Concept and the scope of justice
Opotow (1990) called the boundary of those people feel they should treat fairly the scope of justice. Fairness, resource allocation and sacrifice are considered for those inside it, but the same rules do not apply to those outside. Opotow stressed that moral exclusion appears not only in extreme violence but also in everyday, subtle forms such as indifference, double standards, minimizing harm and blaming victims. Exclusion becomes easier when conflict is severe, resources are scarce and others are sharply categorized as an outgroup.
Moral disengagement and dehumanization
Bandura (1999) outlined mechanisms of moral disengagement that allow ordinarily moral people to act harmfully: justifying harmful conduct by worthy ends, using euphemistic language, displacing responsibility to authorities or the group, minimizing consequences, and blaming or dehumanizing victims. Bandura and colleagues (1996) developed a scale to measure it and showed that greater moral disengagement predicts more aggressive behavior. Bastian and colleagues (2011) showed that targets attributed less humanness receive less moral concern. Staub (1989) analyzed how collective violence such as the Holocaust escalates step by step from small exclusions and discrimination.
The moral circle
Recent research addresses how people differ in the range of entities to which they extend moral concern, the moral circle. Crimston and colleagues (2016) built a scale measuring how far moral concern extends, across family, friends, foreigners, animals and nature. Waytz and colleagues (2019) found that liberals have broader moral circles that include more distant entities, while conservatives concentrate concern on closer ones such as family and community. This links to moral foundations theory and helps explain differences in whom political opponents believe deserves protection.
FAQ
- What is moral exclusion in simple terms?
- Removing some people from the circle of those we feel we must treat fairly, so harm to them comes to seem like no big deal.
- Does it appear only in extreme cases?
- No. Besides collective violence, it shows up in everyday forms such as indifference, double standards and victim blaming.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Opotow, S. (1990). Moral exclusion and injustice: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 1–20. The foundational statement on moral exclusion and the scope of justice.
- Staub, E. (1989). The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A classic account of the origins of genocide and group violence.
- Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (1996). Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 364–374. Develops a measure of moral disengagement.
- Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209. Mechanisms of moral disengagement in inhumane conduct.
- Bastian, B., Laham, S. M., Wilson, S., Haslam, N., & Koval, P. (2011). Blaming, praising, and protecting our humanity: The implications of everyday dehumanization for judgments of moral status. British Journal of Social Psychology, 50(3), 469–483. Links dehumanization to judgments of moral status.
- Crimston, C. R., Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., & Bastian, B. (2016). Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(4), 636–653. Measures individual differences in moral circle size.
- Waytz, A., Iyer, R., Young, L., Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2019). Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle. Nature Communications, 10, 4389. Ideology predicts the breadth of the moral circle.