this similarity metric. Understanding this process is a key step in explaining how we can deceive ourselves into believing that another human being is morally worthless, and thus worthy of exclusion from the circle of moral patients. Once they are displaced outside, causing them harm either feels justifiable because they are dangerous predators or parasites, or there are no feelings at all because they are objects — moral zeroes.
The social psychologist Nick Haslam carried out several experiments to determine how our rating of a group’s humanness influences how much we praise, blame, and protect them, as well as whether we believe that rehabilitation or punishment is most appropriate after they have done something wrong 28 . Haslam based his study on the idea, supported by law, science, and folk intuitions that we blame, praise, and punish only those who do bad things on purpose as opposed to by accident. Conversely, we favor rehabilitation in those cases where we believe that the person can right a wrong, learning a lesson from a prior transgression. For example, we don’t blame a five year old for picking up a gun and shooting someone, and nor do we sentence him to life in prison. We blame his caretakers and find ways to help the child understand the consequences of his actions. At some point, usually around the eighteenth birthday in most countries, we blame the shooter, holding him responsible and punishing him, often with life in prison or the termination of life itself.
Haslam’s subjects started by rating several different social groups along different dimensions of humanness. Though the dimensions were slightly different from those used by Gray and Wegner, they generally corresponded to experience and agency, including compassion, warmth, and a sense of community on the one hand, and reason, self-control, civility, and refinement on the other. The target social groups were associated with negative or positive stereotypes such as the homeless, mentally disabled, athletes, politicians, doctors, lawyers, gays, and different religious groups. Next subjects imagined that a member of one of these groups had acted morally or immorally, or had been mistreated in some way. Then they decided whether the person should be praised for a particular moral act such as returning a wallet, considered responsible for an immoral act such as breaking a promise, helped out for mistreatment such as being pushed out of line by a person in a hurry, and punished or rehabilitated for wrongful behavior.
Haslam’s results generated a landscape of humanness very much like Gray and Wegner’s. Those groups rated highly in terms of agency were more likely to be blamed and punished. Those groups rated high in experience were more likely to be praised, protected, and placed into rehabilitation. Those groups perceived as more emotional, compassionate and warm — components of experience — were praised more, whereas those perceived as more civil and rational — components of agency — were praised less. Overall, the more a group tilts toward the experience end of the spectrum, the more we see them as moral patients, deserving of our care and compassion. The more a group tilts toward the agency end of the spectrum, the more we see them as moral agents, having responsibilities and duties to act morally. When one group perceives another as lacking in experience and agency, they are perceived as moral zeroes. As in mathematics, subtracting zero from something leaves the mathematical universe unchanged. So it is with subtracting moral zeroes, at least from the perspective of those doing the subtracting. How a group shifts their perception of another’s moral worth and thus, shifts their sense of which actions are morally justified, requires further explanation as it represents a fundamental enabler of evildoing.
When we lower our sense of another’s value, we are willing to violate our sense of the sacred, engaging in trade-offs that are
The social psychologist Nick Haslam carried out several experiments to determine how our rating of a group’s humanness influences how much we praise, blame, and protect them, as well as whether we believe that rehabilitation or punishment is most appropriate after they have done something wrong 28 . Haslam based his study on the idea, supported by law, science, and folk intuitions that we blame, praise, and punish only those who do bad things on purpose as opposed to by accident. Conversely, we favor rehabilitation in those cases where we believe that the person can right a wrong, learning a lesson from a prior transgression. For example, we don’t blame a five year old for picking up a gun and shooting someone, and nor do we sentence him to life in prison. We blame his caretakers and find ways to help the child understand the consequences of his actions. At some point, usually around the eighteenth birthday in most countries, we blame the shooter, holding him responsible and punishing him, often with life in prison or the termination of life itself.
Haslam’s subjects started by rating several different social groups along different dimensions of humanness. Though the dimensions were slightly different from those used by Gray and Wegner, they generally corresponded to experience and agency, including compassion, warmth, and a sense of community on the one hand, and reason, self-control, civility, and refinement on the other. The target social groups were associated with negative or positive stereotypes such as the homeless, mentally disabled, athletes, politicians, doctors, lawyers, gays, and different religious groups. Next subjects imagined that a member of one of these groups had acted morally or immorally, or had been mistreated in some way. Then they decided whether the person should be praised for a particular moral act such as returning a wallet, considered responsible for an immoral act such as breaking a promise, helped out for mistreatment such as being pushed out of line by a person in a hurry, and punished or rehabilitated for wrongful behavior.
Haslam’s results generated a landscape of humanness very much like Gray and Wegner’s. Those groups rated highly in terms of agency were more likely to be blamed and punished. Those groups rated high in experience were more likely to be praised, protected, and placed into rehabilitation. Those groups perceived as more emotional, compassionate and warm — components of experience — were praised more, whereas those perceived as more civil and rational — components of agency — were praised less. Overall, the more a group tilts toward the experience end of the spectrum, the more we see them as moral patients, deserving of our care and compassion. The more a group tilts toward the agency end of the spectrum, the more we see them as moral agents, having responsibilities and duties to act morally. When one group perceives another as lacking in experience and agency, they are perceived as moral zeroes. As in mathematics, subtracting zero from something leaves the mathematical universe unchanged. So it is with subtracting moral zeroes, at least from the perspective of those doing the subtracting. How a group shifts their perception of another’s moral worth and thus, shifts their sense of which actions are morally justified, requires further explanation as it represents a fundamental enabler of evildoing.
When we lower our sense of another’s value, we are willing to violate our sense of the sacred, engaging in trade-offs that are
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