The Empathetic Soldier

The Empathetic Soldier

Author: Kevin R. Cutright

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-06

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 1000577988

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This book shows the contribution that empathy can and should make to the proper conduct of war. US Army doctrine identifies empathy as an essential trait in soldiers; despite this endorsement of senior leaders, empathy’s role in the military profession remains obscure. The notion of soldiers empathetically considering others, especially enemies, strikes many as counter to the nature of soldiering. Additionally, confusion caused by differing definitions of empathy often leads to its complete dismissal. This work clarifies the concept by considering recent philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific research, and demonstrates the relevance of empathy to the tactical and strategic demands of war. Empathy amplifies soldiers’ understanding of human actors in an operational environment, enables soldiers’ critical and creative thinking, and improves their overall intentions, planning, and assessments of a war’s progress. While empathy can make soldiers more susceptible to the psychic wound of moral injury, it also helps prevent and overcome this injury. Instead of dismissing it, soldiers should assimilate empathy into their moral frameworks. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, psychology, and military studies generally.


The Empathetic Soldier

The Empathetic Soldier

Author: Kevin Cutright

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-14

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9781032163413

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This book shows the contribution that empathy can and should make to the proper conduct of war. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, psychology, and military studies generally.


Unmaking War, Remaking Men

Unmaking War, Remaking Men

Author: Kathleen Barry

Publisher: Phoenix Rising Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 9780982796702

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In Unmaking War, Remaking Men: How Empathy Can Reshape Our Politics, Our Soldiers and Ourselves Kathleen Barry answers the perennial question: Is war inevitable? with an emphatic "no." She explores soldiers' experiences through a politics of empathy and reveals how men’s lives are made expendable for combat in which they suffer loss of their own souls. She then probes the psychopathy that marks world leaders from George W. Bush to Ariel Sharon to Osama bin Laden to show how war is made from remorseless indifference to human life. Kathleen Barry asks: ‘What would it take to unmake war?’ by scrutinizing the demilitarized state of Costa Rica and comparing its claims of peace with its high rate of violence against women. Ending war requires unmaking masculinity, a change already under way in men who resist and refuse combat and transform their lives into a new kind of humanity.


The Value of Empathy

The Value of Empathy

Author: Maria Baghramian

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-18

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1000317854

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The Value of Empathy explores various approaches to understanding empathy and investigates its moral and practical role. The central role of empathy in understanding others, and the need for it in our social and inter-personal encounters, is widely acknowledged by philosophers, social scientists and psychologists alike. Discussions of empathy abound, not only in more specialised academic publications, but also in traditional and social media. Yet neither a clear understanding, nor a uniform definition of this relatively new term is available. Indeed, one difficulty in discussing empathy, in philosophy and beyond, is the profusion of definitions; the difficulty is compounded by a lack of clarity in the distinction between empathy and cognate concepts such as sympathy and compassion. This book has two aims: Chapters 1–5 seek to address the dual concerns of the lack of clarity and profusion of interpretations by suggesting new ways of approaching the topic. The second aim of the book is to connect the more abstract discussions of empathy with its normative functions. Chapters 6–8 engage with the theoretical concerns relevant to the ethics of empathy and raise interesting points about its significance in ethical thought and action. The final four chapters focus on the practical normative significance of empathy by examining the connections between empathy, vulnerability and care in circumstances of ill health. The chapters in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.


Trained to Kill

Trained to Kill

Author: Theodore Nadelson

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2005-05-18

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1421400561

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In two decades of clinical work with Vietnam veterans, psychiatrist Theodore Nadelson sought to understand a seeming paradox about his patients: even veterans being treated for post traumatic stress disorder often still felt attracted to the danger and violence of combat and killing. How this could be possible became a central focus of Nadelson's work and thought, as he looked to veterans' stories and within himself for pieces of the human puzzle. This compelling book is the result of that exploration. In it, Nadelson confronts a dark side of human psychology with sensitivity and depth, revealing startling truths about the allure of violence. Among the topics he addresses are the ways in which the concept of war shapes boys' lives from an early age, what happens when killing becomes a job, and how memories of the thrill of combat affect a soldier after the war is over. He probes the aftermath of September 11, including the historic implications of women's experience in the military. A veteran himself, the author weaves together insights from his own clinical and military experience and from the moving narratives of former soldiers with his thoughtful analysis of readings from world literature to answer tough questions: What does our attraction to killing mean for the future of war and civilization? What implications does it have for the way we understand peacetime violence in our society?


Conversations on Empathy

Conversations on Empathy

Author: Francesca Mezzenzana

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-16

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1000816435

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In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice.


Squaddie

Squaddie

Author: Steven McLaughlin

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-05-20

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1780572026

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From the harsh realities of basic training to post-war chaos in Iraq and knife-edge tension in Northern Ireland, Squaddie takes us to a place not advertised in army recruitment brochures. It exposes the grim reality of everyday soldiering for the 'grunts on the ground'. After the tragic death of his brother, and in the dark days following 9/11, McLaughlin felt compelled to fulfil his lifelong ambition to serve in the army. He followed his late brother into the elite Royal Green Jackets and passed the arduous Combat Infantryman's Course at the age of 31. Thereafter, McLaughlin found himself submerged in a world of casual violence. Squaddie is a snapshot of infantry soldiering in the twenty-first century. It takes us into the heart of an ancient institution that is struggling to retain its tough traditions in a rapidly changing world. All of the fears and anxieties that the modern soldier carries as his burden are laid bare, as well as the occasional joys and triumphs that can make him feel like he is doing the best job in the world. This is an account of army life by someone who has been there and done it.


Uncommon Soldier

Uncommon Soldier

Author: Chris Masters

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1741759714

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Using the investigative and research skills that he is known for, Chris Masters turns his attention to the contemporary digger - war fighter, peacekeeper, street-level diplomat and aid worker - linking the pioneering approaches to warfare of General Monash's time to the challenge of what lies ahead for Australian soldiers.


Constructing the Enemy

Constructing the Enemy

Author: Rajini Srikanth

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2011-12-09

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1439903255

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In her engaging book, Constructing the Enemy, Rajini Srikanth probes the concept of empathy, attempting to understand its different types and how it is—or isn't—generated and maintained in specific circumstances. Using literary texts to illuminate issues of power and discussions of law, Srikanth focuses on two case studies— the internment of Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans in World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the detainment of Muslim Americans and individuals from various nations in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Through primary documents and interviews that reveal why and how lawyers become involved in defending those who have been designated “enemies,” Srikanth explores the complex conditions under which engaged citizenship emerges. Constructing the Enemy probes the seductive promise of legal discourse and analyzes the emergence and manifestation of empathy in lawyers and other concerned citizens and the wider consequences of this empathy on the institutions that regulate our lives.


They Were Soldiers

They Were Soldiers

Author: Ann Jones

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1608463710

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A reporter’s firsthand, close-up-and-personal look at the impact of our recent wars on America’s unlucky soldiers.