Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury

In this unflinching look at the experience of suffering and one of its greatest manifestations--torture--J. M. Bernstein critiques the repressions of traditional moral theory, showing that our morals are not immutable ideals but fragile constructions that depend on our experience of suffering itself. Morals, Bernstein argues, not only guide our conduct but also express the depth of mutual dependence that we share as vulnerable and injurable individuals.

Beginning with the attempts to abolish torture in the eighteenth century, and then sensitively examining what is suffered in torture and related transgressions, such as rape, Bernstein elaborates a powerful new conception of moral injury. Crucially, he shows, moral injury always involves an injury to the status of an individual as a person--it is a violent assault against his or her dignity. Elaborating on this critical element of moral injury, he demonstrates that the mutual recognitions of trust form the invisible substance of our moral lives, that dignity is a fragile social possession, and that the perspective of ourselves as potential victims is an ineliminable feature of everyday moral experience.

Author: J. M. Bernstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 07/08/2020
Pages: 392
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.26lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.87d
ISBN13: 9780226708874
ISBN10: 022670887X
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Political
- Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy
- Political Science | History & Theory | General

About the Author
J. M. Bernstein is distinguished professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of many books, including Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics; Against Voluptuous Bodies: Adorno's Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting; and Recovering Ethical Life: Jürgen Habermas and the Future of Critical Theory.