1 00:00:00,030 --> 00:00:08,100 Great pleasure to welcome Jessica, Wolf and Vail, who is no stranger to CCW, although you would think so in 2006. 2 00:00:08,460 --> 00:00:18,450 Yes, it really is. Years ago that this thing was not just a little bad because, you know, when she was here before. 3 00:00:19,140 --> 00:00:25,020 She is now an assistant professor of philosophy at West Virginia University, although she just gone ten years. 4 00:00:25,230 --> 00:00:33,930 So what's the next stage? She is the author of Torture and the Military Profession, 5 00:00:33,930 --> 00:00:43,140 published in 2007 and co-editor of the book On New Wars and New Soldiers Military Etiquette and Military Ethics in the Contemporary World. 6 00:00:44,070 --> 00:00:51,240 And what she's going to talk about today is her new project, which is on war crimes, courage and responsibility. 7 00:00:51,510 --> 00:00:55,680 Thank you. Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you for inviting me to come speak. 8 00:00:55,770 --> 00:00:58,780 It's a really great opportunity for me. I'm looking forward to your comments. 9 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:02,910 I have a handout for you. So sort of podcasting it around. It's a big. 10 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:09,450 The one that's going around. I'll just talk a little bit about what this project is. 11 00:01:09,450 --> 00:01:15,030 So what I'll be talking about today is basically a summary of a book project. 12 00:01:15,060 --> 00:01:20,490 So I'm going to give you a sort of potted version of the essential arguments that myself and my colleague, Dr. Matthew Talbot. 13 00:01:21,060 --> 00:01:27,000 I'm currently working on this book project is about a year in at the still at the early stages of it. 14 00:01:27,990 --> 00:01:31,170 And the project is going to address three central questions. 15 00:01:31,530 --> 00:01:36,809 The first question that we're going to look at in this book project is whether war crimes result 16 00:01:36,810 --> 00:01:44,310 from failures of individual character or whether they are the result of extreme situational forces. 17 00:01:44,940 --> 00:01:52,120 The second question is whether those who commit war crimes should be held legally or more and morally responsible for their actions. 18 00:01:52,140 --> 00:01:56,580 And the final question, which I won't address today, but we could talk about in Question Time, 19 00:01:56,580 --> 00:02:01,740 if people are interested in in the topic, is, is how war crimes could be prevented in the future. 20 00:02:02,910 --> 00:02:06,660 So a central argument consists of two main themes. 21 00:02:06,900 --> 00:02:12,420 First of all, we are going to argue that the situation of the account of war crimes is mistaken. 22 00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:17,730 And I'll explain what that is in a moment. And we will offer an alternative dispositional account of war crimes. 23 00:02:18,510 --> 00:02:26,400 And second, we're going to argue for a theory of responsibility under which soldiers may typically be held morally responsible for war crimes, 24 00:02:26,790 --> 00:02:32,220 regardless of whether situational forces or dispositions influence their behaviour. 25 00:02:33,030 --> 00:02:37,440 And by morally responsible, we mean subject to judgements of price and blame. 26 00:02:38,730 --> 00:02:43,320 Just a side note before I start, I'm not going to talk about defining war crimes in this war. 27 00:02:43,950 --> 00:02:46,290 So something we will of course work on in the book. 28 00:02:46,500 --> 00:02:52,800 But for the purpose of the book, I'm just going to attack war crimes, you know, concevoir as defined in international law. 29 00:02:52,830 --> 00:02:57,860 The examples I will use are sort of, I guess, what you might call paradigm examples of war crimes. 30 00:02:57,870 --> 00:03:01,350 I think they're examples which shouldn't cause a controversy over the definition. 31 00:03:02,430 --> 00:03:07,920 Okay. So what I want to do in the first part of the talk is talk a little bit about the situations to counter of war crimes 32 00:03:08,430 --> 00:03:13,530 and our alternative dispositional account in the second part of the talk and talk about a theory of responsibility. 33 00:03:14,660 --> 00:03:20,510 So situation ism is a view this developed in social psychology over a number of years, 34 00:03:21,050 --> 00:03:29,420 according to which human behaviour is most often explained by seemingly minor situational factors such as being in a hurry, 35 00:03:30,140 --> 00:03:34,130 peer pressure or even perhaps smelling a nice scent. 36 00:03:34,580 --> 00:03:38,750 So there's a wide number, a wide range of experiments in social psychology, 37 00:03:39,260 --> 00:03:44,660 experiments in social psychology that are claimed to provide support for this theory of human behaviour. 38 00:03:44,710 --> 00:03:49,370 So the ones that you might be familiar with are standing there. Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority. 39 00:03:50,090 --> 00:03:53,480 Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo. 40 00:03:53,930 --> 00:03:59,070 Solomon Asha's experiments on conformity and Darlene Benson's Good Samaritan experiments. 41 00:03:59,110 --> 00:04:02,540 They do let me know at least 20, if not really. 42 00:04:03,130 --> 00:04:11,340 All right. So a number of philosophers have believed that these experiments cast doubt on the existence of character traits. 43 00:04:11,340 --> 00:04:19,280 So there's a quite a wide literature in philosophy about whether or not and to what degree these social psychology experiments threaten virtue, 44 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:25,130 ethics, the existence of virtues in the belief that ethical behaviour derives from the position of virtuous character traits. 