Past Event: MPWG: Yuan Yuan (NYU Shanghai)

Title: The Moral Injury of Soldiery

Abstract:
When soldiers fight justly in a just war waged by their state, they may nonetheless kill or maim innocent civilians unexpectedly or as expected collateral damage in overall justified assaults. Such incidents often inflict severe moral injuries on those soldiers in the form of immense guilt, shame, and remorse. I contend that soldiers do not kill in their personal capacity when they fight conscientiously in a war legitimately initiated by their state. Instead, they kill on behalf of and in the name of the people. While they share the responsibility for the killings as citizens of the warring state, their responsibility is no greater or less than that of any other citizen due to the exclusionary power of the appropriate rules of engagement. Only if the citizenry takes up the moral responsibilities for the unavoidable killings of innocents in a just war, through collective mourning and fair compensation, can soldiers be liberated from the crushing emotional burdens of harming the victims.