Institutional ethical certification can legitimate abusive practices by construing them as safe.

Evidence

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, detainees were forcefully interrogated for actionable information to avoid future attacks. As previously noted, the Bush administration legally legitimized use of abusive forms of interrogation as not constituting torture by their narrow definition of torture. If it could be shown that the practices were also safe because they were monitored by health professionals, it would further legitimize their use and provide cover for authorizers of abusive methods and interrogators who implement them (Hoffman et al., 2015). It was also necessary to construe the methods as safe and not torture to evade international laws banning torture. The American Medical and Psychiatric Associations refused to participate in the interrogation program because it violated their ethical standards. The APA ended up providing the certification of safety. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2372

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the vault’s existing claims about ordinary people and institutions rationalizing harmful policy; connects to How people do harm and live with themselves theme of euphemistic legitimation via authoritative endorsement. — connects to: Professional bodies enabled abusive interrogation by certifying it as safe and ethical
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2372