45 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:29,120 Now we are not engaging in that debate just to put it to one side. 46 00:04:30,020 --> 00:04:37,489 So but recently a number of philosophers have believed that these experiments are particularly relevant to war crimes, 47 00:04:37,490 --> 00:04:45,920 to explaining why war crimes occur and why seemingly ordinary military personnel can end up performing at such as torture. 48 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:54,260 So the account that we look at in some detail in our book is offered by John Dauth and Dominic Murphy. 49 00:04:54,980 --> 00:05:02,990 So Darth and Murphy argue that the situation experiments, particularly the Milgram experiments in the Stanford prison experiment. 50 00:05:04,630 --> 00:05:07,510 Suggests a very plausible way of understanding war crimes. 51 00:05:07,690 --> 00:05:14,380 And according to Dorothy Murphy, a few situational forces both on the battlefield and off the battlefield, 52 00:05:14,890 --> 00:05:18,850 undermine what they refer to as soldiers normative competence. 53 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:26,770 They define normative competence as is quite a complex capacity, enabling its possessor to appreciate ethical considerations, 54 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:31,210 ascertain information relevant to particular ethical judgements, 55 00:05:31,660 --> 00:05:35,620 and identify behaviour implementing their ethical judgements so no other 56 00:05:35,620 --> 00:05:40,059 competence should be adopted as a capacity involving not as powers of reflection. 57 00:05:40,060 --> 00:05:45,879 So being able to identify ethical considerations, make ethical judgements, but also powers of self-control, 58 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:51,730 being able to actually regulate your behaviour by your ethical, by your ethical judgements. 59 00:05:52,630 --> 00:05:57,520 And many philosophers believe that normative competence or something very like it 60 00:05:58,090 --> 00:06:02,469 is necessary for a person to be subject to attributions of moral responsibility, 61 00:06:02,470 --> 00:06:09,490 i.e. in order to be held morally responsible for your actions, you have to behave normally competence or a very similar capacity. 62 00:06:10,300 --> 00:06:18,340 So in Dorothy Murphy's view, since, as I argue, normative competence is undermined by battlefield situational forces, 63 00:06:18,580 --> 00:06:23,200 the conclusion is that soldiers are typically not responsible for war crimes. 64 00:06:23,290 --> 00:06:29,500 Now, talk about the responsibility a bit later in more detail. So what are the relevant situational forces? 65 00:06:29,710 --> 00:06:33,790 Well, first of all, they're what we might call heat of battle pressures or battlefield forces. 66 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:40,870 These would include stress, extreme fatigue, fear, even exposure to extreme noise. 67 00:06:41,380 --> 00:06:49,600 All these factors which a soldier might encounter on the battlefield impair normative competence by undermining basic cognitive functioning. 68 00:06:49,630 --> 00:06:57,250 So obviously, one of the impacts, one of the effects of, for example, extended sleep deprivation is extremely degraded, basic cognitive functioning. 69 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:02,620 So if you can't think straight. To put it simply, you can't form complex ethical judgements. 70 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:11,800 Okay. So you're not going to be able to make an act of sophisticated moral judgements under these situational these battlefield situational forces. 71 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:17,229 Now, we don't necessarily disagree with that time with some caveats. 72 00:07:17,230 --> 00:07:20,889 It also brought later and I think it might be the case, in fact, 73 00:07:20,890 --> 00:07:26,230 there are some battlefield conditions which seriously do undermine soldier's basic cognitive functioning. 74 00:07:27,010 --> 00:07:35,890 But Dorothea murphy actually intended conclusion to apply to all military personnel, not just those who are involved in heated combat situations. 75 00:07:36,670 --> 00:07:45,050 So they all 17 their conclusion to apply to military personnel who are involved in what we're going to call institutional war crimes. 76 00:07:45,130 --> 00:07:50,370 So by that, I mean war crimes either told ongoing institutional policies and practices. 77 00:07:50,370 --> 00:07:54,160 So institutionalised torture is a good example of what I'm talking about. 78 00:07:54,220 --> 00:08:01,480 These crimes take place far away from the heat of battle, the product of ongoing policies and implementation. 79 00:08:03,010 --> 00:08:06,880 I think many genocidal campaigns would also count as institutional war crimes as well. 80 00:08:07,810 --> 00:08:14,950 So it doesn't really say, well, even though a soldier who or military personnel who are involved in, say, institutionalised torture, 81 00:08:14,950 --> 00:08:22,150 they're not exposed to extreme fear and fatigue or noise, but they have been subject to what they call distal pressures. 82 00:08:22,840 --> 00:08:28,720 So Dawson Murphy defined this pressures of circumstances that may profoundly affect military personnel, 83 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:35,260 beginning a considerable spatial and temporal distance from the point at which atrocity occurs. 84 00:08:35,710 --> 00:08:41,080 So the examples I discussed in their article include basic aspects of military culture and training, 85 00:08:41,770 --> 00:08:46,310 including individuation which has been linked to war crimes, 86 00:08:46,330 --> 00:08:53,260 which this is a process by which the individual is encouraged to identify with the group rather than with their prior self-conception. 