Believing a cause is moral converts self-censure into self-approval

Evidence

Moral justifications serve dual functions. They engage morality in the worthy mission but disengage morality in its deadly execution. Hence, moral justifications are the most powerful set of psychological mechanisms for promoting detrimental activities. Belief in the morality of a cause not only eliminates self-censure but also engages self-approval in the service of destructive exploits. What was once morally reprehensible becomes a source of positive self-valuation. Functionaries work hard to become proficient in harmful activities and take pride in their destructive accomplishments. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 400

Categorization

• XREF: This is the clean mechanism statement needed to corroborate vault claims about Cooper’s social-conservatism argument and authoritarianism — moral cause-belief converts harm into virtue. — connects to: Perfect impartiality dissolves the self-attribution that makes action meaningful — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 134; Sacrificial death legitimates a cause only if that cause is worth endorsing — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1397; Believing sexual orientation is innate sharply reduces moral blame of homosexuals (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The dual-function insight — morality engaged for the mission while disengaged in execution, harm becoming positive self-valuation — is a paradigm-level tension worth sitting with.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 400