Targeted violence against blamed officials is morally easier than killing indiscriminate innocents

Evidence

Beneath the “progress” of long-distance violence, we can now detect the barbarity of aseptic homicide. By now doubt is certainly cast upon the notion that mechanized murder and murder from behind a desk is less terrible than blood shed in passion. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 960 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Morality can also be fostered by restoring humanity to harmful conduct that has been freed from the restraints of moral self-sanctions. McAlister and his colleagues fostered moral reengagement as an alternative to resorting to violent means. They did so by peer modeling of prosocial solutions to conflicts and exposure to communications that unmasked the various self-exonerative methods of moral disengagement (McAlister, Ama, Barroso, Peters, & Kelder, 2000). Moral engagement reduced support of violent means, whereas boosting self-exonerative vindications raised endorsement of violent means. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 651 (#complicates, via linked claim)

If, under military coercion, they ended up killing their humanized foes, they would likely carry a burden of guilt. They could seek vindication in the fact that they were forced to do it, but unless it provided complete self-exoneration, they could be haunted by flashbacks of their combat activities in the trenches. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 664 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Comparing victims to animals makes their murder easier — Gregory H. Stanton, Ten Stages of Genocide, 14; Even executioners must morally justify killing through mixed rationales that make it easier — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1883; Indiscriminate terrorism requires trained moral disengagement that targeted violence does not — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2116 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Distance killing is not morally less terrible than passionate violence #complicates (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 960
• Moral engagement can be deliberately fostered to reduce violent means endorsement #complicates (0.74) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 651
• Killing humanized foes leaves guilt that coercion excuses only partially #complicates (0.73) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 664
• Modern rational bureaucracy rendered genocide morally neutral to its perpetrators #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 449