“Moral Injury” and “Offended Feelings”: Translation of Religious Emotionality into the Language of Court Documents

Background: Moral injury (MI) involves distress over having transgressed or violated core moral boundaries, accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame, self-condemnation, loss of trust, loss of meaning, and spiritual struggles. MI is often found in Veterans and Active Duty Military personnel with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MI is widespread among those with PTSD symptoms, adversely affects mental health, and may increase risk of suicide; however, MI is often ignored and neglected by mental health professionals who focus their attention on PTSD only. Methods: A review of the literature between 1980 and 2018 conducted in 2018 is presented here to identify scales used to assess MI. Databases used in this review were PsychInfo, PubMed (Medline), and Google Scholar. Search terms were “moral injury,” “measuring,” “screening,” “Veterans,” and “Active Duty Military.” Inclusion criteria were quantitative measurement of MI and health outcomes, Veteran or Active Duty Military status, and peer-review publication. Excluded were literature reviews, dissertations, book chapters, case reports, and qualitative studies. Results: Of the 730 studies identified, most did not meet eligibility criteria, leaving 118 full text articles that were reviewed, of which 42 did not meet eligibility criteria. Of the remaining 76 studies, 34 were duplicates leaving 42 studies, most published in 2013 or later. Of 22 studies that assessed MI, five used scales assessing multiple dimensions, and 17 assessed only one or two aspects (e.g., guilt, shame, or forgiveness). The remaining 20 studies used one of the scales reported in the first 22. Of the five scales assessing multiple dimensions of MI, two assess both morally injurious events and symptoms and the remaining three assess symptoms only. All studies were cross-sectional, except three that tested interventions. Conclusions: MI in the military setting is widespread and associated with PTSD symptom severity, anxiety, depression, and risk of suicide in current or former military personnel. Numerous measures exist to assess various dimensions of MI, including five multidimensional scales, although future research is needed to identify cutoff scores and clinically significant change scores. Three multidimensional measures assess MI symptoms alone (not events) and may be useful for determining if treatments directed at MI may both reduce symptoms and impact other mental health outcomes including PTSD.

The article notes that sufficient reimbursement for injury to victims of crime is an urgent and global issue, for which solution international legal standards, which are regarded as general-ly recognized principles and regulations of international law and international treaties, as well as enactments containing their official interpretation, are significant. The article critically evaluates the point of view of some individual scientists who deny the need to stipulate the civil claim concept the in the Code of criminal procedure of the Russian Federation as it exists in modern Russian criminal proceedings not only due to the historical experience of the legislator, have long appreciated the evident advantages of the united proce-dure, but also in its consistency with foreign trends in the development of this concept, aimed at ensuring the implementation of international standards in the sphere of promotion and pro-tection of the human and civil rights. Despite the fact that the legislator applies different concepts in determining the conse-quences of torts (including crimes) in the regulations of substantive and procedural law as follows: harm and damage, there has been concluded that it is the injury (property or moral) that constitutes the attribute of obligations caused by the injury infliction, which allows the term to be used legitimately when covering issues of reimbursement for injury in criminal proceedings. Taking into account that a civil claim in criminal proceedings is a way to reimburse not only property, but also moral damage caused by a crime, the most urgent issues that need to be resolved are identified as follows: 1) lack of general doctrinal approaches to determining moral injury and its correlation with other types of injury; 2) inconsistency of the current investigative and judicial practice in determining the amount of compensation for moral injury; 3) ineffectiveness of procedural mechanisms for compensation for moral injury caused by a crime. The current judicial practice of refusing to satisfy claims for reimbursement of moral injury in the case of a crime against property, in the absence of violence against the victim and other actions affecting the life, health, and dignity of the individual has been recognized as not complying with the requirements of the law regulating the status of the victim and the civil plaintiff. According to the authors' point of view, the lack of unified approach to determining of the amount of moral injury caused by crimes is due to the evaluative nature of its definition, when there are no clear estimative criteria, which leads to a tendency to reduce the amount of reim-bursement, although reimbursement for moral injury in an adequate amount would more guarantee the restoration of violated rights of citizens in the sphere of criminal proceedings. Since moral injury can be the result not only of a crime, but also of illegal criminal prose-cution or illegal conviction of a person involved in its commission, it is necessary to establish a unified amount of reimbursement for the injury.

