Kristen Renwick Monroe's book, Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide: Identity and Moral Choice, attempts to articulate a moral choice theory relevant for understanding contemporary ethical concerns. It is an unfortunate reflection on the recurring nature of atrocities that I initially assumed based on its title that its focus would be on the present. But her research is focused not on twenty first century terrorists or Darfur, but on the narratives of Europeans with varied responses to Nazi policy during World War II. Situating her work within moral psychology, Monroe presents an empirically-based theory she believes can be applied “to other instances of prejudice and racial, ethnic and sectarian violence” (p. 300). In short, she expands her qualitative analysis of one particularly horrific era to propose an explanation of how all people make moral choices, and supports this explanation with well-informed references to an impressive range of research in psychology.

By connecting diverse psychological research, Monroe believes she can provide a relevant theoretical framework for understanding a wide range of behaviors–presumably including our own era's episodes of terror and genocide. Extending this psychological framework, Monroe proposes an alternative to existing moral choice theories (i.e. Kantian obedience to moral rules and utilitarian approaches based in self-interest), asserting that our responses to injustice are based less on cognitive choices than on our identities and ethical perspectives. If she is correct, this would entail a tectonic shift in how we understand the nature of moral choice and its ethical consequences, with important implications. Considering Monroe's stature in political science and her transformative work in political psychology, this work, written with confidence and erudition, deserves a critical reading and frank discussion.

Monroe's proposed framework evolved from her decades-long research on altruists, bystanders and perpetrators. Trying to make sense of the wide-ranging choices of ordinary people during one reign of terror, she has championed an interpretive, narrative methodology to analyze those who lived in Nazi-controlled Europe. Like her other works, this book reveals patterns and parallels among altruists, bystanders and Nazi supporters in terms of how they saw themselves, others and their choices in the context of Nazi domination. She mines narratives, some of which also served as the foundation for The Heart of Altruism (1996) and other work, this time presenting accounts of five Dutch citizens. These accounts form a continuum ranging from altruistic rescuer of Jews (Tony) to unrepentant Nazi supporter (Florentine). Tony's cousin and passive bystander (Beatrix), a former soldier for the Nazis (Kurt), and a Nazi propagandist (Fritz) illustrate the middle range of this continuum.

Monroe has long contended that such personal narratives show that altruists' particular way of perceiving the world sets them apart from others. Here she has refined her understanding of what she once called the perspectival approach. She now conceptualizes rescuers, bystanders and Nazi sympathizers as having distinct ethical frameworks that are similar in being shaped by how individuals perceive themselves and their relations to others especially in terms of ingroup-outgroup boundaries. For instance, altruists such as Tony exhibit high levels of moral extensivity (a feeling of concern for and desire to help all other people) and efficacy. In contrast, passive bystanders, such as Beatrix, see themselves as “weak, low on efficacy and with little control over their situation” (p. 192), making them incapable of taking action to help others. And, finally, Nazi sympathizers see themselves as victims.

Monroe argues that every person's self-image and identity produces an ethical perspective, which cognitively limits the options they perceive as possible. Grounded in the belief that all people are connected to themselves and entitled assistance, efficacious rescuers literally cannot imagine ignoring others' distress and can only choose how (not whether) to help. Over time, Monroe claims, this particular self-image creates an altruistic personality “in which the habit of internalizing the suffering of others as something personally relevant became part of a way of life that requires not just concern for others but also action to alleviate their suffering” (p. 200). At the same time, the ethical perspective of less efficacious bystanders presents different options, which preclude other-centered risk taking. Thus, while the perceived choices of altruists and bystanders are quite distinct, each has a sense that they had no choice but to act as they did, even though their resulting actions in similar contexts are radically different.

