A/75/179 and appointments, judicial and administrative oversight, and independent media reporting. 3 2. Consciousness versus unconsciousness 9. The majority of human cognition occurs outside of conscious awareness, and human information processing frequently serves to rationalize impulsive decisions ex post facto. Neurobiological research examining cognition by the millisecond has revealed that emotion enters the decision stream significantly prior to conscious thought, and subsequent logical reasoning tends to rationalize reflexive emotional decisions in line with the predominant social expectations, as determined by convention, law and morality. 4 3. Morality versus self-interest 10. Under favourable circumstances, human behaviour can be guided by morality, empathy and trust. In situations of real or perceived danger, conflict or anxiety, however, individual and collective decision-making tends to be dominated by perceived short-term self-interest, and resulting moral dilemmas are suppressed through strategies of “moral disengagement” involving denial of fact, denial of responsibility or denial of wrongfulness. 5 III. Objective components of “self-interest” 11. In order to understand how self-interested decision-making can be conducive to torture and ill-treatment, “self-interest” should be understood in a strictly objective, non-judgmental sense devoid of moral connotations. What is perceived as “self interest” in a given situation is determined by a complex interaction of biopsychosocial factors that may be as generic as biological instincts, as dominant as national, religious or cultural identity and as diverse as individual upbringing and experience. Conceptually, self-interest always comprises an identificational component, which determines who or what is included in the perceived “self”, and a directional component, which determines the “interests” to be pursued on behalf of the self. A. Individual and collective identity 12. The human sense of “self” is strongly determined by perceived identity. Identity is multifaceted because it consists of multiple layers of concurrent identification, which can relate to individual factors, such as personal experience and preference, but __________________ 3 4 5 20-09728 Adam Lockyer and Peter Hatemi, “Genetics and politics: a review for the social scientist”, in The Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society, Rosemary Hopcroft, ed. (New York, Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 281–304; Charles Taber and Milton Lodge, “Illusion of choice in democratic politics: unconscious impact of motivated political reasoning”, Political Psychology, vol. 37, No. 1 (February 2016), pp. 61–85; David Redlawsk, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Political Decision Making (Oxford University Press, 2020). Inna Burdein, Milton Lodge and Charles Taber, “Experiments on the automaticity of political beliefs and attitudes”, Political Psychology, vol. 27, No. 3 (June 2006), pp. 359–371; John Jost and others, “Political neuroscience: the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, Political Psychology, vol. 35, No. 1 (February 2014), pp. 3–42; Efrén Pérez and Isaac Riddle, “Automaticity in political decision making”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, William Thompson, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2020). Dean Mobbs and others, “The ecology of human fear: survival optimization and the nervous system”, Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 9, No. 55 (2015), pp. 1–22; Carol Gordon and Arian Asher, “Threat and decision making”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 45, No. 2 (April 2001), pp. 196–215. 5/25