Fraudsters blame enablers to shift moral responsibility.

Evidence

In unethical and criminal corporate behavior, “it is seldom the case that one individual is clearly responsible for a particular action. Thus, when a crime is committed, everyone can, with some degree of plausibility, point the finger at someone else.” Whether it is precipitated by sociopathological propensity or by what Heath calls a “cognitive” response to the “situation,” it is clear that the very constitution of corporateness lies at the core of unethical and criminal misconduct. … Criminality and breach of ethical boundaries thus in no structural way represent exceptions to an otherwise moral conception and practice but are, respectively, two levels of maneuvering within one and the same system. Criminality begins not where ethics runs its course, but rather where the unethical has been entirely exhausted. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 377 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Price-fixers had to sanitize illegality to preserve their self-respect; Fraudsters justify harm by claiming earlier victims benefited — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1455; Moral ambiguity enables perpetrators to shift blame and deny responsibility. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 218 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Corporate wrongdoing stems from diffused responsibility rather than individual guilt #complicates (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 377