Soldiers in combat can kill without moral injury

Another common exception is when the collective herd instinct is invoked. When 10-15 folks congregate at a place and unleash their subliminal thought patterns, it becomes much easier to sanction a kill as it's now part of a collective guilt conscious and no one person has to bear any injury, not even a moral one.

prepare for war, western man!

A better title would be "Likelihood of moral injury differs among different combat contexts," though that doesn't serve as quite a catchy title as the original.

The problem with "moral injury more common among those with high moral standards" is that "moral standards" is not what is being observed, rather, the study specifically finds "diverging effects of KIC on veterans from combat-oriented and peacekeeping missions-" making no judgement about personal "moral standards."

Your "high moral standards" bit seems to be an assumption about the difference between peacekeeping forces and combat-oriented forces (which sometimes even overlap) rather than something to do with the actual research article at hand.

This was most definitely not the case with my wife. Before Ukraine, she would never have even considered killing another human being. In the war it was very different. Every dead Russian was one step closer to a safe Ukraine.

I have to agree. Evolution seems to have placed human empathy on a spectrum -- some have a lot of it and perform caregiver functions within a community, others have less of it and tend to perform defensive function. While we may not have physically differentiated castes as do ants, it would be unwise to assume that all healthy humans will have the same level of empathy. Layer on top of that, military training designed to further attenuate empathy, and you get a very select group. That said, since that group is basically "soldiers", the claim "Soldiers can kill without moral injury", isn't inaccurate.

There is a whole Wikipedia article about UN peacekeepers committing atrocities. Not sure if claiming that on average they have “higher moral” standards than people who sign up for the Norwegian Army is fair (and they at least occasionally face repercussions for their actions unlike the “peacekeepers”)..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_by_UN_peacekeep...

Not in my experience.

Did a tour in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Both completely just invasions, IMHO.

I don't think it's the time. Morality only exists in people who has it. Some already do, some are growing, some never will.

Funny thing is, the individuals who never had morality maybe more mentally healthy than the others, since the consequences of their action never entered their brain. Gankers are happier than the ganked, I guess.

Maybe that's why the armies around the world loves to hire dumb people into their ranks, never think, never thought, and thus ruthless and don't cost much.

Yep, fairly common to hear about old veterans who will not discuss what they did in combat, one could guess because they don't want to resurface those memories.

The risk perhaps not so much moral injury, but that combat and war is almost like a drug. Imagine going back home to a toddler raging about the wrong color cup, a narrow set of civil rules, and flipping burgers after living a life out the back of a pickup truck with nothing but a rifle and your buddies keeping you alive.

Fucking boring.

But I'm no killer, just a guy who spent a few months in a civil war, and met a lot of people who met the Hemingway quote:

  "Those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter."

> If the child grows up with warrior morals, they will not worry about opponent's death.

What are 'warrior morals' and what is the basis of your claim? It sounds like science fiction or fantasy.

Desperate 18 y.os needing that cosy salary is enough of an incentive. No need for romanticization like warrior morals or something. War is industrialized enough.

Or seeing people killed.

Usually governments, because they want to understand the mental health of their soldiers.

> "Original data collection for both studies was funded by the Norwegian Department of Defense; however, data extractions were archival and, hence, not funded."

For individuals killing is incredibly rare. Most people will never take a life, and even historically haven't. It also of course doesn't follow that merely because killing happens it doesn't cause moral injury, it's obviously possible for an event to be both common and traumatic.

It is generally accepted that most people will resist to kill and moral injury is very well documented for example in police who have to use deadly force so the result here is actually surprising. Afghanistan might also be an unusual case by historical standards, because close combat was very rare and the fighting much more impersonal.

> People killing people is one of the better-documented aspects of human history. If it's really a commonly-held idea, it's a delusional one.

Lots of things are well documented. Famine is too, but it has a big negative impact.

Humans are social creatures that live exclusively in groups; they cannot survive alone psychologically or, usually, physically. Groups are effective when they are at peace; evolutionary psychology, at least, supports not killing each other.

A universal aspect of every human culture is a taboo against killing.

I don't think killing is a natural act. Most people throughout history died from disease, not war.

In the past, if you killed someone, like in a battle, there is a good chance you're going to die in the next battle of the military campaign. Few soldiers survived the military campaigns of the past. Maybe that's why we don't hear much about PTSD among past soldiers.

Repetition doesn't make it natural. As I said elsewhere, famine also is common but not eating is not natural.

It’s a natural act for pretty much all animals on this planet