of self-regulation ensures that there is at least kind of balance between you getting what you want and you harming other people right so it seems like a a reasonable mechanism so the theory
anyway this is the theory so then there's a question right what happens in this situation there's something that you want and you do decide to get it and then um you apply self-regulation you can kind of anticipate that something bad is going to happen to you
e.g. Take a train instead of self-isolating after you have received a positive test for the Covid.
Mention Camus’ Stranger?

Imagine you are tempted to do something that is, by your own standards, wrong.

It’s obvious—or should be—that doing this will put others’ lives at risk.

You anticipate feeling bad (self-inflicted sanctions) if you surrender to temptation.

But you decide to give in to the temptation and do it.

What do you tell yourself?

Examples of moral disengagement

Everyone else is doing it

The politicians (or the 1%) are worse

The rules are stupid

It’s only a mild illness for most people

I’m unlikely to infect anyone

People who get it were likely to die anyway.

Note the role of reason.

Reason plays a role in most, if not all, of these processes. It is central to Moral Justification, Displacement of Responsibility and Attribution of Blame. So if moral disengagement is responsible for a moral judgement or action, it is likely that reasoning will have played a causal role in arriving at the judgement or action.

Bandura (2002, p. figure 1)

We need an illustration of moral disengagement which involves reasoning ...

example of moral disengagement

‘The massive threats to human welfare stem mainly from deliberate acts of principle, rather than from unrestrained acts of impulse’ (Bandura, 2002, p. 116).

‘The executioners, who face the most daunting moral dilemma, [...] adopted moral, economic, and societal security justifications for the death penalty’ (Osofsky, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2005, p. 387).

so for example um he and his colleagues studied prison executioners so people who are prison workers who are involved in the execution of prisoners different groups of these people involved at different stages and they note among other things that the executioners who face the most daunting moral dilemma adopted moral economic and societal security justifications for the death penalty

“I am for the death penalty. [...] Death Row inmates are here too long, it is wrong for the taxpayers, families, and us.”

“If a society is to be law-abiding, murders must be avenged with capital punishment”

Osofsky et al. (2005, p. fig 3a)

You might say, some people do have those views about the death penalty.
But what’s interesting is that the executioners disproportionately express those views, whereas support works and guards who are not involved do not.
The executioners used *more* moral disengagement techniques than those not involved and than the support team. Here are the ratings for moral justification as a moral disengagement technique.
Objection: maybe people with moral views about the death penalty are drawn to the job of executioner (whereas the claim is that these views are adopted because you wish to execute people)
I agree. At this stage I am just trying to illustrate what the theory says. We will consider evidence for it in the next section.

Bandura (2002, p. figure 1)

We have just seen an illustration of moral justification in moral disengagement.
SO now you know why I said this (at the start of the unit)

Hindrik’s observation: reason and atrocity

Observations of

reason’s role in enabling atrocious acts

appear to provide grounds sufficient to reject the view that

moral judgements are characteristically consequences of feelings.

Hindriks (2014); Hindriks (2015)

To understand this idea, we were investigating the role of reason in enabling atrocious acts.

How, if at all, does a person’s reasoning
influence their moral judgements?

moral dumbfounding

sometimes, not always:

emotion

-> judgement

-> reasoning

moral disengagement

sometimes:

emotion?

-> reasoning

-> judgement

minor

driven by feelings -> unreliable

driven by reasoning -> reliable

But why accept the theory?

Note the contrast with philosophy, where it often seems enough to have a good story. (I’ve nothing against storytelling. It’s proven incredibly useful. But you can’t do moral psychology merely by telling stories.)