Intense hatred of foes destroys empathy that would restrain killing

Evidence

When Kevin McKenna, an adjutant general of the IRA, was told that the militants had killed a police-woman he remarked, “Maybe she was pregnant and we got two for the price of one” (O’Callaghan, 1998). At a meeting to decide what to do with an informant whom O’Callaghan tried to protect, McKenna asked whether he had any children. When told he had eight children, McKenna grimaced and ordered, “Kill him.” Afterward, as the assassins were leaving the scene of the killing, one of them urinated on the spattered blood. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2217

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: State-sponsored violence channels a resentful hatred of living bodies