Genocide and numbness

This is why psychologists shouldn't be allowed too far away from the lab. If "moral intuition" is Slovic's term, his study's screwed. Morality isn't based upon intuition or empathy, but upon social learning. Intuition or empathy is an involuntary response we've not had much luck socially conditioning. Witness the recalcitrance of the socio/psycho/path to rehabilitation.

No matter how much empathy I feel with a condemned murderer's fear of execution, it doesn't mean I don't want him executed. Empathic response is involuntary; moral action is conscious and voluntary, even if unpleasant, action.

If national governments were directly responsive to human feelings, they would be already be acting strongly and positively against genocide, which is generally held to be an abomination and immoral. Until that very democratic day, rather than trying to restructure normal psychology, Slovic might be better off studying his problem from the perspective of international politics--which is the real locus of the problem