The article has analyzed in detail the content of the legislatively stated form of the moral injury compensation caused to the employee by an industrial accident and a professional disease. It has been concluded that a deficit of funds appointed to financing the social insurance system has become the main reason of redistribution of the obligation to compensate the moral injury between the Fund of social insurance in case of industrial accidents and the employer. The specificity of the moral injury compensation caused in the course of the employee’s employment in comparison with other types of the moral injury compensation has been determined. The fault of the employer in an industrial accident and a professional disease has been proved not to be an obligatory component of the legal structure being considered a legal ground of the moral injury compensation to the employee. The employer’s duty to compensate such an injury is specified by his legal status of the guarantor of safe and harmless working conditions in the workplace. The employee’s guilty actions that have caused an industrial accident and a professional disease are the reason to refuse him in the moral injury compensation. It has been proved that funds provided in the form of a moral injury are not always rational means of satisfaction of the employee’s needs caused by the negative consequences of an accident or a professional disease. The social protection system of employees experienced a moral injury as a result of an accident or a professional disease has been proposed in the article to be extended by means of legislative determination of such types of social protection as medicamental provision, rehabilitation, household and other services. The author has argued the possibility of settling differences concerning a moral injury caused at work in the form prescribed by the current legislation for solution of individual and collective labour disputes. The main arguments in favor of the thesis are: being of the dispute subjects (the employer and the employee (s)) in legal labour relations and the content of the dispute – the question of labour law execution. It has been proved according to the current legislation that the subject empowered to demand the moral injury compensation might be not only the one employee but also the labour collective in case of a collective industrial accident in the workplace. The author has concluded that peculiarities of the moral injury compensation caused by industrial accidents or professional diseases should be provided in the Law of Ukraine «On Labour Protection».

В настоящей статье представлены мнения судей о правовой категории «моральный вред» и проблемах ее использования для защиты прав потерпевших от преступлений. В анонимном анкетировании по данному вопросу принял участие 141 судья из всех регионов Республики Беларусь. Результаты анкетирования показали, что в соответствии с их практическим опытом значительная часть потерпевших от насильственных действий самостоятельно не заявляют иски о компенсации морального вреда. При этом часть опрошенных представителей судейского сообщества видит необходимость совершенствования обсуждаемой правовой категории. Большинство опрошенных положительно относятся к внедрению специализированных тестовых методик для подтверждения опыта перенесенной «психической травмы», а также к введению с указанной целью инструментальных методов (айтрекинга). Кроме того, судьи поддержали идею создания специализированного фонда финансовой помощи потерпевшим (для оплаты психологической, медицинской, социальной, юридической помощи и иных расходов). This article presents the opinions of judges on the legal category of "moral injury" and the problems of its use to protect the rights of crime victims. 141 judges from all regions of the Republic of Belarus took part in an anonymous survey on this issue. The results of the survey showed that, in accordance with their practical experience, a significant portion of victims of violent acts do not independently file claims for compensation for moral damage. At the same time, part of the surveyed judicial community sees the need to improve the legal category under discussion. Most of the respondents have a positive attitude towards the introduction of specialized test methods to confirm "psychological/ psychiatric injury", as well as the introduction of instrumental methods (eye tracking). In addition, the judges supported the idea of creating a specialized fund for financial assistance to victims (to pay for psychological, medical, social, legal assistance and other expenses).

Moral injury (MI) is a relatively new syndrome among military personnel with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While MI has received considerable attention in the psychological sciences, the syndrome has received relatively little notice within psychiatry. MI has been defined as the negative emotions that emerge from transgressing moral boundaries by military personnel during combat such as killing enemy combatants or innocent civilians, failing to protect innocents or fellow combatants, or observing others transgress moral boundaries. MI may also be frequent among civilians and health professionals, although, as in military personnel, is often unrecognized.

