Hindsight makes genuinely unforeseen organizational harms appear foreseeable and intended, fueling cover-up.

Evidence

Again, the moral essence of the situation is this: An organization has unforeseeably, carelessly, or in some sense willfully harmed others. In the clear light of hindsight, to the organizational higher-ups, it must seem, as it seems to the potential outside observers, that the negative outcomes were at least foreseeable and perhaps, in the complex sense that an organization can be said to intend something, “intended.” There may be internal evidence that all the information was available within the organization to know that the effects would be harmful. Thus, were they to publicly or privately admit to the existence of the outcomes, or their role in producing them, they would be publicly convicted of harmdoing and internally faced with feeling shame and guilt. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4012

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that hindsight perception of foreseeability — combined with organizational intent as a coherent concept — structurally incentivizes denial over admission is a genuinely paradigm-shifting way to understand corporate wrongdoing.