The exercise of self-sanction plays a central role in the regulation of inhumane conduct.
In the course of socialization, moral standards are adopted that serve as guides and deterrents for
conduct. Once internalized control has developed, people regulate their actions by the sanctions
they apply to themselves. They do things that give them self-satisfaction and a sense of selfworth.
They refrain from behaving in ways that violate their moral standards because it will
bring self-condemnation. Self-sanctions thus keep conduct in line with internal standards.
But moral standards do not function as fixed internal regulators of conduct. Selfregulatory
mechanisms do not operate unless they are activated, and there are many
psychological processes by which moral reactions can be disengaged from inhumane conduct
(Bandura, 1986). Selective activation and disengagement of internal control permits different
types of conduct with the same moral standards. Figure 1 shows the points in the self-regulatory
process at which internal moral control can be disengaged from destructive conduct. Selfsanctions
can be disengaged by reconstruing conduct as serving moral purposes, obscuring
personal agency in detrimental activities, disregarding or misrepresenting the injurious
consequences of one’s actions, and blaming and dehumanizing the victims. The way in which
these moral disengagement practices operate in the execution of inhumanities is analyzed in
considerable detail in later sections of this chapter.