ABSTRACT
Cohen and Samp explore the meaning and boundaries of the concept of moral injury. Drawing on cases from literature and from a human subjects’ study they conducted, the authors consider how to interpret each of the “moral” and “injury” parts of the term “moral injury.” They distinguish moralized from nonmoralized accounts of moral injury, which turn on whether the trauma characteristic of moral injury must be traceable to betrayal of correct moral values. The authors favor nonmoralized accounts as better capturing the wide range of trauma that variably decent persons might experience. The authors also consider how moral injury might be applicable even in marginal cases involving delusion and mistake.
