Notes:
[1] Though the definition of moral injury is not settled, this definition is taken from Jonathan Shay, “Casualties,” Daedalus 140.3 (2011): 183. For an appreciation of the multidisciplinary discussion, see Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, “Mapping Moral Injury: Comparing Discourses of Moral Harm,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 44.2 (2019): 180-181.
[2] Tine Molendijk, Willemijn Verkoren, Annelieke Drogendijk, Martin Elands, Eric-Hans Kramer, Annika Smit and Désirée Verweij, “Contextual Dimensions of Moral Injury: An Interdisciplinary Review,” Military Psychology 34.6 (2022), 742-753; cf. Harold G. Koenig and Faten Al Zaben, “Moral Injury: An Increasingly Recognized and Widespread Syndrome,” Journal of Religious Health 60.5 (2021): 2989–3011, and Haleigh A. Barnes, Robin A. Hurley, and Katherine H. Taber, “Moral Injury and PTSD: Often Co-Occurring but Mechanistically Different,” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 31.2 (April 2019), 99: “Moral injury is not classified as a mental disorder. It is a dimensional problem that can have profound effects on critical domains of emotional, psychological, behavioral, social, and spiritual functioning.”
[3] Wayne Phelps, On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones (New York, NY: Little Brown and Company, 2021). Despite the tagline in the title, it should be noted that Phelps seems to detest the term “drone,” and so I will follow suit referring to remotely piloted aircraft.
[4] Brandon J. Griffin, Natalie Purcell, Kristine Burkman, Brett T. Litz, Craig J. Bryan, Martha Schmitz, Claudia Villierme, Jessica Walsh, and Shira Maguen, “Moral Injury: An Integrative Review,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 32 (June 2019), 357. In their words: “It is unclear how (and whether) moral injury fits into current models for classifying psychiatric disorders […] research needs to establish thresholds of moral distress that evoke psychiatric and functional problems that merit clinical intervention, especially given the absence of criteria on which to base diagnosis or seek reimbursement for services administered.”
[5] Pauline Shanks Kaurin, “Healing the Wounds of War: Moral Luck, Moral Uncertainty, and Moral Injury,” The Strategy Bridge, January 5, 2018, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2018/1/5/healing-the-wounds-of-war-moral-luck-moral-uncertainty-and-moral-injury.
[6] Jonathan Shay, “Moral Injury,” Psychoanalytic Psychology 31.2 (2014), 183; Griffin, et al, “Moral Injury: An Integrative Review,” 356.
[7] Litz’s definition: “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” Brett T. Litz, Nathan Stein, Eileen Delany, Leslie Lebowitz, William P. Nash, Caroline Silva, Shira Maguen, “Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy,” Clinical Psychology Review 29.8 (December 2009), 696.
[8] Orin Nimni, “Defining Violence,” Current Affairs, September 17, 2017, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/09/defining-violence. Nimni is critical of rightwing attempts to water down the term violence by incorporating property damage and theft, but also of leftwing attempts to water down the term by incorporating speech acts.
[9] John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Penguin, 1978), 342-343.
[10] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 36-48, 137-143.
[11] “As would be expected, when you arrive on the scene in this situation, the friendly forces being shot at by the enemy express a wide array of emotions over the radio such as fear, anger, frustration, and impatience that can be felt and understood on the other end of the radio regardless of which crew position you occupy. Often troops’ lives depend on the integration and assistance of the RPA called to help them fight through the dangerous situation they are in. And you can hear the stress in their voice.” Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 73. Cf. 44.
[12] Wayne Phelps, “The Psychic Toll of Killing with Drones,” The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-psychic-toll-of-killing-with-drones-11622865660.
[13] One higher-profile example is Vaugh Allex, the man working the ticket counter at Dulles Airport for American Airlines Flight 77: “On Sept. 11, he checked hijackers onto Flight 77. It’s haunted him ever since,” NPR, September 11, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2016/09/09/493133084/on-sept-11-he-checked-hijackers-onto-flight-77-its-haunted-him-ever-since. For more on social media’s content controllers, Brian Bishop, “The Cleaners is a Riveting Documentary about how Social Media might be Ruining the World,” The Verge, Jan 21, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/21/16916380/sundance-2018-the-cleaners-movie-review-facebook-google-twitter.
[14] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 60-67, 121-122, 204. Cf. Terilyn Johnston Huntington and Amy Eckert, “We watched his whole life unfold. . .Then you watch the death’: drone tactics, operator trauma, and hidden human costs of contemporary wartime,” International Relations 36.4 (October 2022), 638-657.
[15] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 63, 133-134.
[16] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 72-75.
[17] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 102.
[18] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 152.
[19] David Blair and Karen House, “Avengers in Wrath: Moral Agency and Trauma Prevention for Remote Warriors,” Lawfare, November 12, 2017, https://www.lawfareblog.com/avengers-wrath-moral-agency-and-trauma-prevention-remote-warriors. They recommend that “crews must know as much as possible about their targets” and “they need the time, space, and boundaries to perform the moral homework to keep pace with their tactical actions;” they end their analysis with the encouragement that “tactics and approaches in keeping with the Just War tradition are, in fact, more effective on the remote battlefield.”
[20] Phelps, On Killing Remotely, 52, 307.
