The principle of discrimination: Investigating perceptions of soldiers

Abstract

The principle of discrimination states that soldiers are legitimate targets of violence in war, whereas civilians are not. Is this prescriptive rule reflected in the descriptive judgments of laypeople? In two studies ( Ns = 300, 229), U.S. Mechanical Turk workers were asked to evaluate the character traits of either a soldier or a civilian. Participants also made moral judgments about scenarios in which the target individual (soldier or civilian) killed or was killed by the enemy in war. Soldiers were consistently viewed as more dangerous and more courageous than civilians (Study 1). Participants also viewed killing by (and of) soldiers as more permissible than killing by (and of) civilians, in line with the principle of discrimination (Study 1). Altering the war context to involve a clearly just and unjust side (in Study 2) did not appear to moderate the principle of discrimination in moral judgment, although soldiers and civilians on the just side were evaluated more positively overall. However, the soldiers on the unjust side of the war were not attributed greater courage than were civilians on the unjust side. Theoretical and practical implications of these descriptive findings are discussed.