ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the influence of moral reasoning on the conduct of repression, particularly violent repression, or whether aims to also discuss the effects of repressive violence on people’s capacity for moral reasoning and on the manner in which moral reasoning takes place. Moral discourse – and with it, moral reasoning – might therefore be seen as superfluous and confusing. A useful starting point for a discussion about different types of moral reasoning is provided by the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. If Kohlberg is correct about the predominant modes of moral reasoning, then it appears that most people remain at the egocentric or conventional level in their ‘moral thinking’. The officers, however, neither showed remorse nor indicated a willingness to take responsibility for their acts on moral grounds, i.e., on the basis that they had committed wrongs for which they could rightly be held answerable.
