Our next webinar will be given by our Executive Director Revd Dr Brian Powers

Beyond the Binary of 'Victims' and 'Perpetrators': 

A Revised Typology for Moral Injury Based on Agency

At the heart of moral injury is a violation or betrayal - of life, of justice, or of that which we either know or come to recognise to be right. The conception of moral injury - suffered by individuals affected by these violations or betrayals - allows us to examine not simply the actions of atomised individuals, but our collective values, laws and political decisions that place individuals in morally injurious situations, often leaving a very few to suffer moral consequences of collective choices. Yet, as Brian will argue in this presentation, this aspect of moral injury is always at risk of being undone by premature ascription of blame that reduce the rich description of moral injurious situations to a simple labelling of ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ that blinds us to the wider forces that condition violence in our societies and hinders us from envisioning corrective and reparative actions.

In this session, Brian will explore the way our understanding of agency in morally injurious situations can aid in reinterpreting typologies of moral injury that reinforce the fundamental capacity of moral injury to illuminate moral struggles whose causes extend beyond the individuals suffering from it.

Brian is the Vann Fellow of Christianity and the Armed Forces and Executive Director of the International Centre for Moral Injury at Durham University, UK. He has written and spoken extensively on the importance of worldview, ethics and religious dialogue in rebuilding moral frameworks through which morally injured persons may find meaning and solace, both in American and British contexts. He is the author of Full Darkness: Original Sin, Moral Injury, and Wartime Violence (Eerdmans, 2019).

Please note that the talk will be followed by 45 minutes' discussion with the audience, which will not be recorded, so please do come along if you can!

To receive Zoom details, please register here.