Beyond redemption: sad perpetrators and narratives of atrocity

Commentary as part of the book symposium on Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic's, Perpetrator Disgust: The Moral Limits of Gut Feelings (2022): In Perpetrator Disgust, Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic provides a fascinating exploration of the emotional anguish experienced by perpetrators of atrocity during the 20th century. One of her most poignant insights is that physical discomfort rarely, if ever, compelled perpetrators to stop or reconsider the morality of their actions. Instead, it forced them to develop new strategies to avoid the emotional toll and to achieve their aims with greater efficiency. In this commentary, I discuss some of the aspects of Munch-Jurisic's argument, especially in regard to the definition of "perpetrator" as an analytical concept that might warrant further examination.