Moral dilemmas in military situations: Pfroportionality principle, religiosity, political attitudes, and authoritarian personality

Shaul Kimhi*, Asa Kasher

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The current study focuses on a moral dilemma in military situations: the amount of force to be used in order to neutralize a "most wanted" terrorist. This study examines the association between this moral dilemma with 4 independent variables: agreement with the proportionality principle (mediating variable), level of religiosity, authoritarian personality, and political attitudes. Three equal groups of participants (together, N = 357) were included: Israeli regular army combat soldiers, Israeli reserve combat soldiers, and Israeli students. In accordance with the study hypotheses, the 4 independent variables significantly correlated with each other and with moral decisions. Structural equation modeling indicated that agreement with the proportionality principle is the best predictor of moral decision, and mediated the association between level of religiosity and political attitudes and moral decisions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)169-184
Number of pages16
JournalMilitary Psychology
Volume27
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2015

Keywords

  • Authoritarian personality
  • Level of religiosity
  • Moral dilemma
  • Political attitudes
  • Proportionality principle

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