87 00:08:54,340 --> 00:09:01,500 Things like group bonding, training in obedience to authority dehumanisation the killing, all these factors of military culture and training. 88 00:09:01,510 --> 00:09:09,010 So Dawson Murphy impairs soldiers normative competence and it also occurs through being exposed to ideologies. 89 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:15,879 So in some cases, depending, I guess what where you're being kind of course, you know, as a member of the military, 90 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:20,120 you might be exposed to dehumanising ideologies that are targeting a particular group. 91 00:09:20,710 --> 00:09:26,020 And that's another kind of distal pressure that Dorothy Murphy believes impair soldiers normative competence. 92 00:09:27,340 --> 00:09:35,800 But clearly, those kinds of processes don't impair normative competence in the same way that, for example, extreme stress and fatigue does. 93 00:09:36,460 --> 00:09:42,430 So many being exposed to, say, dehumanising ideology doesn't undermine your basic cognitive functioning. 94 00:09:42,430 --> 00:09:47,320 You can sort of think straight, right, where if that wouldn't be the case, perhaps that extreme fear and fatigue. 95 00:09:48,190 --> 00:09:53,050 So Dorothy Murphy thinks that these kinds of processes impair normative competence, 96 00:09:53,560 --> 00:09:58,210 not by undermining basic community functioning, but by restricting moral reasoning. 97 00:09:58,870 --> 00:10:07,570 So what I mean that is, is that this kind of processes can lead soldiers to have certain beliefs about what is and is not permissible. 98 00:10:08,410 --> 00:10:15,760 So you can see these processes as external forces that kind of push soldiers and other military personnel into the belief that, 99 00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:20,770 for example, it's permissible to kill members of a certain group regardless of whether they are civilians a lot. 100 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:26,710 That would just be one example. So basically, this is still a prejudice, according to Dorothy Murphy, 101 00:10:27,190 --> 00:10:31,629 restrict the scope of soldiers moral reasoning to such an extent that they will lack 102 00:10:31,630 --> 00:10:36,820 the ability to understand and recognise and act on alternative moral judgements. 103 00:10:37,930 --> 00:10:46,240 And for example, they'll be unable to recognise the moral status of people who have been dehumanised by a racist ideology. 104 00:10:47,170 --> 00:10:55,329 So I, to quote Dorothy Murphy, if a government paramilitary organisation has a policy of systematic rape backed by pervasive racist ideology, 105 00:10:55,330 --> 00:11:01,100 perhaps ordinary soldiers cannot reasonably be expected to determine that such conduct is illegal. 106 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:05,199 So the claim is that given the way these pressures operate on soldiers, 107 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:10,300 it's unreasonable to expect soldiers to be able to recognise certain orders as illegal or moral. 108 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:17,690 Okay. And does that claim it's unreasonable to hold soldiers responsible for acting on both moral judgements? 109 00:11:20,430 --> 00:11:26,969 Okay. So so Dorothy Murphy's central argument is that since soldiers normative confidence is 110 00:11:26,970 --> 00:11:32,820 impaired or undermined by both factors on the battlefield and by these two pressures, 111 00:11:34,740 --> 00:11:39,420 it makes it very difficult for them to appreciate and recognise relevant ethical considerations. 112 00:11:40,050 --> 00:11:43,570 And so soldiers should be typically be excused for war crimes. 113 00:11:43,890 --> 00:11:46,170 They talk about Abu Ghraib, in particular as one example, 114 00:11:46,170 --> 00:11:51,090 where they think the soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib and the abuse should be excused for their actions. 115 00:11:52,140 --> 00:11:57,630 Okay. So we think there are a number of problems with the situation, this account. 116 00:12:00,900 --> 00:12:11,730 Firstly, it fails to explain the great variation in perpetrators motivations and attitudes to their own actions. 117 00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:19,230 So research on perpetrators of war crimes shows a huge variation in both how they explain what they do, 118 00:12:19,230 --> 00:12:25,710 how they justify it, and indeed in the sort of level of degree of enthusiasm they bring to their actions. 119 00:12:26,220 --> 00:12:29,740 Yet on the situation account, it's hard to see how that could be possible. 120 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:37,860 So if we're all trying to the same way we all get sent to the same deployed to the same combat zone, we're all subject to the same pressures. 121 00:12:37,860 --> 00:12:41,880 And the situations that count would lead us to think that you would all buy roughly the same work. 122 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:46,320 But that just doesn't seem to be true if you actually look at perpetrator accounts. 123 00:12:47,190 --> 00:12:50,610 So one psychologist and I've just drawing a blank on his name, 124 00:12:50,610 --> 00:12:58,110 unfortunately referred to this as a sort of this small fact that there are some perpetrators who really seem to enjoy what they do and some who don't, 125 00:12:58,110 --> 00:13:04,200 who seem to actually commit their actions with a degree of almost disgust or regret. 126 00:13:04,530 --> 00:13:08,900 So, again, this huge individual differences that's difficult to explain under the situation. 127 00:13:08,910 --> 00:13:19,880 This account and the account fails to explain the manner in which military culture and training actually cultivate dispositions. 