Individual and Social Dimensions of Moral Stress

The article is devoted to moral stress, which is understood as a combination of emotional reactions challenging the integrity of a system of moral norms and values, as well as a result of such an impact. Individual dimensions of moral stress are shown on the example of the analysis of the concepts of moral distress and moral injury. Using the concept of "moral resilience" as an example, approaches to overcoming moral stress are analyzed, which involve rationalizing the causes and consequences of traumatic events and changing the subject's attitude to stress factors. It is shown that these approaches manifest the therapeutic turn in culture. There is an increase in the influence of stress factors on modern life. If in the past the manifestations of moral stress were personalized and extreme, in modern times they acquire a habitual character and a collective dimension. The reason for this is the growing gap between the value system, which advocates individual well-being, and the system, aimed at the effective regulation of the social whole. The widening of this gap is associated, on the one hand, with the expansion of the space of individual freedom, on the other hand, with the extraordinary conditions of the fight against terrorism, the pandemic, etc., regulating of which requires the restriction of personal rights. The author proposes several strategies of overcoming moral stress. Defense strategies are labeled as moralization and intellectualization. The third strategy, which involves the support of individual well-being, is realized in the form of the so called "new ethics". It is concluded that to overcome moral stress, it is necessary to initiate not only internal, but also structural changes. To do this, it is necessary to go beyond the psychological interpretation of individual moral stress to broad interdisciplinary generalizations on its social causes and collective manifestations.

moral stress, moral distress, moral trauma, moral elasticity, therapeutic turn, collective trauma, social stress, new ethics