Moral blindness, also known as ethical blindness, is defined as a person's temporary inability to see the

ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

aspect of a decision they are making. It is often caused by external factors due to which an individual is unable to see the

immoral Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to g ...

aspect of their behavior in that particular situation. While the concept of moral blindness (and more broadly, that of immorality) has its roots in ancient

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, the idea of moral blindness became popular after the events of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, particularly the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. This led to more research by

psychologists A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and some surprising findings (notably by

Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist, best known for his controversial experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocke ...

and

Philip Zimbardo Philip George Zimbardo (; born March 23, 1933) is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later severely criticized for both ethical and scient ...

) on human behavior in the context of obedience and authority bias. Moral blindness has been identified as being a concern in areas such as business organisation and legal systems.

Overview

Moral blindness is a phenomenon in which people with sufficient

moral reasoning Moral reasoning is the study of how people think about right and wrong and how they acquire and apply moral rules. It is a subdiscipline of moral psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy, and is the foundation of descriptive ethics. Descri ...

abilities are temporarily unable to see reason which causes them to behave in ways counter to their actual moral values. This behaviour can be due to situational or other factors. The idea of moral blindness usually requires the following: people need to deviate from their intrinsic moral beliefs and this deviation should be temporary and unconscious i.e. people are unaware at the time of their unethical behaviour. Interest in the idea of moral blindness increased after Hannah Arendt's '' Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil'' which —sed on

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

soldier who was responsible for the deportation of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

extermination camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

and thus played a major role in the Holocaust. The ideas of moral blindness and the "

banality of evil ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organiz ...

" also influenced the field of psychology and led to some notable studies in the 70s such as the obedience studies by Stanley Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo. These studies looked at the impact of authority on obedience and individual behaviour. Subsequent research has looked at moral blindness in contexts beyond war crimes and

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

. The idea has been expanded to study people's behaviour in areas as diverse as organisational behavior and

mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...

to name a few.

Origins and early theories

Roots in philosophy

The origins of the concept of moral blindness lie in philosophy and can be traced to ancient Greek philosophers such as

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

who spoke of

moral intellectualism Moral intellectualism or ethical intellectualism is a view in meta-ethics according to which genuine moral knowledge must take the form of arriving at discursive moral judgements about what one should do. One way of understanding this is that doi ...

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

who spoke about emotions clouding moral judgements, and

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

who first used the term "

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

" for the field of

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

. Early spiritual leaders such as

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

and

Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...

also spoke about moral behaviour in their discourses although they were more

prescriptive Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

in nature. Modern contributions to moral judgement came from Western philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, and

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

around the 17th and 18th century and more contemporary philosophers such as

G.E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...

, who in his book ''

Principia Ethica ''Principia Ethica'' is a 1903 book by the British philosopher G. E. Moore, in which the author insists on the indefinability of "good" and provides an exposition of the naturalistic fallacy. ''Principia Ethica'' was influential, and Moore's a ...

'' talks about the "indefinability of good".

Normative ethics Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the ...

seeks to define the rightness or wrongness of an action. Two opposing views that have developed in this area are ''deontology'' where the morality of an action depends on its appropriateness with respect to rules and ''consequentialism'' where an action's morality depends on its results. These views are often reflected in responses to Greene's trolley problem.

In psychology

Moral blindness has been studied jointly across philosophy and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

with

empirical studies Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of one ...

of morality going back to the 1890s. The focus on a normative approach to moral behaviour led to research focused on the

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and

developmental Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosi ...

context.

Piaget Piaget () may refer to: People with the surname * Édouard Piaget (18171910), a Swiss entomologist * Jean Piaget (18961980), a Swiss developmental psychologist * Paul Piaget (disambiguation), several people * Solange Piaget Knowles (born 1986) ...

put forth his prominent

theory of cognitive development Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. It was originated by the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). The theory deals with the nature of k ...

in 1936 which Kohlberg developed to come up with the three stages of moral development in 1958. Later, in 1982,

James Rest James Rest was an American psychologist specializing in moral psychology and development. Together with his Minnesota Group of colleagues, including Darcia Narvaez, Muriel Bebeau, and Stephen Thoma, Rest extended Kohlberg's approach to researching ...

published his influential Four Component Model of Morality (FCM) where he identified four distinct stages from which immoral behaviour could arise: moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral implementation. This model was meant to convey the complexity behind moral behaviour. Competence in one stage did not imply competence in another, so immoral behaviour could result from failure at any stage. The above cognitive focus was found to be in contrast to some of the observed behavior. The field of behavioral ethics eventually emerged to study how people react to moral dilemmas.

Theoretical and experimental research in psychology

A major driver for modern research on moral blindness is purported to be post World War II sentiments towards people such as Adolf Eichmann (responsible for genocide under the Nazi regime during the Holocaust). His capture and subsequent trial in 1961 had many observers comment on his ordinary nature and appearance which seemed at contrast with his 'evil' behaviour. Hannah Arendt, who was covering the trial for

the New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

, coined the term the "

" in reference to Eichmann as during the trial, Eichmann showed no remorse nor did he accept responsibility - he claimed to have done what he was told to do. This is believed to have influenced researchers such as Milgram to study individual behaviour in response to obedience to authority. In his obedience studies in 1961-62, Milgram had subjects think they were administering electric shocks to another participant, who in fact was a confederate of the experimenters. These studies had been designed to answer questions such as: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" To most people's surprise, 65% of the subjects from the original study went ahead to pull a switch that would have administered the maximum of 450 volts. Later in 1971, Zimbardo in his Stanford Prison Experiment studied showed how "good people behave in pathological ways that are alien to their nature". Male undergraduate students at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

were assigned to be guards or prisoners in a simulated prison setting. The experiment was designed to see how far subjects would go to internalise their roles and obey external orders and later raised some ethical concerns about the nature of the study itself. Post these findings, researchers began to study moral agency, its exercise and drivers of moral blindness. In his research,

Bandura A bandura ( uk, банду́ра) is a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often referred to by the term kobza. Early instruments (c. 1700) had 5 to 12 strings ...

argued that

moral disengagement Moral disengagement is a term from social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context. This is done by separating moral reactions from inhumane conduct and disabling the me ...

could arise out of various forces (individual, situational, or institutional) along with mechanisms such as diffusion of responsibility and disconnected division of tasks could lead to immoral behaviour. More recent research has led to the development of the concept of 'bounded ethicality" - the idea that people can be unintentionally unethical when it comes to their behaviour as well as judging others' behaviour; something they may realise only on further reflection. Studies on individual unethicality have also looked at the role of

social norms Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or soci ...

and as well as how we view others' unethical behaviour.

Applications and related ideas

Moral blindness has been studied and applied in a range of domains beyond war crimes, politics, and administration. A major area of application has been in the field of management and organisational behaviour with research looking at a wide range of topics such as corporate transgressions,

business ethics Business ethics (also known as Corporate Ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics, that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business co ...

, and moral disengagement at work. Law and justice is another area where moral blindness, especially when it comes to lawyers, is seen as a concern. Some research has also referred to

psychopathy Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent Anti-social behaviour, antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and Boldness, bold, Disinhibition, disinhibited, and Egotism, egotistical B ...

being a specific kind of moral blindness although the findings are not conclusive. The field has also been expanded to study broader ideas such as moral blind spots (overestimating ability to act ethically), ethical erosion (gradual decline of ethics over time), and ethical fading (when ethical concerns around a situation 'fade' during decision making).

References

{{Reflist Concepts in ethics Moral psychology Normative ethics Postmodernism Psychological theories