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Introduction: Understanding Genocide as a Means to Prevention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2024

Emilie A. Caspar
Affiliation:
Universiteit Gent, Belgium
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Summary

The “just following orders” argument has been used across many documented wars and genocides around the world. It suggests that the justifications given by perpetrators perhaps reflect, at least in part, a reality in their brains that would be shared across all the members of our species. The brain is a complex structure composed of trillions of neurons that controls our thoughts, our feelings, our decisions, our memory, our senses, and that regulates our body. Even though a wide range of environmental and social factors can modulate how our brains process information and computes decisions, the brain is nevertheless the central processing agent. By providing a novel perspective on what is happening in the brains of those obeying orders, I seek to reveal the mechanisms leading to immoral behaviors under obedience at a deep and individual level – that is, at the neural level. This knowledge can be used to develop personalized interventions that take into account unique neurobiological profiles.

Type
Chapter
Information
Just Following Orders
Atrocities and the Brain Science of Obedience
, pp. 1 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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