Dehumanizing opponents disables moral self-sanctions, enabling cruelty

Evidence

The final locus in the suspension of moral control centers on how opponents are viewed. Treating others as subhuman, demonic, or animalistic beings absolves perpetrators of moral self-sanctions through lack of any sense of shared humanity. To kill with moral impunity, soldiers in warfare strip their enemies of humanity and bestialize them. Societies that marginalize and maltreat certain classes and races of people diminish them as lesser beings. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2982

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s standing interest in moral psychology and dehumanization; relates thematically to colonial narratives in Things Fall Apart and Parable of the Sower’s (de)humanization dynamics.
• ADDENDUM: The marginalization/diminishment of people tracks the class signaling dynamics in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — both concern how dominant groups degrade others to justify differential treatment.

Related

• Bestializing or dehumanizing opponents is the final moral-disengagement locus enabling harm (similarity 0.89)
• Dehumanizing enemies as vermin reduces the guilt of killing them (similarity 0.84)
• Humanizing others reliably blocks cruel behavior even under strong pressure (similarity 0.82)
• Even disavowed dehumanization flipped to bestialization after a mass casualty attack. (similarity 0.82)
• Dehumanizing enemies can change soldiers until they dehumanize entire civilian populations. (similarity 0.82)
• Dehumanization works by disabling the empathetic self-sanctions that normally block mistreatment. (similarity 0.81)
• Dehumanization causes perpetrators to perceive victims as nonhuman and therefore not entitled to moral obligation (similarity 0.80)
• Diffusion of responsibility, distortion of harm, and dehumanization each neutralize moral restraint (similarity 0.80)
• People disengage moral self-sanctions through euphemism, justification, and dehumanization (similarity 0.80)
• Dehumanization entails exclusion from the moral category of human, leaving persons vulnerable to harm with no moral consideration given to their experiences. (similarity 0.79)
• Moral justification drives death penalty attitudes more than dehumanization does (similarity 0.79)
• Moral self-censure strength depends on how perpetrators regard their victims. (similarity 0.78)
• Explaining cruelty’s mechanisms does not excuse it (similarity 0.78)