Perpetrators of international crimes and the role of the moral self

• In Event: Atrocity Crimes: Types of Offending (ECACTJ)

Abstract

Situational, dispositional, and interactionist explanations of the perpetration of international crimes often refer to the transformation process by which ordinary men become perpetrators. In our study, we argue that this transformation should be understood as a process of moral transformation and that these explanations presuppose a concept of moral self that is dynamic and reflexive. However, within current explanations, the concept of a moral self remains unarticulated. In this paper we try to fill this gap. Through recourse to philosophical insights on personal identity, we formulate such a dynamic and reflexive concept of self, which is characterized by narrativity. We show that this narrative concept of moral self emphasizes the narrative and reflexive structure of the moral transformation process of perpetrators, grounding and making explicit a true interactionist approach. Such an approach transcends the dichotomy between explaining behaviour either in terms of situational or dispositional factors. Furthermore, it goes beyond regarding it as simply the product or a combination of both these factors. Our analysis leads to several methodological implications for empirically investigating the behaviour of perpetrators and resisters, in which self-narratives take a central role.

Authors

• Tom van den Berg, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Law, Department of Criminology

• Luigi Corrias, Vrije Unviersiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Theory