ABSTRACT
Recent discussions on the newly constructed category of “moral injury” have not given sufficient attention to how “moral” is understood, which ultimately shapes an understanding of the experience that this category attempts to name. I will argue that the experience of what is being named “moral injury” points to a morality understood in terms of “virtues,” but only if “human-nature-as-it-could-be-if-it-realized-its-telos” is defined in terms of learning how to love. For such an understanding of the “moral,” I will turn to the ascetical writings of the Byzantine theologian, Maximus the Confessor (580–662).
