Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity

Evidence

The passages between the stages had one striking feature in common. They all increased the physical and mental distance between the purported victims and the rest of the population – the perpetrators and the witnesses of the genocide alike. In this quality resided their inherent rationality from the point of view of the final destination, and their effectiveness in bringing the task of destruction to its completion. Evidently, moral inhibitions do not act at a distance. They are inextricably tied down to human proximity. Commitment of immoral acts, on the contrary, becomes easier with every inch of social distance. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 546

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core mechanism: morality’s proximity-dependence is what rational administration exploits.
• XREF: connects to: Individual moral judgment can remain intact without any supporting social rules — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 603; Authorization, routinization, and dehumanization erode moral inhibitions against violence — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 93; Distance between act and consequence erases the act’s moral significance entirely — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 102 (+12 more)

Related

• Distance between act and consequence erases the act’s moral significance entirely (similarity 0.87)
• Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance (similarity 0.86)
• Morality dies when social distance replaces proximity, enabling mass murder (similarity 0.86)
• Morality operates only on known persons and fails on abstract categories (similarity 0.85)
• Mass murder required neutralizing proximity-based moral drives. (similarity 0.84)
• Authorization, routinization, and dehumanization erode moral inhibitions against violence (similarity 0.84)
• Proximity grounds moral responsibility while abstract categories remain morally neutral. (similarity 0.84)
• Long intermediary chains let people commit abhorrent acts without role awareness (similarity 0.82)
• Face-to-face animosity rarely extends into mass murder. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible (similarity 0.81)
• The Nazi accomplishment was neutralizing universal moral inhibition against killing (similarity 0.81)
• Physical segregation severs communication needed for moral recognition (similarity 0.81)
• Individual moral judgment can remain intact without any supporting social rules (similarity 0.81)
• Moral suspension, not mobilization, enables ordinary people’s participation (similarity 0.81)
• Genocide’s moral invisibility recruits far more participants than conscience-stifling does (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Moral inhibition is neutralized by making victims remote and invisible #corroborates (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 550
• Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance #corroborates (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 547
• Social organization neutralizes morality by making action adiaphoric, neither good nor evil #corroborates (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 613