Camouflaged liability: How the distinction between civilians and soldiers influences moral judgement of permissible harm in war

Abstract

Previous research has shown that people judge sacrificing a few people to save a larger number to be morally permissible when the intervention targets the threat but not when it targets the victims. We investigated whether this distinction according to the locus of intervention influences people's evaluations of wartime scenarios and whether such evaluations vary according to different types of victims (e.g., civilians vs. soldiers). We observed a significant effect of locus of intervention in situations in which a smaller number of civilians were sacrificed to save a larger number of civilians (Study 1; N = 142). However, the effect of locus of intervention was less pronounced in scenarios in which soldiers were sacrificed to save civilians (Studies 2 and 3; N = 173 and N = 841). A fourth experiment (N = 477) explored why participants treated soldiers and civilians differently. Participants believed that it is more permissible to sacrifice soldiers because they consent to being harmed.