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The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury

Online ISBN:
9780197515839
Print ISBN:
9780197515808
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury

Marc LiVecche
Marc LiVecche
McDonald Visiting Scholar, McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, & Public Life; Christ Church, University of Oxford
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Published online:
22 April 2021
Published in print:
5 August 2021
Online ISBN:
9780197515839
Print ISBN:
9780197515808
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The Good Kill examines killing in war in its moral and normative dimension. It argues against the commonplace belief, often tacitly held if not consciously asserted, among academics, the general public, and even military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong even when necessary. In light of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of combat trauma, this belief is a crisis. Moral injury, a proposed subset of posttraumatic stress disorder, occurs when one does something that goes against deeply held normative convictions. In a military context, the primary predictor of moral injury is having killed in combat. In turn, the primary predictor for suicide among combat veterans is moral injury. In this way, the assertion that killing is wrong but in war it is necessary becomes deadly, rendering the very business of the profession of arms morally injurious. It does not need to be this way. Beginning with the simple observation—recognized by both common sense and law—that killing comes in different kinds, this book equips warfighters and those charged with their care and formation with confidence in the rectitude of certain kinds of killing. Engaging with Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Ramsey, Nigel Biggar, and other leading Christian realists, crucial normative principles within the just war tradition are brought to bear on questions regarding just conduct in war, moral and nonmoral evil, and enemy love. The Good Kill helps equip the just warrior to navigate the morally bruising field of battle without becoming irreparably morally injured.

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