Rational self-interest alone suffices for evil to operate unchallenged.

Evidence

The lesson of the Holocaust is the facility with which most people, put into a situation that does not contain a good choice, or renders such a good choice very costly, argue themselves away from the issue of moral duty (or fail to argue themselves towards it), adopting instead the precepts of rational interest and self-preservation. In a system where rationality and ethics point in opposite directions, humanity is the main loser. Evil can do its dirty work, hoping that most people most of the time will refrain from doing rash, reckless things – and resisting evil is rash and reckless. Evil needs neither enthusiastic followers nor an applauding audience – the instinct of self-preservation will do, encouraged by the comforting thought that it is not my turn yet, thank God: by lying low, I can still escape. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 592

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core mechanism of Bauman’s whole argument, portable to any analysis of how bureaucratic modernity outsources harm: evil runs on default self-preservation, not fanaticism.
• XREF: Directly parallel to the Milgram/Arendt moral-political scaffolding on the banality of evil; also the mechanism the reader will deploy against Islamophobia’s assumption that exclusion needs hatemongers. — connects to: Reputational self-interest alone cannot explain why people act morally when unobserved. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 57; Obedience against conscience requires a single monopolistic source of authority without rivals — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 468; Nazi control worked by making rational self-interest equal cooperation. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 382 (+1 more)
• SEED: The ‘lying low escapes’ line could anchor an essay on how institutional racism relies on ordinary complicity rather than committed racists.

Related

• Nazi rule inverted reason so that rationality demanded moral consent to crime (similarity 0.83)
• Nazi control worked by making rational self-interest equal cooperation. (similarity 0.82)
• Absolute evil reveals evil’s radical essence by exceeding comprehensible motives (similarity 0.81)
• Rationality of the actor and of the action can diverge, making reason self-destructive. (similarity 0.80)
• The Holocaust succeeded partly through victims’ rational actions. (similarity 0.80)
• Nazi power operated by crafting a rational make-believe world for victims (similarity 0.80)
• Rationality itself can be weaponized against the rational agent (similarity 0.80)
• Obedience against conscience requires a single monopolistic source of authority without rivals (similarity 0.80)
• Evil can be resisted because self-preservation remains a choice. (similarity 0.80)
• Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality (similarity 0.79)
• Organizations suppress morality because it cannot be rationalized (similarity 0.79)
• Authorization, routinization, and dehumanization erode moral inhibitions against violence (similarity 0.79)
• Victims’ rational conduct was engineered to serve their own destruction (similarity 0.79)
• Extreme evil can stem from meticulous order rather than its breakdown (similarity 0.79)
• Older Nazi officials retained moral qualms the genocidal machine overrode (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Nazi control worked by making rational self-interest equal cooperation. #exemplifies (0.88) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 382
• Social organization neutralizes morality by making action adiaphoric, neither good nor evil #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 613
• Reputational self-interest alone cannot explain why people act morally when unobserved. #qualifies (0.82) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 57
• Obedience against conscience requires a single monopolistic source of authority without rivals #complicates (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 468