3.3.A Reconsidering the Sacredness of Human Life: Moral Identity Shifts and Moral Injury During the Transition from Military to Civilian Life
Tracks
Concurrent Session C
| Friday, May 22, 2026 |
| 9:20 AM - 9:45 AM |
| Room 4 |
Overview
Presenter: Allister Baker
Speaker
Mr Allister Baker
PhD Candidate
University of Canterbury
Reconsidering the Sacredness of Human Life: Moral Identity Shifts and Moral Injury During the Transition from Military to Civilian Life
Abstract Document
Moral injury (MI) is increasingly understood as arising when exposure to potentially morally injurious events disrupts an individual’s moral identity, resulting in persistent moral distress. Recent conceptual developments frame MI within a broader category of moral problems, emphasising the interaction between moral events, moral identity, and resulting moral symptoms (Mattson et al., 2025). One moral value central to military-related MI is the sanctity of human life, which may be appraised differently depending on social role and context.
The present study examines how killing is understood differently in military and civilian contexts and how moral identity shapes moral appraisal and perceived moral injury. Active military personnel, retired veterans, and civilians from the Five Eyes nations completed vignette-based measures assessing the perceived sacredness of human life through willingness to engage in taboo trade-offs involving killing in military versus civilian contexts. Participants also reported perceived moral injury symptoms associated with these scenarios.
Results revealed significant group differences in both moral valuation and moral injury appraisal. Active military personnel attributed lower sacredness to human life and reported fewer moral injury symptoms in military contexts compared to retired veterans and civilians. In contrast, veterans reported greater perceived moral injury than active military personnel, indicating that post-service changes in moral identity may lead to the reappraisal of past military actions through civilian moral frameworks.
These findings support a moral identity-based account of moral injury, suggesting that MI vulnerability may increase following military transition as moral identities evolve and sacred values are reasserted. By empirically situating the sanctity of human life within a moral event-moral identity-moral symptom framework (Mattson et al., 2025), this research contributes to emerging models of moral problems and highlights the importance of contextual and identity-sensitive approaches to assessment, transition support, and moral repair among military veterans.
The present study examines how killing is understood differently in military and civilian contexts and how moral identity shapes moral appraisal and perceived moral injury. Active military personnel, retired veterans, and civilians from the Five Eyes nations completed vignette-based measures assessing the perceived sacredness of human life through willingness to engage in taboo trade-offs involving killing in military versus civilian contexts. Participants also reported perceived moral injury symptoms associated with these scenarios.
Results revealed significant group differences in both moral valuation and moral injury appraisal. Active military personnel attributed lower sacredness to human life and reported fewer moral injury symptoms in military contexts compared to retired veterans and civilians. In contrast, veterans reported greater perceived moral injury than active military personnel, indicating that post-service changes in moral identity may lead to the reappraisal of past military actions through civilian moral frameworks.
These findings support a moral identity-based account of moral injury, suggesting that MI vulnerability may increase following military transition as moral identities evolve and sacred values are reasserted. By empirically situating the sanctity of human life within a moral event-moral identity-moral symptom framework (Mattson et al., 2025), this research contributes to emerging models of moral problems and highlights the importance of contextual and identity-sensitive approaches to assessment, transition support, and moral repair among military veterans.
Biography
My name is Allister Baker, and I am a military veteran and PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. I served as an infantryman in the New Zealand Army for more than a decade, including deployments to Timor-Leste and Afghanistan. During my service, I encountered experiences that deeply challenged my sense of morality, experiences that continued to shape how I understood right and wrong long after leaving the military.
In the years that followed, I struggled to reconcile those events with my values as a civilian. While studying psychology, I discovered the concept of moral injury and immediately recognised its relevance, not only to my own journey but to that of many other veterans seeking to make sense of similar experiences.
My current research suggests that actions considered necessary or justified within military culture, such as the use of lethal force, may later be reappraised as morally injurious once veterans return to civilian life. My doctoral research now builds on this work, exploring how veterans’ moral values evolve after service and how these shifts influence the persistence of moral injury. Ultimately, my goal is to inform better support for service members during transition and reintegration.
