A fundamental asymmetry in judgments of soldiers at war.

How should we judge a soldier who is fighting for an unjust cause? Is such a soldier the moral equal of a soldier fighting for an opposing, just cause? According to traditional just war theory (Walzer, 2006), soldiers on either side of a war are moral equals, regardless of the justness of the cause for which they fight (the "principle of combatant equality"). According to revisionist just war theory, however, the justness of the soldiers' causes should inform moral judgments of their actions; on this view, our judgments of soldiers on either side of a just versus unjust war should therefore be asymmetric (McMahan, 2009). Despite intense philosophical debate regarding these 2 theories, little work has examined whether lay moral judgments accord with the principle of combatant equality. Assessing lay moral judgments is important because people's attitude toward soldiers may have a variety of consequences, ranging from their support for war, to their acceptance, rejection, or valorization of individual combatants. Across 9 studies, we find consistent evidence that ordinary individuals' judgments of soldiers' actions are influenced by the justness of the soldiers' causes, contrary to the principle of combatant equality. Two factors partially explain this effect: First, people implicitly presume that soldiers identify with the cause for which they fight, which influences moral judgments of their actions; second, people implicitly align themselves with the just side of a war, treating combatants on the just side as part of their ingroup, thus rendering more favorable moral judgments of them. Several other possible explanations were not supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).