Concept tag
#moral-injury
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We were taught “control what you can control” in the army. Was that Stoicism?
In my last years in the army, "resilience training" was introduced, and the instructors sometimes quoted Epictetus. Control what you can control. Let the rest go. Some officers had read about James Stockdale, the American pilot who was a prisoner of war…
Started by Choi Byeong-hun5 replies -
Can you be a good person in a role that sometimes requires you to do bad things?
I am thinking of my years in the army, and I am not talking about atrocities. I mean ordinary things the role required: enforcing a punishment I thought was disproportionate because the regulation was clear, sending a capable young private on a…
Started by Choi Byeong-hun6 replies -
Can you be argued out of a feeling? What is therapy doing when it works?
Telling someone their fear is irrational almost never helps, even when it's true. And yet some therapies built on exactly that idea work. Cognitive behavioural therapy has a clear philosophical ancestor. Albert Ellis, one of its founders, credited Epictetus, whose line in…
Started by Alistair Gow5 replies -
Williams’s integrity objection, not the arithmetic, is the deepest problem for utilitarianism
I have read a fair amount about moral injury, the damage done to people who were made to do, or failed to prevent, things that violated their deepest commitments, often in situations where every option was bad. Bernard Williams's essay in Utilitarianism:…
Started by Choi Byeong-hun6 replies