ABSTRACT
Human beings are inveterately tribal creatures. Communal membership is a crucially important component of a normal, properly functioning, and decently socialized human beings moral identity. When human beings wage war, communal membership powerfully shapes moral perception. Consequently, human beings who wage war are easily led to disregard or downplay the impact of people's actions on the members of enemy out-groups. The concept of an all inclusive humanity, which makes no distinction between races or cultures, appeared very late in the history of mankind and did not spread very widely across the face of the globe. Aristotle's employment of just war language to rationalize the violent enslavement of Hellenic outsiders illustrates a sobering truth: nowhere does our fixation with communal membership manifest itself more clearly than in human warfare. The admixture of tribalism and war can be morally toxic. Consider in this regard Arthur Bomber Harris's infamous response to Winston Churchill's moral qualms over the obliteration of Dresden.
