People in this world, their moral compass is usually internal or external.

External means for them, what is right or wrong depends on what people near them are doing. Like the latest trend, some poeple do it, then the rest follow suit. If everyone's using ai in exams, it becomes "okay" for them then. This is the easiest compass to maintain, as little to no energy is expensed to calibrate the compass, it just points in the same direction as everyone else's.

Internal compass though, is more energy intensive, because people with this compass have to calibrate it manually by thinking about right and wrong. It's like waves, it's always easiest to go in the direction of the waves, any direction other than it will be more energy intensive. Keeping the internal moral compass is a constant energy drainer, because you always have to recalibrate it manually if any new decision comes up or if it's starting to become external due to the influence of nearby events.

Maybe big, powerful people use this knowledge? Because most people have external compasses, all you have to do is place bad people around them, and they'll become the same. Your army gets more members. But for them, internal compass people are troublesome and fearsome, because sometimes it affects the compasses of the people with external compasses. So the army may start to hesitate to blindly follow what everyone else is doing. If there is a considerable number of internal compasses, their army is ruined, because remember, the majority of the workers run by external compasses.

If they are surrounded by good people who hesitate or questions the orders, they will start to become more like them.