Afterwar Moral Injuries: A Philosophical Reflection on the Israel-Iran War through Nancy Sherman’s Lens

The concept of moral injury, first introduced in military psychiatry and later developed philosophically by Nancy Sherman, refers to a persistent inner suffering caused by an individual’s participation in or exposure to morally troubling actions or failures. This article draws on Sherman’s framework in Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers to provide an ethical reading of the recent war between Iran and Israel. Through a three-level analysis—focusing on the experiences of soldiers, the moral responsibility of military and political leadership, and the reaction of civil society—it is shown that war leaves behind moral wounds that cannot be fully understood or healed through psychological treatment or heroic narratives alone. The article emphasizes that moral injury becomes deeper when moral discourse is absent from the public sphere, when command structures lack transparency, and when collective responsibility is silenced or neglected. By incorporating complementary perspectives from thinkers such as Margaret Urban Walker, Cheshire Calhoun, and Jeff McMahan, the paper explores the possibility of moral repair at both individual and institutional levels. Rather than evaluating the political legitimacy of the war, the paper aims to offer a philosophical framework for understanding the moral complexity of war in the Iranian context and reflecting on the prospects for rebuilding meaning and trust in the aftermath.

کلیدواژه ها:

Moral Injury ، Israel& ndash ، Iran Recent War ، Moral Judgment and Obedience ، collective responsibility ، Moral Repair