Moral Injury and the Promise of Virtue

This book turns to virtue language as an important resource for understanding moral injury, a form of subjectivity where one feels they can no longer strive to be good as a result of wartime experience. Drawing specifically on Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, and examining the experiences of civilians during the Bosnian War (1992-5), Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon argues that current research into war and current understandings of subjectivity need new ways to articulate the moral dimension of being a subject if we are to understand how violence affects one's moral being and development. He develops an understanding of the human person as a tensile moral subject, one that forefronts the moral challenges and vulnerability inherent in lives affected by war. With these resources, Wiinikka-Lydon argues for a moral vocabulary and images of the human as a moral being that can better articulate the experience of violence and moral injury.

Argues that the languages and concepts developed by ethicists can be a resource for speaking about moral injury in a way that can bring out the moral stakes involved for survivors of violence Develops Iris Murdoch's understanding of virtue so that it can be applied to real life cases Engages sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists researching issues of violence

Autorentext
Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon is a researcher at the European Union-funded Center for Ethics at the University of Pardubice.

Zusammenfassung
"Moral Injury and the Promise of Virtue offers original contributions to the moral injury conversation and is valuable reading for caregivers and community leaders supporting those who have suffered moral wounds of war and scholars of conflict and international relations seeking to avoid the tragedy of them occurring in the first place. It is also particularly relevant for moral theologians interested in understanding war and trauma though philosophical lenses of virtue and moral development ... of moral injury." (Darren Cronshaw, Studies in Christian Ethics, Vol. 35 (2), May, 2022)

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. From Subjectivity to Moral Subjectivity.- 3. Moral Subjectivity and the Language of Virtue.- 4. Tensile Moral Subjects.- 5. The Domination of Void.- 6. Moral Subjectivity, Moral Injury.- 7. Conclusion.