This is Part 1 of my conversation with Dr Jessica Wolfendale, who is an author, ethics professor and expert on torture and war crimes. She joined me to try and tackle the dichotomy of how to reconcile one’s perception of oneself with one’s actions, within the context of atrocities carried out in war. 
She does this by asking questions such as, ‘How do good people commit atrocities, like torture, and how are their views on killing impacted?’ and ‘Does the military training process make excessive violence acceptable and permissible in certain contexts, such as war?’.
Jessica is the author of ‘Torture and the Military Profession’, arguing that the prevalence of military torture is linked to military training methods that cultivate beliefs connected to crimes of obedience. She also co-authored ‘War Crimes: Causes, Excuses, and Blame’, with Matthew Talbert, where they unpack factors that can lead to war crimes as well as wrestle with the justness of responsibility and blame attributed to perpetrators. 
Some of the topics we covered in Part 1 are:
Capital punishment as detached, humane killing
The normalisation of violence
How do we live with what we’ve done?
Forgiveness, self-forgiveness and atonement
Obedience to authority
The Milgram Experiments and the Good Samaritan Study
Circumstances and the situational account
The justification of torture in war

Part 2 will be released on 8th of September where we discuss topics such as:
The dispositional account and cognitive-affective personality system
Military culture and socialisation
Freedom and resentment
Moral ignorance is by no means an excuse
Integrating the victim’s perspective into military training
The power of reconciliation
Jessica’s future work on depictions of war crimes

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