Georgia State Philosopher Takes New Approach to Writing About Moral Injury

ATLANTA — When a healthcare worker must decide which patient gets the last ventilator, or when a journalist witnesses tragedy but can’t intervene, they may experience what experts call “moral injury.” Moral injury is a type of trauma that occurs when someone witnesses or participates in events that challenge their deepest moral beliefs.

Andrew I. Cohen, chair of Georgia State’s Philosophy Department and director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics, has published a new book examining moral injury through a new lens — the humanities.

“Moral Injury and the Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” co-edited by Cohen and Kathryn McClymond, president of Oglethorpe University and former associate dean of faculty affairs for Georgia State’s College of Arts & Sciences, brings together 14 original essays about moral injury from leading interdisciplinary scholars across the humanities and social sciences.

While Cohen has written about moral injury before, he said this book is much different from other published work on the topic.

“A lot of the work that has come out about moral injury over the past 30 years has come to us from extremely talented clinicians,” Cohen said. “But we were not getting as much about the humanistic dimensions of moral injury and that’s what this book is doing.”

The book is organized into three sections exploring some of the frameworks for moral injury, examining experiences of moral injury across different professions, and considering approaches to recovery and healing.

Although the concept is often associated with military service, moral injury extends to many professions.

“We start to see how the notion of moral injury reaches well beyond the dimensions of war into the lived experiences of ordinary life. It can be journalists, law enforcement, medical practitioners, people in business — any sort of career where people might face moral conflict,” Cohen said.

The book includes essays about the meanings and dimensions of moral injury. Authors also consider how moral injury shows up in fields such as photojournalism, law enforcement, healthcare and the clergy.

Cohen said he hopes this book deepens the conversation about moral injury.

“The humanities are, very broadly, a family of related disciplines that talk about what it is for us to be human beings,” Cohen said. “When we’re talking about something like moral injury, the humanities need to be part of that discussion. They are crucial for understanding the meaning and significance of moral injury as well as suggesting how to grapple with its lived challenges.”

Cohen said the book would be of interest to students, scholars, clinicians and laypersons seeking to understand more about moral injury.

For more information about “Moral Injury and the Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” visit https://tinyurl.com/wb4zvczj.

— By Stephanie Scott 

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