Sacred duty displaces personal agency, allowing killers to feel honorable

Evidence

Similarly, Islamic extremists construe their jihad as an armed struggle in self-defense against tyrannical, decadent infidels who seek to enslave the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden claimed nobility for his global terrorism as serving a holy imperative (Borger, 2001; Ludlow, 2001). Because of the diverse ways in which bin Laden used morality to sanctify terrorism, his case provides an informative example of how the full set of moral disengagement mechanisms operate in concert. He justified killing in the name of Allah by making it honorable to kill without guilt: “We will continue this course because it is part of our religion and because Allah, praise and glory be to him, ordered us to carry out jihad so that the word of Allah may remain exalted to the heights” (Ludlow, 2001). Islamic extremists believe that they are carrying out Allah’s will as a religious duty. The prime agency for the holy terror is thus displaced to Allah. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 350

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece on how moral framing legitimizes classed/identity violence, and to religious-obligation themes in Things Fall Apart.