The article explores the meaning of the principle of the compensation in full upon the occurrence of a tortious liability in comparison with the content of the principle of compensation in full for harm caused to a citizen during the implementation of the criminal procedure. In this regard, the author investigates recent judicial practice on criminal proceedings cases relating to compensation for material damage and moral harm with full and partial rehabilitation, and shows the absence of unity of interpretation of the elements of the material damage, compensated on general grounds of delictual liability (Art. 1064 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and on special grounds (Art. 1070 of the RF Civil Code and Art. 135 of the Criminal Procedure Code). The analysis of judicial practice on this category of cases provides reasoning for the conclusion that the compensation for damage to property, paid off to the rehabilitated person is much smaller than the damage compensated under tort obligations (Art. 1064 CC RF). The author shows lack of unity in the approach to determining the amount of compensation for moral injury at full and partial rehabilitation; reveals the notion of "amount" and "size" of the recoverable damage as different legal categories; and justifies the application of the concept of "amount of compensation" and "size of compensation". The generalization of the recent judicial practice and the investigation of judicial practices of the past years, which concern tried in criminal proceedings cases related to the compensation for damage to property, compensation for moral harm suggests that in practice, the principle of full reparation for harm done by the criminal proceedings does not occur. The analysis of the current Criminal Procedure Code and the Civil Procedure legislation on compensation for damage to property, moral harm compensation, reinstatement of labour, housing, pension and other rights of rehabilitated citizen testifies the duality of the existing order for restitution of property and personal non-property rights of this category of citizens; and suggests ways to improve the existing order of compensation and the restoration of the violated rights of the victim. It is proposed that a unified judicial limitation order be implemented.

Le fotografie presentate in questo saggio fotografico sono state selezionate per la mostra Nascita e morte tra gli Acioli: fotografie di Renato Boccassino, 1933-1934 (18 ottobre, 18 novembre 2016) e sono accompagnate dalle didascalie originarie. Esse sono relative all'articolo di Antonello Ricci RENATO BOCCASSINO, BIRTH AND DEATH AMONG THE ACIOLI: ETHNOGRAPHY ON DISPLAY.

The Cossacks are traditionally associated with the social stronghold of the Russian Orthodox Church, with a group of the most righteous champions of the Orthodox faith. However, the Don Cossacks went through a long historical path before they found themselves in the bosom of the Mother Church and became its modern defenders from unrighteous attacks. Faith for the Don Cossacks initially represented a broader concept of life than just a religious feeling, extending into mental models of behaviour, often being fixed exclusively in material objects, expressed in a rather situational pilgrimage. In the historical everyday life of the Cossacks, a rationalistic attitude towards religious faith, which is not typical for other social groups, can be traced. Such pragmatism stemmed from a special military type of religiosity, initially formed on the frontier territory of the Wild Field, where the origins of the Russian Cossacks were laid, from where through the centuries the Cossacks carried their noble attitude towards God and the Christian faith. They had their own historical road towards the Orthodox church, much longer and more controversial than that of other groups of the Russian population, but this makes its final results no less significant. “The Second Sun of the Don” - the Ascension Military Cathedral in Novocherkassk - is historically the second of the three Patriarchal Cathedrals in modern Russia. But it was rivaled in architectural splendour and interior decoration by the St. Nicholas Old Believer Cathedral, which reflected by its very existence at the beginning of the twentieth century the strongest positions of the Old Believers on the Don, and in the church the service was led by the Old Believer Archbishop John Kartushin. Among the Don Cossacks, heterodoxy also became widespread, and among its historical examples, spirit bearers stand out, and today Kalmyk Cossacks remain committed to the Buddhist (Lamaite) religion. However, despite the existence of various variants of religious faith among the Don Cossacks, the positions of the Russian Orthodox Church today are dominant and unshakable on the Don.

