Effective systems of wrongdoing recruit dutiful subordinates who disown responsibility for harm

Evidence

Moral control operates most strongly when people acknowledge that they have caused harm by their detrimental actions. The second set of disengagement practices—displacement of responsibility—operates by obscuring or minimizing one’s agentive role in causing harm. People will behave in ways they would normally repudiate if a legitimate authority accepts responsibility for the effects of their conduct (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989; Milgram, 1974). … With displaced responsibility, they view their actions as arising from the dictates of authorities. Because they are not the actual agents of their actions, they are spared self-condemning reactions. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 401 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: False heroism measures superiority through the harm it inflicts on others — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 495; Multinational managers disowned responsibility while their workers were beaten. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 545; Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 139 (+19 more)

Broader Connections

• Subordinates act cruelly when authorities take responsibility for the consequences #complicates (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 401