Text Rundown - The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

text rundown of

The Moral logic of survivor guilt

Vocabulary

Summary

Author

Quotes

Author's Purpose

Curiosities

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Summary of the Text

“The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” is an article on how normal survivor guilt is and the good things it can do for a person. In this article it says “The anguish of guilt, its sheer pain, is a way of sharing some of the ill fate”. This shows that even though guilt can feel horrible, feeling the guilt means that the person cares enough about the situation to feel survivor's guilt. Sherman cites philosophers, soldiers, and her own personal experiences as an expert on the topic. This proves survivors of life and death situations should feel survivor's guilt because having a guilty feeling shows that they cared. Often, caring can help a person through their situation because being able to care about what happened shows that the person didn’t do it on purpose, and that they are still good people. Sherman concludes that feeling survivor guilt is right, but so is forgiving oneself.

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Who is Nancy Sherman?

Nancy Sherman is a university professor of phiosophy at Georgetown University. She is the inagural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy Sherman is the author of several books and her views on military ethics have been influential.

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Greek Root: path

"Path" is a Greek root word meaning "feeling" or "disease." Generally in this text words like empathy or sympathy relate to feelings and emotions.

Click here for a video reviewing the vocab for this article.

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Notable Quotes

"Part of the reasonableness of survivor guilt (and in a sense, its "fittingness") is that it tracks moral significance that is broader than moral action. Who I am, in terms of my character and relationships, and not just what I do, morally matters."

"What Prior feels are feelings of guilt, and not simply regret that things didn't work out differently. He feels the awful weight of self-indictment, the empathy with the victim and survivors, and the need to make moral repair. If he didn't feel that, we would probably think less of him as a commander."

"Service members, especially those higher in rank, routinely talk about unit members as "my soldiers," "my Marines," "my sailors." They are family members, their own children, of sorts, who have been entrusted to them."

"(Survivor guilt) is fitting because it gets right certain moral (or evaluative) features of a soldier's world—that good soldiers depend on each other, come to love each other, and have duties to care and bring each other safely home."

"But as Bonenberger's remarks make clear, we often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can be held responsible for. And we feel the guilt that comes with that sense of responsibility."

What do the above quotes tell you about survivor guilt? What can you take away from reading these sections of the text in particular?

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Author's Purpose

When looking for author's purpose, we consider why a text was written: to inform, to entertain, persuade, instruct, describe, or satirize. Nancy Sherman always wanted to understand her father's experiences as a soldier in World War II and this inspired much of her work. The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt has two purposes: to inform the reader on survivor guilt and to persuade the reader that it is a good thing to feel survivor guilt.

The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt

Want to know more about this topic? Here are some readings to check out!

After War by Nancy Sherman

Examining the psychological an moral condition of our nation’s veterans.

Survivor Guilt Revisited by Dr Geraldine K Plokowski

Survivor guilt is thriving in colleges and hospitals.

What Everybody SHould Know About Survivor's Guilt by Dr Diana Raab

Research shows that survivor's guilt is real.