A/75/179 (d) Revenge, retribution and self-justification 62. Driven by the need for self-justification in response to perceived injustice, narratives of historical injustice can fuel ethnic, racial and national hatred and violence, unpunished crimes can provoke desperate acts of reven ge and war crimes can trigger cruel acts of reprisal against peaceful civilians. Political “tough on crime” narratives advocating degrading treatment, dehumanizing detention conditions and harsh sanctions based on widespread perceptions that terrorists, dr ug dealers, sex offenders and other “bad guys” should “get what they deserve” are also very predominant. From a moral perspective, such reaction patterns reframe torture and ill-treatment as deserved compensatory punishment for perceived injustice. 57 (e) Exploitation and self-gratification 63. The most primitive and least publicly appealing strategy of utilitarian moral disengagement is to “justify” the harm caused by wrongful conduct by the direct benefit or gratification it offers. In general, the absolute prioritization of personal profit over the interests of others is perceived as a profoundly self -centred, psychosocially immature rationale that is more readily associated with criminality or pathology than morality. Therefore, while self-gratification may motivate perpetrators and voyeuristic witnesses of torture and ill-treatment, including commercialized or ritualized sadism, sexual violence and murder, it generally is not overtly advanced as a justification for the infliction of harm and sufferi ng on others. 64. Disguised in economic narratives of “profitability”, “cost-effectiveness”, “competitiveness”, “outsourcing”, “austerity”, “customer preference” and “cost externalization”, however, the very same rationale of self-gratification serves to rationalize a wide range of exploitative settings, including modern slavery, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, inhumane working conditions and the externalization of health and environmental hazards. In conjunction with the strategies of denial of fact and denial of responsibility, the utilitarian prioritization of self -gratification can give rise to significant societal and systemic blind spots, in which intimidation, coercion, punishment and discrimination are routinely employed in order to establish , impose or maintain exploitative settings. 58 3. Discriminatory justification 65. The tendency to organize into groups is among the most ubiquitous and well documented of human tendencies. As a social species, human beings draw heavily upon group memberships to fulfil individual psychological needs, including selfworth, dignity, identity, safety, certainty and belonging. Accordingly, group -based psychological processes powerfully influence personal reasoning, perceptions, emotions and behaviours, including in ways that are conducive to group-based harm. 59 66. Moral dilemmas arising from intergroup violence and abuse tend to be suppressed based on narratives of discriminatory justification, which encourage moral disengagement at the “tribal” level of social groupings. In essence, discriminatory justification minimizes, legitimizes or excuses abuse perpetrated by one’s own social group (“in-group”) against another social group (“out-group”) along a wide range of group-based dimensions, including racial, ethnic, geographical, socioeconomic, __________________ 57 58 59 20/25 Hannah Cooper, “War on drugs policing and police brutality”, Substance Use and Misuse, vol. 50, No. 8–9 (2015), pp. 1,188–1,194. Brian Jarvis, “Monsters Inc.: serial killers and consumer culture”, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, vol. 3, No. 3 (December 2007), pp. 326–344. Bernhard Leidner, Linda Tropp and Brian Lickel, “Bringing science to bear – on peace, not war: elaborating on psychology’s potential to promote peace”, American Psychologist, vol. 68, No. 7 (2013), pp. 514–526. 20-09728