128 00:13:19,980 --> 00:13:22,500 And by that I mean sets of beliefs, 129 00:13:22,500 --> 00:13:30,300 attitudes and behaviours that all the how soldiers perceive their actions in response to situations and interpret their own roles within the military. 130 00:13:30,990 --> 00:13:38,730 So for these reasons, we want to offer an alternative account of war crimes, which will describe dispositional accounts or character accounts. 131 00:13:39,870 --> 00:13:47,249 Now we are defining character traits of dispositions in the following manner sets of behaviour and forming dispositions that a set of beliefs, 132 00:13:47,250 --> 00:13:55,250 desires and actions that are stable over time. So in not using so, our definition of character is not the same as in virtue. 133 00:13:55,830 --> 00:13:57,870 It's not. It's not normal in that sense. 134 00:13:58,890 --> 00:14:06,850 Nor is it the view that character is a stable, broad based disposition that's totally independent from the situations in which a person acts. 135 00:14:06,870 --> 00:14:16,839 That will become clear in a moment. Okay. So what we're drawing on is a social cognitive account of personality that was developed by the 136 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:22,629 psychologist Walter Mitchell and has found support in a number of other work by social psychologist, 137 00:14:22,630 --> 00:14:27,040 including me Ross and Richard Nisbett, as well as philosophers such as Nancy Snow and Daniel Russel. 138 00:14:28,210 --> 00:14:35,020 And this particular social cognitive account is called the Cap Theory of Cognitive Affective Personality System. 139 00:14:36,070 --> 00:14:38,500 So let's give you a very, very brief overview of this theory. 140 00:14:38,590 --> 00:14:41,890 We're not going to be able to do it justice here, but I think [INAUDIBLE] give you the main idea. 141 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:49,380 So in the cap theory of personality traits, who dispositions are cognitive affective units, okay? 142 00:14:49,450 --> 00:14:54,390 So they involve an interconnected set of beliefs, emotions, behaviours and judgements. 143 00:14:54,920 --> 00:15:03,190 That is a quote from Nancy Snow activated in response to situational variables or internal stimuli and repeated activation 144 00:15:03,190 --> 00:15:09,950 of these sort of interconnected set leads to relatively stable behavioural patterns across different situations. 145 00:15:09,950 --> 00:15:13,410 So I want to give you an example of a particular trait that should make this clear. 146 00:15:13,420 --> 00:15:16,540 This is an example that comes from Nancy Snow's discussion of this theory. 147 00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:22,140 So let's take a try to irritability. So like other couples try it. 148 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:28,390 So try to be irritability consists in part thoughts, effects and representations of plans, strategies and values. 149 00:15:28,990 --> 00:15:38,140 It stands online and on core, ready to be activated through external stimuli or even through internal stimuli, such as thought through imaginings. 150 00:15:38,410 --> 00:15:41,860 So when the irritable person, for example, 151 00:15:41,860 --> 00:15:50,310 is exposed to certain stimuli is a positive bumped into by someone walking down the street that activates certain kinds of symptoms of belief beliefs. 152 00:15:50,470 --> 00:15:57,250 People also talk left, right, certain kinds of emotions such as annoyance and frustration and also certain kinds of plans. 153 00:15:57,250 --> 00:15:59,110 I'm going to avoid these traits in the future. 154 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:04,000 This is a very simplistic example, but the basic structure would apply to much more complex traits as well. 155 00:16:05,770 --> 00:16:11,770 And what this happens is that that process of the activating the beliefs and it connects to future plans and goals and certain emotions, 156 00:16:11,770 --> 00:16:19,360 is that that gets activated over different situations so that it might happen, for example, on public transport or in a crowded movie theatre. 157 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:26,270 So even those are objectively different situations. From the perspective of the irritable person, they're all relevantly similar, right? 158 00:16:26,380 --> 00:16:32,440 They're construing the irritable person, construe those situations as relevant to her, try to be irritability. 159 00:16:32,460 --> 00:16:37,390 Okay, so I hope that gives you some rough idea of what the cut throat is. 160 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:47,970 But the essential idea is that to understand a person's behaviour, we have to understand how they are interpreting the situation they are in. 161 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:53,370 It's not enough for us to say, Oh, that's a situation that's relevant to the try to say quality. 162 00:16:54,180 --> 00:17:02,580 We have to ask ourselves, does the person in that situation construe that situation as relevant to, for example, the traffic policy? 163 00:17:02,610 --> 00:17:05,790 So finding the change on a table, we might think, Oh, well, 164 00:17:05,790 --> 00:17:09,390 we'll see whether someone steals the money that's relevant to seeing whether they're out of person. 165 00:17:09,990 --> 00:17:15,110 But to really know that, we need to know whether that person themselves sees that situation that's relevant to the traffic on a stick. 166 00:17:15,120 --> 00:17:20,219 So crucial to the idea of caps trades is the agent's own understanding of what 167 00:17:20,220 --> 00:17:24,660 the situation is and how that situation relates to pre-existing beliefs, 168 00:17:24,660 --> 00:17:33,690 values and goals. Now we think this is the most promising framework to understand why individuals become involved in war crimes. 