The Good Kill
Just War and Moral Injury
Marc Livecche(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Will be published approx. on 17. December 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-19-786726-6 (ISBN)
Description
War wounds the soul. It is not only the violence that warfighters suffer against them that harms, but also the violence that they do. These soul wounds have come to be known as moral injuries: psychic traumas that occur from having done or condoned that which goes against deeply held moral principles. It is not surprising that the committing of atrocities or the accidental killing of the innocent would hurt the soul of warfighters.
The problem is that many warfighters at least tacitly follow the commonplace belief that killing another human being is always wrong--it's just that sometimes, as in war, it is necessary. This paradoxical commitment makes the very business of warfighting morally injurious. This problem is also a crisis. Clinical research among combat veterans has established a link between killing in combat and moral injury and between moral injury and suicide. Our warfighters, even those who have served honorably and with the right intentions, are dying by their own hands at devastating rates--casualties not of the physical threats of war, but of the moral ones.
It does not have to be this way.
The just war tradition, a moral framework for thinking about war that flows out of our Greco-Roman and Hebraic intellectual traditions, is grounded in the basic truth that killing comes in different kinds. While some kinds of killing, like murder, are always wrong, there are other kinds of killing that are morally neutral, such as unavoidable accidents, and still other kinds that are morally permitted--even, sometimes, obligatory. The Good Kill embraces this tradition to argue for the morality of killing in justified wars. Marc LiVecche does not deny the morally bruising realities of combat, but offers potential remedies to help our warfighters manage the bruising without becoming irreparably morally injured.
The problem is that many warfighters at least tacitly follow the commonplace belief that killing another human being is always wrong--it's just that sometimes, as in war, it is necessary. This paradoxical commitment makes the very business of warfighting morally injurious. This problem is also a crisis. Clinical research among combat veterans has established a link between killing in combat and moral injury and between moral injury and suicide. Our warfighters, even those who have served honorably and with the right intentions, are dying by their own hands at devastating rates--casualties not of the physical threats of war, but of the moral ones.
It does not have to be this way.
The just war tradition, a moral framework for thinking about war that flows out of our Greco-Roman and Hebraic intellectual traditions, is grounded in the basic truth that killing comes in different kinds. While some kinds of killing, like murder, are always wrong, there are other kinds of killing that are morally neutral, such as unavoidable accidents, and still other kinds that are morally permitted--even, sometimes, obligatory. The Good Kill embraces this tradition to argue for the morality of killing in justified wars. Marc LiVecche does not deny the morally bruising realities of combat, but offers potential remedies to help our warfighters manage the bruising without becoming irreparably morally injured.
Reviews / Votes
Putting ethics to pastoral use, Marc LiVecche deploys 'just war' reasoning to distinguish morally right acts of killing from morally wrong ones, so as to relieve combat veterans of guilt they should not feel. Resolved to look them in the eye, his lucid thinking keeps close company with their vivid experience. The topic is important, the analysis illuminating, and the writing engaging. The Good Kill is a very good book." * Lord Nigel Biggar, author In Defence of War * LiVecche provides an invaluable contribution... In addition to a rich accounting of leading psychological literature on moral injury, LiVecche provides graphic and moving first-hand battlefield accounts, testimonies of the lingering guilt that some soldiers feel about the violence that they saw or participated in." * Eric Patterson, Journal of Military Ethics * The Good Kill is a critical reconstruction of Christian just war ethics with a novel focus on military moral injury and the promotion of human flourishing. In building his case, LiVecche paints a compelling image of the just warrior as a mournful warrior...This is an important book for...anyone interested in understanding better a warfighter's complex moral reckoning with killing in war." * Nancy Sheman, Georgetown University * LiVecche artfully links contemporary psychology with ancient philosophical and theological wisdom, mixed with the testimony of veterans and insights of military ethicists... Highly recommended reading for soldiers and military instructors, as well as chaplains, veteran welfare workers and military ethicists." * Chaplain Darren Cronshaw, from Journal of Moral Theology *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-786726-6 (9780197867266)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He is an adjunct professor of ethics at the US Naval Academy and non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College.
Author
McDonald Visiting ScholarMcDonald Visiting Scholar, McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, & Public Life; Christ Church, University of Oxford
Foreword
Command ChaplainCommand Chaplain, U.S. Army Europe
Content
- Acknowledgments
- Forward by Rev. Timothy S. Mallard, Ph.D.
- Introduction
- War and the Soul
- The Problem of Paradox
- Neither Sin nor Paradox
- Just War in the Midst of Combat (?)
- The Mournful Warrior
- Conclusion
- Works Cited
- Index