Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times Highlight

the high-ranking officials who formulated criminal policies delegated responsibility to subordinates and didn’t have to see the consequences. The subordinates implementing their decisions could tell themselves, rightly, that they were merely acting at their superiors’ behest, and so went about focusing on their discrete jobs. Responsibility thus became “unpinnable,” which is how a group of decent, even kindhearted adults could preside over an unconscionable endeavor without losing a second of sleep.