169 00:17:38,010 --> 00:17:38,320 Okay. 170 00:17:40,650 --> 00:17:51,240 So we believe, for example, that military training and culture shouldn't be seen as being this set of external forces pushing on military personnel, 171 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:55,080 forcing them into certain kinds of beliefs, which is sort of doctrine, work with you. 172 00:17:56,100 --> 00:17:59,819 Instead, we think military training and culture actually lead to the development of 173 00:17:59,820 --> 00:18:05,130 cutthroats that are really related specifically to military goals and endeavours. 174 00:18:05,940 --> 00:18:11,820 So at the most general level of military training, this is going to be true of pretty much most military forces. 175 00:18:12,450 --> 00:18:21,360 Military training in culture aims to develop certain beliefs in soldiers or military personnel, such as the belief that a particular war is justified. 176 00:18:21,390 --> 00:18:24,690 Or the belief that obedience and loyalty are central to being a good soldier. 177 00:18:25,410 --> 00:18:25,690 Right. 178 00:18:25,710 --> 00:18:34,470 So what military training does is actually engage with the pre-existing beliefs and attitudes of military personnel to develop these kinds of traits. 179 00:18:35,490 --> 00:18:42,720 And the intention is to lead to stable and predictable behavioural patterns in response to specific situations. 180 00:18:43,650 --> 00:18:45,780 Now in relation to war crimes, 181 00:18:48,030 --> 00:18:57,250 we think this approach provides very important insights into how crimes such as torture can come to be construed or understood by military personnel, 182 00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:04,020 not just as permissible, but actually is consistent with military objectives, the central values of the military profession. 183 00:19:04,890 --> 00:19:07,980 So, you know, I've done a lot of research of torture in my career, 184 00:19:07,980 --> 00:19:16,020 and it's quite often that military torturers say what they do is actually part of their role as a good soldier in some cases. 185 00:19:16,410 --> 00:19:23,520 So that's, you know, that incorporating the act of torture into the individual's self-conception is a very important 186 00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:27,390 part of understanding how individuals can come to be involved in something like torture. 187 00:19:28,710 --> 00:19:37,020 So research on the causes of war crimes has found that the war crimes are likely to occur when a number of the following conditions apply. 188 00:19:37,050 --> 00:19:42,930 And I'm drawing here on the work of psychologists and also the International Committee of the Red Cross. 189 00:19:43,350 --> 00:19:50,550 So a specific active policy, such as the policy of torture, has been authorised in Russian law for military personnel authorities. 190 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:55,920 Those carrying out the policy see their role as requiring obedience to authority. 191 00:19:56,820 --> 00:20:00,630 So they construe their role as requiring that particular phrase. 192 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,200 The intended subject of the policy have been dehumanised. 193 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:09,089 Their practice has been sanitised so referred to by euphemistic terms such as special treatment, 194 00:20:09,090 --> 00:20:15,630 for example, and the responsibility of those carrying out the practice has been displaced onto others. 195 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:22,469 So this combination of factors can lead to what Bender calls moral disengagement, where, quote, 196 00:20:22,470 --> 00:20:28,590 those involved disengage their ordinary processes of moral judgement and reflection from the actions they are performing. 197 00:20:29,130 --> 00:20:36,630 So they no longer see those actions as wrong and or they no longer see themselves as responsible for any wrongdoing that might be occurring. 198 00:20:37,670 --> 00:20:41,570 So this is a process of cognitive restructuring with the inventor of the phrase, 199 00:20:41,990 --> 00:20:47,390 and he sees it as one of the most powerful set of psychological mechanisms for disengaging moral control. 200 00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:55,249 Now, what's relevant to us, of course, is that these factors that I've described above all involve cultivating specific beliefs, 201 00:20:55,250 --> 00:21:01,010 attitudes and emotions regarding this specific practice being authorised. 202 00:21:02,360 --> 00:21:09,440 So, you know, I think we can't understand perpetrator behaviour without reference to perpetrators beliefs, goals and self conceptions. 203 00:21:10,730 --> 00:21:17,660 And that's something that we miss out on if we apply the fairly simplistic situationist approach that Dawson Murphy described. 204 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:24,140 And what this insight can provide us is the recognition that perpetrators aim to reconciling their behaviour 205 00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:31,459 with their particular pre-existing goals and values and self-conception and that of the individual. 206 00:21:31,460 --> 00:21:38,840 Perpetrating Hepatitis Y of integrating their behaviour with their self-conception then informs how they carry out their actions. 207 00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,640 So I have a quote here, which I think illustrates it quite nicely. 208 00:21:43,810 --> 00:21:50,070 So a Brazilian torturer interviewed, interviewed by the sociologist Martha Huggins explained his actions as follows. 209 00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:54,880 He said, I don't use violence outside the standard of my conscience as a human being. 