The Good KillPub Date : 2021-08-05DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780197515808.003.0002
Marc LiVecche
{"title":"War and the Soul","authors":"Marc LiVecche","doi":"10.1093/OSO/9780197515808.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780197515808.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 1 explores in greater detail both the medical and phenomenological foundations of moral injury and its consequences upon the morally injured. It examines the clinical history that led to the recognition of the need for a diagnosis different than, though related to, posttraumatic stress disorder, and it zeroes in on moral injury’s relationship to killing in combat. It goes on to demonstrate the ubiquity of the belief, even among warfighters, that killing is morally evil—even if it is also morally necessary in war. Through again referencing clinical work, and introducing some of the key clinicians focusing on the moral injury construct, the paradoxical relationship between killing and moral injury is then linked to the suicide crisis afflicting combat veterans.","PeriodicalId":275733,"journal":{"name":"The Good Kill","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124611344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Good KillPub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0007
Marc LiVecche
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"Marc LiVecche","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"The book concludes by acknowledging that while just war realism provides resources for overcoming guilt, it simultaneously recognizes war’s inherent tragedy. Human beings rarely act with absolute purity of intention. It is here that the distinction between moral injury and moral bruising comes back into view. It is entirely likely—possibly even desired—that while warfighters can pass through the battlefield without suffering moral injury, they cannot, in fact, emerge without impact traumas of some kind. Therefore, this conclusion points to the need for social and institutional practices for the moral treatment of returning warfighters.","PeriodicalId":275733,"journal":{"name":"The Good Kill","volume":"R-24 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121009261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Good KillPub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0003
Marc LiVecche
{"title":"The Problem of Paradox","authors":"Marc LiVecche","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197515808.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 2 helps uncover why so many warfighters hold the belief that killing is wrong. It does so by linking this belief to a particular kind of ethical paradox, commonplace in Western Christianity and the wider culture. This paradox is grounded in the twentieth-century American public intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr. This chapter introduces the Niebuhrian tension placed between the Christian conceptions of love and justice, sometimes cast as contradictory obligations to a law of love and a law of responsibility. This chapter proceeds in two parts. The first part illustrates Niebuhr’s view of love, which, rooted in pacifism, illuminates his belief that killing is morally wrong. The second half, however, demonstrates how Niebuhr’s commitment, rooted in realism, to responsibility leads him to willingly suspend the law of love. After showing how the Niebuhrian paradox renders warfighting inherently morally injurious, this chapter concludes by challenging it.","PeriodicalId":275733,"journal":{"name":"The Good Kill","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130485239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}