ABSTRACT
Genocide, the mass killing of categories of human beings, requires the revision of moral rules. This revision of moral rules allows for the killing of enemy groups. Indeed, this destruction of the enemy group is deemed necessary for the survival of your own group. The revision of moral rules is accomplished, in part, through rationalizations which reframe the meaning of the collective and individual act of killing. This chapter elaborates on Sykes and Matza’s neutralization drift theory to argue that perpetrators employ certain “techniques of neutralization” to reframe their behavior before, during, and after perpetration. This reframing reduces the cognitive dissonance that may otherwise arise when an individual’s actions do not align with their beliefs.