210 00:21:54,910 --> 00:21:59,650 I'm a conscientious professional. I know what to do and when to do it. 211 00:22:00,130 --> 00:22:03,430 Now, this quote suggests we don't have a lot of information about this man. 212 00:22:03,910 --> 00:22:11,280 But it suggests that this particular perpetrator construed his actions as being a legitimate exercise of his professional duty, 213 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:19,750 as was part of his role as a good soldier and is consistent with his self-conception as a decent man, a good person, like a good professional. 214 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:26,410 So that good self-conception no doubt influenced how he actually carried out his role in the torture. 215 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:35,020 In contrast to, for example, perhaps a torture, he viewed torture as being a form of punishment for people who were scum. 216 00:22:35,170 --> 00:22:38,740 So that second torturer, who's always hypothetical in this case, 217 00:22:39,250 --> 00:22:43,720 would probably carry out his duties in a very different way than a professional torturer. 218 00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:52,870 So perpetrators of war crimes are what, like all of us, really, what the anthropologist Alexander Hinton called meaning makers who, 219 00:22:52,870 --> 00:22:56,380 quote, comprehend and construct meaning out of their social lives. 220 00:22:56,980 --> 00:22:58,600 So we ignore this fact. 221 00:22:58,990 --> 00:23:06,190 This will lead to a failure to understand the differences in the motivations and attitudes that kind of explain at least partially, 222 00:23:06,190 --> 00:23:14,300 how and why individuals become perpetrators of war crimes. So what I want to do now is turn to the question of responsibility. 223 00:23:15,380 --> 00:23:23,180 So there are actually at least two arguments for excusing war criminals. 224 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:30,430 So the first argument is the argument that Dawson Murphy put forward, which is what I'm going to call the impaired moral capacity of you. 225 00:23:31,120 --> 00:23:38,470 If a person who has impaired moral capacity undermine confidence, commits an action, it's unreasonable to hold them morally responsible. 226 00:23:39,670 --> 00:23:43,570 But even if we don't agree with Dawson in every situation with the character, 227 00:23:43,580 --> 00:23:50,380 even if we think we take a dispositional view of war crimes, which is we argue for that doesn't actually necessarily mean that. 228 00:23:50,390 --> 00:23:54,210 DAWSON If you're wrong in terms of soldiers moral responsibility, 229 00:23:54,220 --> 00:24:00,790 and this is because another argument for excusing war criminals is based on lack of control over character. 230 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:07,180 So this view would hold that look, even if the disposition of you is correct, you know, 231 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:12,010 military personnel can't control really the disposition going to develop through military training. 232 00:24:12,850 --> 00:24:22,300 And so it seems unfair, unreasonable to blame them for actions that result from dispositions cultivated in a way over which they had no control. 233 00:24:23,980 --> 00:24:27,970 So the problem with these two accounts are as follows. 234 00:24:29,860 --> 00:24:33,639 The problem with the lack of control over character account is that it's going to 235 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:38,710 have much broader implications and merely the question of sorts of war crimes. 236 00:24:40,090 --> 00:24:43,720 Most of us have very little control over the kind of dispositions we develop in our lives. 237 00:24:43,870 --> 00:24:51,160 So dispositions might be affected by our upbringing, by our family, by our culture, by many things that are outside our control. 238 00:24:51,190 --> 00:24:58,149 So if we can't be held responsible for actions that result from character traits over which we couldn't control, 239 00:24:58,150 --> 00:25:01,390 then it's going to mean that most of us are not responsible most of the time. 240 00:25:02,490 --> 00:25:06,569 The problem with the impaired capacity account is that while we actually agree that 241 00:25:06,570 --> 00:25:12,480 in some cases impaired cognitive degradation can act as an excusing condition, 242 00:25:14,010 --> 00:25:19,350 we disagree with Dawson Murphy's view that restricted moral reasoning acts as an excuse and condition. 243 00:25:19,350 --> 00:25:23,909 And one reason why we disagree with it is that it would have implication that we really 244 00:25:23,910 --> 00:25:29,010 have to excuse pretty much most people who believe what they're doing is right. 245 00:25:29,370 --> 00:25:32,189 So that's not just going to be against cases that I've talked about, 246 00:25:32,190 --> 00:25:36,509 but also many of the senior Nazis genuinely believe that what they were doing was right. 247 00:25:36,510 --> 00:25:38,430 And perhaps, according to Dawson Murphy, 248 00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:44,700 it's unreasonable for us to expect them to have formed alternative moral beliefs given the circumstances in which they acted. 249 00:25:45,120 --> 00:25:52,410 So we're going to have to excuse that. We're going to have to excuse committed racists, in some cases being brought up in Alabama in the 1930s. 250 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:59,520 You know, as a white person, you probably would unavoidably come to believe very racist beliefs and make very racist moral judgements. 251 00:25:59,550 --> 00:26:04,770 So under this view, we can't blame you because there was no way for you to form alternative moral judgements. 