This chapter provides an overview of theoretical concepts between church and state, and examines the divergent cases of Slovenia and Macedonia. Slovenia and Macedonia, as relatively small countries of Eastern Europe, represent examples of constantly changing relationships between religious communities, the state, and the population since the initial post-socialist transition two decades ago. A common feature of social change is that religious communities are in search of their role within society and politics. Developments in Slovenia offer insights into the dynamics of the cleavage between traditional religions and new movements of indifference towards religious feelings. In Macedonia, the population is represented by two traditional religions (Christian Orthodoxy and Sunni Islam) that are interrelated with ethnic identity. Thus, following major political intervention, religion became a strong source of identity.

The effect of religion on charitable giving in the Netherland. Why do orthodox Christians in the Netherlands give more than five times as much money to charitable causes than the non-religious and the other religious groups? To what extent do religious persons also support secular causes? Previous research in the USA and Canada supported Durkheims theory on social cohesion, suggesting that the frequency of church attendance is a much more important factor than the content of religious beliefs. In contrast, this article shows that in the Netherlands differences in social norms with regard to charitable giving and the salience of religion are just as important as church attendance for the amount of money donated to charitable causes. Donations of religious persons more often benefited religious charities, but orthodox Christians also donated twice as much to secular charities than Catholics, mainline protestants and the non-religious. Again, cultural differences accounted for about the same proportion of variance as church attendance.

