Drone pilots toggle moral control on and off between shifts

Evidence

Remotely implemented, faceless warfare underscores the extraordinary flexibility of moral self-regulation of conduct. The drone pilots switch their moral control off and on in daily shifts between their working hours and their off-duty family and social lives. Drone warfare does not require brawn. Female as well as male officers conduct the remote-controlled killing missions. Indeed, one of the women pilots was so adept at flying the remote-controlled Predator drones that she was chosen to fly supersecret CIA missions (Purdam, 2003). Women’s adoption of a killer role is a product of the evolution of military technology, not biological evolution. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 459

Categorization

• SEED: An angle on the moral compartmentalization of white-collar kill work — drone pilots coming home to family dinners as a portrait of compartmentalized conscience in the age of remote warfare.
• QUESTION: How sustainable is such moral switching over years of service? Does cumulative exposure erode the off-switch capacity?