252 00:26:06,550 --> 00:26:16,040 The other reason why we think it's problematic is that it has implications for the kind of attitudes that victims of war crimes can reasonably hold. 253 00:26:16,060 --> 00:26:22,330 So both these arguments for excusing war criminals have, as a result, 254 00:26:22,660 --> 00:26:28,600 the claim that victims of war crimes cannot reasonably blame or feel resentful towards those people who harm them. 255 00:26:29,110 --> 00:26:33,490 So the victims perspective is something that we want to bring back into the question about responsibility. 256 00:26:34,990 --> 00:26:41,500 Okay. So what we want to offer as an alternative account is what is sometimes being called a quality or a real account. 257 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:47,330 That's a little bit misleading, but it'll take to the moment. So. 258 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:57,360 Our approach to assessing more responsibility focuses on when and under what conditions. 259 00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:02,370 It is reasonable to be right to blame or praise agents for their actions. 260 00:27:03,060 --> 00:27:10,950 So an agent is praiseworthy or blameworthy if she is an appropriate target of a variety for a variety of moral responses, 261 00:27:10,950 --> 00:27:14,400 such as you might be familiar with Dawson's work and reactive attitudes. 262 00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:22,530 The idea here that you are responsible if it's reasonable for me to feel certain kind of attitudes towards you, so perhaps to feel gratitude, 263 00:27:23,100 --> 00:27:28,380 that would be the case in which you are praiseworthy or to feel resentment if you've done something bad for me, to me. 264 00:27:29,100 --> 00:27:35,909 So in the context of war crimes, we're interested in whether perpetrators are responsible in the sense of being open 265 00:27:35,910 --> 00:27:41,580 or legitimate subject to negative responses from them on the part of victims. 266 00:27:42,150 --> 00:27:46,500 Responses that constitute moral blame. So is it reasonable for the victim to blame the perpetrator? 267 00:27:46,540 --> 00:27:48,150 That's the central question we're asking here. 268 00:27:49,020 --> 00:27:54,600 And we think the kind of soldiers that Darren Murphy talk about who have been subjected to distil pressures and so forth. 269 00:27:56,140 --> 00:27:59,980 Soldiers who commit atrocities but regard their behaviours permissible. 270 00:28:00,370 --> 00:28:06,130 We think they are morally responsible in that sense, regardless of how they came to hold the particular moral beliefs that they hold. 271 00:28:07,780 --> 00:28:14,230 So, you know, in our view a wrongdoer who unavoidably regards her behaviour as permissible 272 00:28:14,710 --> 00:28:18,970 so who couldn't reasonably have formed any kind of alternative moral belief. 273 00:28:19,970 --> 00:28:27,350 Is not for that reason, an illegitimate target of emotions like resentment that characterised what it is to blame someone. 274 00:28:29,030 --> 00:28:35,510 So one way to think about this is to look at some cases where we do think someone should be excused from responsibility or from moral blame. 275 00:28:37,780 --> 00:28:43,149 So some central varieties of moral excuse work will operate by showing that the agent 276 00:28:43,150 --> 00:28:49,180 didn't have an objectionable quality of will toward those affected by her actions. 277 00:28:50,050 --> 00:28:54,129 So cases were her actions were not, for example, motivated by malice. 278 00:28:54,130 --> 00:28:58,030 Contempt would be through God. So is it a war crime example? 279 00:28:58,030 --> 00:29:05,500 Suppose a soldier who's fighting an unjust war just simply the circumstance about, you know, just what an unjust war sold to thwarting unjust war. 280 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:14,560 He inadvertently targeted the civilians, but he mistakenly believes that the civilian is a lawful target and is not to blame for that mistake. 281 00:29:14,590 --> 00:29:18,350 So he's not probably ignorant of the fact that the target is, in fact a civilian. 282 00:29:18,450 --> 00:29:24,430 He genuinely thought it was a soldier, a legitimate target, who had good reason to believe that you can't blame him for getting it wrong. 283 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:30,700 But he kills a civilian anyway. Now, I think all things being equal, 284 00:29:31,330 --> 00:29:37,240 it's reasonable to think that the soldier's action does not reflect a belief that civilians life is morally insignificant. 285 00:29:37,870 --> 00:29:44,680 So in that case, a soldier's action does not reflect or display contempt or indifference or disregard to the life of the civilian. 286 00:29:45,870 --> 00:29:48,900 And this is because the soldier didn't know he was targeting a civilian. 287 00:29:49,230 --> 00:29:52,230 So in that sense, a soldier is what you might call an unwitting wrongdoer. 288 00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,840 And it would be reasonable not to blame Rice. 289 00:29:56,310 --> 00:30:04,170 But if we go back to the torture I quoted from earlier, that torture does not seem to regard what he's doing as being objectionable. 290 00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,980 He seems to think that what he's doing is perfectly consistent with being a professional. 291 00:30:09,750 --> 00:30:17,010 So in one sense, and he's also an unwitting wrongdoer because he genuinely believes that he's doing the right thing. 292 00:30:17,310 --> 00:30:27,120 Okay. But in this case, and unlike the soldier who accidentally killed a civilian, not accidentally, but mistakenly killed a civilian, 293 00:30:27,900 --> 00:30:35,370 it seems perfectly reasonable to believe that the torture his behaviour reflects quality of will toward those he tortures, 294 00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,300 such as contempt or disregard or indifference to their welfare. 