Moral authorities sanction effective violence even at the cost of theological contradiction

Evidence

It is interesting that he sanctified suicide bombing even though Islam morally and legally forbids suicide. The contradiction probably has more to do with the relative effectiveness of different pernicious means than with inherent theological nuance. Being a moral authority is not an easy job, especially when one must justify violent means that prove effective in advancing one’s cause. Moral compromises create logical paradoxes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2242

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: moral authority is a service job — clerics, ethicists, and PR departments all retrofit justifications to what works, and effectiveness pressures out theological coherence.
• XREF: Connects to the general theme of moral disengagement (euphemistic labeling, displacement of responsibility) and to how institutions rationalize means that succeed, echoing Milgrom’s finding that effective mechanisms beat principled ones. — connects to: Doctrinal disputes matter chiefly for their perceived moral consequences; Centuries of Christian violence served protecting power and privilege — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 447; Sacralized scriptural precedent is invoked to authorize killing enemy civilians in the IDF — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 893