Democratic moral constraints give terrorists strategic leverage over democracies

Evidence

In contrast, fighting terrorism with military force involves two-sided moral disengagement. The use of physical force in self-defense is easy to justify morally. Counterterrorists bring moral disengagement into play in devising and executing their campaigns. However, such means pose more troublesome moral problems for democratic societies than for totalitarian ones. Totalitarian regimes have fewer constraints against using institutional power to crush internal dissent and to sacrifice individuals for the good of the state. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2271

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Two-sided disengagement as an internal tension within democratic self-defense — the state must both justify and morally blind itself to its own force.