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Situationism, Normative Competence, and Responsibility for Wartime Behavior

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Notes

  1. See Dan Rather, “Abuse of Iraqi POWs by GIs Probed,” 60 Minutes II, CBS, 28 April 2004; see also Seymour Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker, 10 May 2004.

  2. See Philip Zimbardo, “Power Turns Good Soldiers into ‘Bad Apples,’” Boston Globe. May 9, 2004; see also John Schwartz, “Simulated Prison in ‘71 Showed a Fine Line Between ‘Normal’ and ‘Monster’,” New York Times, 6 May 2004, and William Saletan, “Situationist Ethics: The Stanford Prison Experiment Doesn’t Explain Abu Ghraib,” Slate, 12 May 2004.

  3. Lee Ross, “The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process,” in L. Berkowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Psychology, vol. 10 (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p. 183.

  4. See Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67 (1963), p. 374.

  5. See Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1969), esp. pp. 22–23, 56–57.

  6. Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” pp. 375–376.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid., p. 374.

  9. Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo, “Interpersonal Dynamics of a Simulated Prison,” International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1973), p. 69.

  10. Ibid., p. 90.

  11. Ibid., p. 81.

  12. Ibid., pp. 89–90.

  13. John M. Darley and Bibb Latané, “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8 (1968), p. 379.

  14. Ibid., p. 382.

  15. Bibb Latané and John M. Darley, “Group Inhibition of Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10 (1968), p. 217.

  16. Ibid., p. 219.

  17. See John Darley and C. Daniel Batson, “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1973), p. 105.

  18. Ibid., p. 108.

  19. Dana K. Nelkin, “Freedom, Responsibility and the Challenge of Situationism,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (2005), p. 199.

  20. Ibid.; see also Susan Wolf, Freedom Within Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); R. Jay Wallace, Responsibility and Moral Sentiments (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); and John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  21. Latané and Darley, op. cit., p. 220; see also Bibb Latané and John M. Darley, The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970), pp. 31–36.

  22. Nelkin, “Challenge of Situationism,” op. cit., p. 195.

  23. John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 134.

  24. Nelkin, “Challenge of Situationism,” op. cit., p. 200.

  25. John M. Doris and Dominic Murphy, “From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (2007), p. 30.

  26. Ibid., p. 26.

  27. Ibid., 34.

  28. Ibid., p. 26.

  29. See Peter Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment,” in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will, 2nd ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 77–78; see also Wallace, op. cit., pp. 179–180.

  30. Doris and Murphy, op. cit., p. 35.

  31. Ibid., p. 38.

  32. Ibid., p. 39.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.; see also Jeffrey Gettleman, “Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War,” New York Times, 7 October 2007.

  35. Doris and Murphy, op. cit., p. 47.

  36. Ibid., pp. 39–40.

  37. Ibid., p. 38.

  38. Ibid., p. 47.

  39. Ibid., p. 45.

  40. Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 1.

  41. John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), p. 132.

  42. See David Widerker and Michael McKenna, Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2003).

  43. John Martin Fischer, “Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,” in My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 128.

  44. Strawson, op. cit., p. 75.

  45. See Wallace, op. cit., pp. 196–207.

  46. Doris and Murphy, op. cit., pp. 48–49.

  47. Ibid., p. 49.

  48. See Gideon Rosen, “Skepticism about Moral Responsibility,” Philosophical Perspectives 18 (2004).

  49. Zimbardo, “Power Turns Soldiers,” op. cit.

  50. See Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” in Mortal Questions (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

  51. Nelkin, “Challenge of Situationism,” op. cit., p. 204.

  52. I would like to thank Dana Nelkin and John Martin Fischer for their comments on portions of this paper. Support for this research was provided by the Katherine Riggle Faculty Development Endowment Fund of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences administered by the West Virginia University Foundation.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, West Virginia University, 252 Stansbury Hall, P.O. Box 6312, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA

    Matthew Talbert

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Talbert, M. Situationism, Normative Competence, and Responsibility for Wartime Behavior. J Value Inquiry 43, 415–432 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-009-9178-4

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