R. W. L. Moberly, noted English theologian, professor of theology and biblical interpretation at Durham University, and a priest in the Church of England, addresses the analogy between the role one accords to Christian Scripture and to the God of Christian Scripture in his most recent book. In The Bible in a Disenchanted Age, Moberly thus wrestles with questions such as should the Bible be studied by excluding one’s focus upon the God in the Bible while at the same focusing exclusively upon human dimensions? Should Christian scholars who believe that the God of the Bible is the one true God offer their justification for their disbelief in other ancient world deities? Related, should these scholars demonstrate how the manner of their study of the Bible corresponds with their belief in the God of the Bible (p. 29)?This book is primarily aimed at biblical scholars, theologians, priests, and pastors who teach the Bible as Holy Scripture and maintain a classic Christian position “that the Bible should shape one’s understanding of the world as a whole, as a corollary of having faith in God through Jesus (p. 21).” Moberly wants his audience to grapple and consider their vocation and position with respect to the challenges posed by a prevailing postmodern sensibility, namely, skepticism and disenchantment with the Bible. Moberly’s thesis presses the notion that an evidentialist approach (i.e., intellectual assent based on evidence) to belief in the God revealed in Bible is not the best launching point to engage postmodern challenges. Moreover, he argues this approach can distort the more important issues in this relationship (p. 7).Moberly defends his thesis with four chapters and provides a lengthy epilogue discussing “biblical literacy.” Throughout each chapter, the author compares and contrasts different elements of a case study drawn from Virgil’s Aeneid and the book of Daniel in order to argue his thesis. In the first chapter, “Posing the Problem,” Moberly notes how B. Jowett’s perspective of treating the Bible “like any other book” and the established scholarly historical-critical approach have ironically undercut the Bible’s status as Scripture and the source of ultimate truth and wisdom about God and humanity. Many orthodox Christian scholars and students employ these evidentialist approaches for Bible study without sufficiently accounting for why the Bible is unlike any other book. This neglect leads to a devalued and unprivileged character of the Bible and its content, and penetrating questions result: why bother to study these ancient documents rather than others? What makes the human words in Scripture in some sense the word of God? What is the analogy between the role one accords to the Bible and to the Bible’s God?In ch. 2, “Approaching the Bible,” Moberly discusses two legitimate nonreligious ways to read the Bible to gain historical and cultural understanding and thus gain a measure of satisfaction. Reading the Bible as history and as a cultural classic text has great value for any secular or religious person who can utilize full imaginative seriousness. Among these two Bible-reading approaches, Moberly describes the historical-critical approach, the Bible understood as a cultural source, the Bible as a source of a continuing reception history, the Bible as a cultural heritage, and the Bible as a literary classic of the human condition. The author lucidly compares the texts of Aeneid 1 and Dan 7 and notes the similarities and differences through historical and cultural classic reading approaches; Moberly is able to depict the stark differences between the deities Jupiter and Yahweh and their implicational significance.In the next chapter, “Towards Privileged Perspectives,” Moberly thoughtfully demonstrates how the important approaches for Bible study described in chapter 2 might be combined with the dimension of faith contained in the historic Christian stance toward the Bible. Whether from a faith stance or not, everyone who studies the Bible chooses a privileged focus for understanding God and the world. The author states “a Christian privileging of the Bible and of Jesus for understanding God and the world is not in principle different from the privileging of something else for understanding God and the world that people in general practice (p. 93).” With great insight, Moberly describes several plausibility structures—the social nature of knowledge, the authority, continual existence, and witness of the Catholic Church, and the canon of Holy Scripture—that greatly support the Christian perspective privileging Jesus and the Bible as the best focusing option. From his case study between Aeneid 1 and Dan 7, the author denotes competing visions of empire. Aeneid 1 elevates the value of limitless empire for Rome, whereas Dan 7 promotes an everlasting dominion for Yahweh and his representative and calls God’s people to a willingness to sympathize and identify with a small band of oppressed people who maintain that God’s mission will triumph in due course as part of God’s plan.In the final chapter, “Towards Trust and Truth,” Moberly brings his thesis to completion with a compelling argument as to why a person might believe the Bible to be more than simply human words. If the natural is to become supernatural, Moberly argues that Jesus in John 7:16– 17 has provided the essential solution. A person must believe with a focused response to the whole person of Jesus certainly with a cognitive dimension but also in becoming like Jesus in what one does or seeks to do. The author states, “unless heart and mind have a certain openness towards that which Jesus says and does, the issue of divine origin can only be a matter of mere words, a contestable and unverifiable claim (p. 138).” Moreover, a person must exercise an empirical dimension of faith, not of the natural sciences, but of an existential engagement of a person. In the concluding epilogue, Moberly defines biblical literacy not as good general knowledge of biblical content but rather as an ability to read the biblical text well (pp. 173–74). He provides several surprising examples from well-educated people who have read the Bible very poorly. The final section offers some hermeneutical guidelines for reading Scripture well.I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and Moberly’s discriminating thesis is well argued. In a few sections, I found myself wanting slightly more discussion. But in fairness to the author, this book was intended to initiate discussion and provoke reflection because the bulk of writing was created for lecture format. The author establishes himself as an insightful and incisive dialogue partner to anyone interested in the larger issues at stake regarding the authority of Christian Scripture. He has clarified some important hermeneutical issues, isolating and well demonstrating the importance of accounting for the world behind the text in historical-critical mode, the world within the text from literary and cultural perspectives, and the world in front of the text from reception history and plausibility structures. However, his climactic point, the necessity of reading the Bible as Scripture, brings his argumentation full circle and to a fitting synthesis. The orthodox Christian must incorporate belief, defined primarily as an openness and existential engagement with the words of Jesus, into his or her hermeneutic if the human words of the Bible are to become divine words of Christian Scripture.Moberly has provided a welcome gift to the primary audience, those orthodox Christians who serve vocationally as biblical scholars, theologians, priests, and pastors. His audience should thoughtfully implement the directives that address the depreciation of Christian Scripture in the current age founded on the premise that the Bible is only a complex human artifact that is in principle not distinct in kind from other human artifacts. If one’s desire is to stay out of two current endemic ditches—treating divine revelation in Scripture as a “trump card” or viewing the divine and human dimensions of the Bible in competitive terms—this book will serve as a trustworthy guide.

Effects of Higher Minimum Quality Standards on Food Safety: Evidence From Criminal Cases Found in China's Court Documents