Monroe connects these findings about behavior in extreme situations to an overarching theory of moral choice, arguing that we each have an innate ethical framework that is influenced by our life experiences but essentially stable. Such frameworks affect our moral imagination, limiting our cognitive ability to formulate a full array of possible responses to others' victimization. Challenging research that socialization or learning by doing predisposes one to take action and that people can learn to be more or less pro-social over time,Footnote ¹ Monroe suggests that we are to a degree prewired: “Mother Nature may encode some ethical content on our ethical framework, actually predisposing us to some moral choices” (p. 300). Her discussion of an innate moral sense, while interesting, ignores important findings on moral development and reasoning associated with Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan among others.Footnote ² Whether one's moral perspective is largely predetermined before birth or malleable during one's lifetime, Monroe's thought-provoking salvo raises questions about our accountability for immoral actions. How responsible are we if our actions are not based on conscious choice but are the “result of psychological process outside the conscious level of awareness” (p. 249)? Is inaction justified if we lack the moral imagination, necessary to consider disobeying the unjust and rescuing the innocent? Monroe reminds us that she is not articulating an ethical perspective based on how she would like to see the world, but rather extending the moral implications of empirical psychological research—including but not limited to her own—which suggests that moral choice is “not the result of conscious calculus but (emanates) from the actor's sense of self in relation to others” (p. 300).

Because of the importance of this claim, a serious consideration of the evidence presented in the book is in order. In claiming that one's ethical perspective yields cognitive classifications, canonical expectations, moral imagination and a menu of choices, Monroe's work has numerous parallels to John Latané and Bibb Darley's model of the decision-making of bystanders faced with others in need (i.e. potential actors must be aware of what is happening, recognize that a victim needs assistance, take responsibility, formulate responses, and choose a response).Footnote ³ Interestingly, Monroe's focus on identity and ethical frameworks leaves out contextual factors and interpersonal contacts that are shown to be very significant by research on altruism and on obedience to authority.Footnote ⁴ The way others respond to victims' plight, the proximity of authorities, and the proximity of those suffering are factors that drastically change behaviors, though presumably not identities. Monroe's framework does not incorporate the roles that context and networks play in promoting action because it claims that there is not a conscious calculation that takes place. Yet the impact of these things (whether conscious or unconscious) seems relevant. Similarly, Monroe's discussion of group impact is minimal, yet we know that connections with others who can serve as models or re-frame issues does affect mobilization in high-risk settings. Further, acting with others can prevent fears of social isolation or lack of confidence in one's own interpretation of events. Tony's rescuing activities, for example, take place within the Dutch underground, and my reading of the narrative suggests that he is aided in his understanding of situations and viable options by his broad and intact social network.

Some fault lines in Monroe's research may cause us to question whether she has really “cracked the code” of moral choice with a theory that is universally applicable. For example, once an altruistic personality develops, altruists' actions should theoretically be highly consistent across their lifetimes. It is not clear from Tony's narrative that his life includes such efforts (although he eventually comes to live on a beach and does rescue several distressed swimmers). Other research on Holocaust-era rescuers suggests that their exceptional activities during the war were neither anticipated nor followed by exceptional pre- or post-war actions.Footnote ⁵ My own research on opponents of Argentina's “Dirty War” against dissidents (including those not related to regime victims) also shows that high-risk advocacy was not consistently pursued by all—some remained active for decades, others protested intermittently, and yet others did so for a period of time, and then never again.

I believe changes in context and the connections between potential actors play a vital role in decisions about whether to continue such activity. While such factors are not a major part of Monroe's framework, she may wish to consider the importance of the context people find themselves in as well as how connected they are to others who can challenge their passivity or assist in their activism. In fact, Monroe need look no further than her own interviews to realize that Tony was very aware of context and on occasion decided to either refrain or take action because of his links to other bystanders. Similarly, Monroe presupposes that one's attitudes towards others and oneself remain fixed throughout one's lifetime. She assumes her subjects see themselves and their relationship to other people as unchanged between WWII and interviews more that 50 years later. Yet evidence suggests that we are changed by our actions and that we learn by doing. Grassroots resistance movements are currently blossoming around the world, and thousands of people are moving rapidly from passivity to high-risk activism in places where public resistance has not been attempted before. Whether this falls under the umbrella of moral psychology, it suggests that people feel empowered. Moreover, their behavior appears to be affected by rapidly changing contexts, modeled behavior, networks created by street protests, social media and electronic links to like-minded supporters around the world, which may be offering new menus of action for individuals and challenging perceptions of loyalty and obligation.

Monroe uses excerpts from her narratives to illustrate her complex extension of theories of genocide and altruism and her theory of moral choice. The five narratives offer helpful continuity as Monroe escorts us first through her theory on the psychology of genocide and then through the array of psychological theories she believes relevant to understanding moral choices, e.g. theories of social identity, social cognition, personality predispositions, object relations and terror management. In addition, she incorporates evidence and examples from other cases—South Africa, Bosnia and Rwanda—that illustrate and support aspects of her contentions across time and regions. While these examples demonstrate the impressive breadth of Monroe's knowledge (including research on brain scans, genetics and evolutionary, developmental and social psychology), they clearly are selected to support her perspective. It would be interesting to see what counter-evidence might emerge from the application of other research.