295 00:30:40,470 --> 00:30:43,530 Now, this doesn't mean that the torture is consciously thinking. 296 00:30:43,860 --> 00:30:46,560 I have contempt for my victims or anything like that. 297 00:30:47,430 --> 00:30:53,700 It's sufficient, in our view, that the torturer acted on reasons that he endorsed, that he believed were good reasons. 298 00:30:54,120 --> 00:31:02,459 So, for example, he believes that torture was necessary to protect the state and that his actions reflected an attitude that treats the victim, 299 00:31:02,460 --> 00:31:05,610 the interests of his victims, with the best indifference. 300 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:14,010 So the attitudes that we're ascribing to this torture are objectionable in a sense that his victims have reason to object to them. 301 00:31:14,670 --> 00:31:20,940 So here, appealing not just to the I mean, a victim of the game, the the family, 302 00:31:20,940 --> 00:31:26,090 the civilian who's mistakenly too about the small molecule, anger and blame toward the soldier of killing. 303 00:31:26,100 --> 00:31:29,850 And we would understand that that's a reasonable response given the emotional distress. 304 00:31:29,850 --> 00:31:35,040 But we would also think on one level that once I understand the circumstances, I should no longer feel those feelings. 305 00:31:35,490 --> 00:31:41,460 Once I understand it was an accident, the soldier who killed a civilian really, genuinely thought it was a legitimate target. 306 00:31:41,630 --> 00:31:47,370 I can't be blind for the ignorance we would expect in that case that the family, that civilians who would, 307 00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,730 you know, eventually have to realise that flying was inappropriate in that case. 308 00:31:51,390 --> 00:31:54,690 I mean, it's easy, for example, if someone bumps into you by accident. 309 00:31:55,050 --> 00:31:58,170 You know, at first you might be angry and then you realise it was an accident. 310 00:31:58,170 --> 00:32:01,200 And then you go, okay, well, it's not reasonable for me to blame you anymore. 311 00:32:01,740 --> 00:32:10,510 Right. But under Dawson Murphy's view, the torture of the victim is supposed to be the same thing as the family of the civilian mistakenly killed. 312 00:32:10,530 --> 00:32:13,989 The torture victim is supposed to say, Well, look, of course, you know, 313 00:32:13,990 --> 00:32:17,490 given that you just tortured me, I do feel a bit upset and angry and resentful. 314 00:32:17,790 --> 00:32:23,849 But actually, it's unreasonable for me to hold these beliefs because, you know, your normative competence is impaired. 315 00:32:23,850 --> 00:32:28,950 You're not responsible. And to us, that's totally unacceptable, as you know. 316 00:32:29,130 --> 00:32:31,410 That's I of thinking about the victim's perspective here. 317 00:32:32,100 --> 00:32:37,139 So I do think in that case, it's reasonable for the victim to object to the torture, his behaviour, to say the torture, 318 00:32:37,140 --> 00:32:41,640 his behaviour is being now inconsistent with the status of the person and that would be true even if the 319 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:47,520 torture victim was so broken down by torture that they're no longer able to feel any kind of emotion at all. 320 00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:53,390 We would think on their behalf that it would be reasonable for the torture victim to feel resentment and to blame the torture. 321 00:32:54,570 --> 00:32:59,730 So, you know, the torturer has mistaken beliefs about the permissibility of what he's doing, 322 00:33:00,210 --> 00:33:03,330 and maybe he's not even responsible for those mistaken beliefs. 323 00:33:03,330 --> 00:33:06,300 But that doesn't undermine his flight worthiness and our account. 324 00:33:07,410 --> 00:33:13,200 It doesn't make attitudes like resentment inappropriate on behalf on the part of the victim. 325 00:33:15,500 --> 00:33:20,420 And, you know, to take the opposing view is to insist that the torture victims will spread blame 326 00:33:21,530 --> 00:33:27,170 because her torture believes that it's permissible to treat her as as as he does. 327 00:33:27,710 --> 00:33:30,670 And that fails to show the victim insufficient respect from all of you. 328 00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,550 It requires her to treat her own beliefs about her moral standing that, you know, 329 00:33:34,790 --> 00:33:40,820 her belief that it's wrong for her to be tortured as subservient, subservient to the torture, it's torturous. 330 00:33:41,390 --> 00:33:45,680 So it's as if under oath and murky through and seeming to be used to torture victims in some sense, 331 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:49,490 adopt the tortured moral perspective and say, yes, okay, you're not to blame. 332 00:33:50,030 --> 00:33:55,720 You know, I can't feel resentment here. And that, again, seems an unacceptable conclusion of our view. 333 00:33:56,930 --> 00:34:03,229 So what that is under argue for more responsibility is not how someone comes to have these particular moral judgements, 334 00:34:03,230 --> 00:34:07,430 whether it's by situational forces or by military training or by dispositions, 335 00:34:07,790 --> 00:34:12,050 but the content of those attitudes and how they're expressed through the agent's behaviour. 336 00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:21,710 Okay. So a wind up, they're always going to talk a little bit about a case study in relation to Haditha, but I think I'll leave it there. 337 00:34:21,740 --> 00:34:25,040 I put the club to the question very much the.