Jury instructions, also called jury charges, jury directions, or simply instructions, charges, or directions, are the legal guidelines provided by judges to jurors at trial, civil and criminal, usually at the conclusion of all evidence. Their function is to instruct juries in how to reach decisions or findings of fact based upon the evidence presented. Jury trials are distinguished from bench trials, in which judges make all decisions. Jurors are the triers of fact in jury trials, and their decisions must be based on the evidence presented at trial by following the law that is provided in the instructions. Thus the communicative effectiveness of the instructions is crucial to a fair trial. Jury trials are not used in all countries today, but they are used, in both civil and criminal cases, in most adversarial or common law jurisdictions: Britain (though not Scotland), Continental Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a few other countries (those influenced by colonialism). Jurors must make decisions by deciding which witnesses are believable, which ones appear to be telling the truth, and how much weight to give to testimony—all in the context of the legal rules that specify exactly how to apply the law to the evidence. Jurors make decisions about blame and guilt, and degrees of blame and guilt, based on the evidence that they have heard and the instructions that they have received. Because the instructions must explain relevant law, they must contain some legal language. Legal language has long been recognized as difficult for nonlawyers (Mellinkoff, 1963; Steele & Thornburg, 1988; Tiersma, 1999), and jury instructions can present special difficulties because of their linguistic complexity and length, sometimes hundreds of pages. They may contain definitions of special legal terms likemens rea(criminal intent) andres ipsa loquitur(“the thing speaks for itself”). Comprehension difficulties faced by jurors are well documented, particularly in the USA, where as early as 1979 (Charrow & Charrow), empirical research demonstrated that long, complex sentences and certain grammatical structures as well as specialized terms created severe difficulties for jurors. Some reform efforts have succeeded in improving comprehensibility, but there is consensus among linguists and other social scientists, as well as many judges and lawyers, that jury instructions used in most adversarial or common law jurisdictions need further improvement. This entry briefly describes the nature of jury instruction in the courtroom, traces the history of jury instructions and reform efforts, then illustrates comprehension problems and summarizes needed revisions.

The Communist Party based its attitude to religion on Marxism-Leninism as a scientific and theoretical framework. As a critical theory of the capitalist society Marxism examined the phenomenon of religion and religious feelings in civil society and designed a project of a future socialist society. One can say that Marxism looks at the phenomenon of religion from the angle of a class society, from a materialistic viewpoint and while using the historical research method. The source of religion is in man’s alienation first from himself, then from other people and, finally, from society itself. Marxism surpasses the criticisms of religion dating back to the Enlightenment as well as the vulgar-marxist criticisms that associated religion and religious feeling with human ignorance and delusion. Marxism places religion into the historical framework including the social and economic setting which is changing, developing and thus producing or bringing about changes in religious consciousness. In their practice, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia or what was later the League of Communists of Yugoslavia had an attitude to religion and the church that was a mixture of some original Marxism but also, in much larger measure, of dogmatic, Leninist-Marxist and most often administrative –pragmatic stands which suited the then balance of political power in the state or at lower administrative levels. This attitude was also conditioned by the situation in the party, the state, Yugoslavia’s international position, the situation in the church, etc. In this context, one can say that in the actual laws and regulations governing the legal status of the church and the issue of the religious rights and liberties of citizens the atheist approach predominated, i.e. the approach that was solely and exclusively determined in relation to God. This approach seems to have predominated due to the negative experience gained by the workers’ movement in Yugoslavia between the two World Wars as well as during the course of the Second World War when the majority of church activists adopted a negative attitude to the National Liberation Movement (NLM). The process of atheization which was launched immediately following the end of the Second World War, in addition to formally playing a major role in establishing and giving legitimacy to the new social system of government, was also ongoing, in terms of its attitude to the churches, on at least two levels: 1) depoliticization of all religious communities; and 2) supression of the idea that religious attributes should be identified as national attributes in the established and traditional churches and religious communities (Serbian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Islamic Religious Community).

This article explores the manner in which politico-legal language makes use of metaphors of violence and destruction in order to describe state/legal functions and actions. It argues that although such use of a militaristic hyperbole is generally regarded as normal and appropriate, it is in fact harmful in the way that it presents complex and specific problems as being simple and abstract. From a semiotic point of view, and using the work of Roland Barthes, law is regarded as a system of signs and ‘combative’ legal language can be seen as ideological manipulation through the technique of so-called second-level signification (myth). Although it is conceded that law, similar to all other interpretive systems, cannot avoid the use of metaphoric language, it is argued that we should resist regarding legal language as neutral and ‘natural’ and that we should rather retain the memory of legal concepts and categories as historical, man-made, and therefore always open to revision.