There is much to commend about Monroe's research. The prospect of a simple, overarching framework in moral psychology is appealing. Yet it is problematic to generalize from patterns found across a fairly small and relatively uniform set of subjects (Europeans who lived in Nazi controlled Europe in the 1930s and 1940s) to assert that there are similarly narrow or broad perspectives that characterize all individuals' moral choices across cultures and contexts. Indeed another study of Europeans during the Holocaust—Samuel and Pearl Oliner's The Altruistic Personality—suggests that not all rescuers or passive bystanders fit into Monroe's framework. Their analysis of 406 rescuer and 126 bystander interviews reveals that a key feature distinguishing rescuers from non-rescuers is the nature of individuals' relationships to others, with rescuers tending to have more extensive orientations and bystanders tending to have more constricted orientations. This seems to parallel key aspects of Monroe's findings. But the Oliners' quantitative analysis concludes that this orientation only predicts 70 percent of rescuing behavior and that other external factors—such as whether individuals were explicitly asked to help—are necessary in order to complete the explanation. Further, while some rescuers seemed motivated by feelings of care or responsibility for victims, others revealed other motivations, including internalized principles and group membership in organizations supporting this activity, which seems to fall outside of Monroe's framework. Such findings support the general direction of Monroe's conclusions among the rescuer-nonrescuer population, but also remind us of the difficulty in generalizing even in a particular time and setting. Other research also tends to support the general tendency of extensivity to promote altruism but not to the point of asserting that it explains all altruistic or pro-social behavior. Additional consideration of the evidence at hand could address this concern and offer a more modest level of confidence in the patterns Monroe has uncovered.

Monroe dedicates a third of her 437-page book to the often-fascinating transcriptions of her semi-structured interviews, which reveal some of the messy aspects of acquiring such narrative data. At times we cringe at the subjects' statements, but also occasionally at the interviewer's questions and interjections. Monroe bases her arguments on interpretations gleaned from interviews that the reader might interpret rather differently. For instance, is the interpretation that Fritz believes in luck or that Kurt is a pawn of historical forces their own understanding or the view projected on them by Monroe? Is it fair to compare Kurt's perception of his lack of choices as a soldier at the height of the war to Tony's as a wanted man living underground with broad networks of social support? Is Tony's philosophy on the sanctity of all life the same after living in California as it was when he was rescuing his fellow Dutch and on the run from the Nazis? And are the views of an elderly Florentine and her middle-aged Nazi friend necessarily a good reflection of how they or other Nazis viewed the Jews fifty or sixty years previously?

I commend Monroe for sharing the full transcriptions along with her informative chapter on the narrative tool. She reminds the reader that interpretation of narrative is subjective (as I have shown in the questions raised above). As one of the leading proponents of its use, Monroe is taking a bold step by demystifying and sharing her sources so we can grapple with her choices and develop our own interpretations. While the key lesson she wishes us to draw from the interviews might be debated, we can understand how she reached her conclusions. Ideally, it would have been helpful for her to have expanded her method chapter. Much of it involves the systematic comparison of oral narratives with written autobiographies, both of which offer similar snapshots into subjects' self-understandings. But psychology makes us aware of the limits and potential distortions of self-knowledge. Discussion of why individuals select particular experiences for their narratives, for example, would have made this even richer, as would a deeper discussion of the limitations of narrative. Nonetheless, insights to be gleaned from these chapters, along with Monroe's personal narrative, are rich and thought-provoking and could make this volume an asset for a course on political science methodology.

Qualitative research can accomplish many things well. It can generate theory, deepen our understandings of particular episodes or broad patterns revealed or hinted at by other forms of inquiry, and inspire us to do additional research and analysis. Monroe's work does all of these things. While I believe she is premature in suggesting that we have sufficient evidence to reconceptualize the ethics of moral choice, Monroe challenges us to consider the role of identity in decision-making and to ask why some people are able to resist pressures to dehumanize others. Her work promises to help us better understand whether the roots of pro-social behavior can be expanded. Such contributions are important in any era in which terror and genocide exist.