Contesting harmfulness is the key battleground enabling moral disengagement over policy

Evidence

Assessing the harmfulness of given policies and practices is the major battleground at the effects locus of moral control. If given practices are judged to be harmless, there is no moral issue. Some deniers of detrimental effects subscribe to what have come to be called “zombie beliefs” that have been thoroughly debunked empirically. Other deniers disparage evidence of adverse effects as “junk science” and attribute discrediting nefarious motives to scientists. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2978

Categorization

• DEFINE: “Zombie beliefs” is coined here — empirically debunked claims that persist — a useful precise term for the vault’s analysis of rationalization.
• XREF: The effects-locus denial mechanism (harmfulness contestation, junk-science disparagement of scientists) connects to vault claims about negative views of science and expertise driving support for harmful policy.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2978