Analysis of Occurrence Mechanism of Moral Injury / 中国医学伦理学

ABSTRACT

The occurrence of moral injury begins with combat behaviors which break the ethical rules of fair-ness and justice, good and evil, and the value of life. Those behaviors effect on the moral intuition formed by indi-vidual moral beliefs, cultural traditions, and personality traits, and acts on the moral reasoning of the soldiers, thus this traumatic event is internalized into a moral event. And then the strength of the moral events or its re-experi-ence breaks through the tenacity of moral emotion, therefore the moral subject moves towards moral injury, which is manifested as self-condemnation, withdrawal, self-injury, killing, and other cognitive or emotional symptoms. As self-condemnation intensifies, the victim will fall into an increasingly vicious circle of moral injury. Mean-while, self-forgiveness means a way of restoration and reconciliation, which asks the victim to forgive himself and to adjust moral conflicts in time.