The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, (...) who both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post-conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering. (shrink)

Constitutivists about moral norms are often suspected of providing an overly “self-centered” account of morality which does not take seriously enough morality’s interpersonal nature. This worry see...

The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, (...) who both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post-conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering. (shrink)

Three studies examined how members of a national group react to in-group wrongdoings. We expected that perceived in-group moral superiority would lead to unwillingness to repair the aggression. We also expected that internal-focused emotions such as group-based guilt and group-based shame would predict specific, misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation toward the victim groups. In Study 1, facing the in-group’s recent aggression, participants who believed that the Hungarians have been more moral throughout their history than members of (...) other nations, used more exonerating cognitions, experienced less in-group critical emotions and showed less willingness to provide reparations for the members of the victim group. Study 2 and Study 3 confirmed most findings of Study 1. Perceived in-group moral superiority directly or indirectly reduced willingness to provide either general or specific reparations, while internally focused in-group critical emotions predicted specific misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation. The role of emotional attachment to the in-group is considered. (shrink)

When addressing the burdens borne by victims of police wrongdoing, we often overlook moral harms in focusing on the physical and psychological harms that they suffer. These moral harms undermine the moral status of the victim, her ability to consistently pursue the values she endorses, and her character. Victimhood is a morally significant social role. Victimhood imposes normative standards that measure the moral or political status of victim. Conforming to these standards affects our assessment of the (...) conduct of the victim and her moral standing. Considering the victims’ role provides important insights into contemporary practices of policing in the United States. The physical and verbal acts of the police often force race-based degradation upon racially subordinated groups. There is often no morally good way out of racially discriminatory encounters when the choice is to degrade oneself or suffer violence or even death. Worse, how we respond to the threat of police violence morally undermines our relationships with those we would keep safe from police violence. (shrink)

We are often pressed to forgive or in need of forgiveness: Wrongdoing is common. Even after a perpetrator has been taken to court and punished, forgiveness still has a role to play. How should a victim and a perpetrator relate to each other outside the courtroom, and how should others relate to them? Communicating about forgiveness is particularly urgent in cases of civil war and crimes against humanity inside a community where, if there were no forgiveness, the (...) community would fall apart. Forgiveness is governed by social and, in particular, by moral norms. Do those who ask to be forgiven have to fulfil certain conditions for being granted forgiveness? And what does the granting of forgiveness consist in? We may feel like refusing to forgive those perpetrators who have committed the most horrendous crimes. But is such a refusal justified even if they repent their crimes? Could there be a duty for the victim to forgive? Can forgiveness be granted by a third party? Under which conditions may we forgive ourselves? The papers collected in the present volume address all these questions, exploring the practice of forgiveness and its normative constraints. Topics include the ancient Chinese and the Christian traditions of forgiveness, the impact of forgiveness on the moral dignity and self-respect of the victim, self-forgiveness, the narrative of forgiveness as well as the limits of forgiveness. Such limits may arise from the personal, historical, or political conditions of wrongdoing or from the emotional constraints of the victims. (shrink)

A classic avenue that victims can take to hold a corporation to account and obtain redress for the harms they have suffered is civil litigation. In the past decades, such attempts have been pursued against corporations in the tobacco industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the asbestos industry or industries working with asbestos and, more recently, the extractive industries. However, it is notoriously difficult for victims whose rights have been violated by corporations to obtain effective redress in civil procedures. A rich body (...) of burgeoning scholarly literature and policy documents has addressed the extent to which systematic and institutional factors are obstacles to victims seeking justice for corporate misconduct. In this article, we will not focus on these systemic and institutional factors but on the role of corporate defence lawyers as their functioning also impacts the capacity of victims of corporate wrongdoing to effectuate their rights. We will address the question of what can be expected from a legal-ethical point of view from corporate defence lawyers advising and representing their corporate clients in large-scale civil liability cases. As a partial answer, we will develop a critique of amoral lawyering as a working philosophy in this context. In addition, we will touch upon the feasibility of a possible alternative. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% (...) female). General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

The harm principle, understood as the normative requirement that conduct should be criminalized only if it is harmful, has difficulty in dealing with those core cases of criminal wrongdoing that can occur without causing any direct harm. Advocates of the harm principle typically find it implausible to hold that these core cases should not be crimes and so usually seek out some indirect harm that can justify criminalizing the seemingly harmless conduct. But this strategy justifies criminalization of a wide (...) range of conduct on the basis of the fear, worry, and anxiety it generates among those who are not the direct victims of the conduct, and thereby undermines the limiting role of the harm principle by permitting the very move it was meant to prevent: the criminalization of harmless conduct on the ground of others’ feelings about it. The best way to avoid this dilemma is to recognize that people have rights, operating independently of the harm principle, to be treated in certain ways just because they are persons. The existence of such rights provides a ground for both criminalizing conduct and limiting the scope of criminalization because these rights point both to conduct that people must be permitted to engage in and conduct that might well be criminalized. A complete account of criminal law will therefore require the harm principle to work together with an independent account of rights. (shrink)

Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument against the existence of God has generated a great deal of discussion. One prominent line of reply has been the idea that God refrains from making His existence more apparent in order to safeguard our moral freedom. Schellenberg has provided extensive counter-replies to this idea. My goal here is to pursue an alternate line of response, though one that still makes some reference to the importance of free-will. It will be argued that God may remain temporarily ‘hidden’ (...) to some people not merely in order to allow their free moral choice, but because His proper allowance of such choice has led to a great deal of suffering on the part of the victims of wicked choices. If His existence were constantly obvious to those victims, even in the midst of their victimization, many of them would be led to an attitude of enmity, even hatred, toward God. (shrink)

Achilles is vindictive; he wants to get even with Agamemnon. Being so disposed, he sounds rather like many current crime victims who angrily complain that the American system of criminal justice will not allow them the satisfactions they rightfully seek. These victims often feel that their particular injuries are ignored while the system addresses itself to some abstract injury to the state or to the rule of law itself – a focus that appears to result in wrongdoers being treated with (...) much greater solicitation and respect than their victims receive. If the actual victims are noticed at all, they will likely be told that there is another branch of law – tort law – that has the job of dealing with private injuries and grievances and that, if they pursue this route at their own expense, they might ultimately get some financial compensation for the wrongs done to them. However, just as Achilles felt that mere compensation was inadequate to the kind of injury done to him by Agamemnon, many of these victims will often claim that the injuries they have suffered do not admit of financial compensation. How, they might ask, can a dollar value be set on the humiliation and degradation they have experienced? They might also note that those who injure them tend, unlike Agamemnon, to be judgment-proof – so lacking in resources as to be unable to make any meaningful contribution to any compensation package that the victim may win. (shrink)

In 2016, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen officially apologised to the island’s indigenous peoples. This national apology not only plays a persuasive role in informing the general public about the historical wrongdoings inflicted on the Taiwanese aborigines, but also constitutes a therapeutic and restorative role in the process of reconciliation with the indigenous victims. This article provides a critical discourse analysis of President Tsai’s apology. In particular, it examines the power and ideology embedded in both the speech and the (...) related ceremony, and is supplemented with extracts from interviews with a cross-section of key stakeholders, such as a former Constitutional/supreme Court Justice, indigenous/tribal leaders and members/staff/advisers from the Presidential Office Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee. The analysis reveals that, despite President Tsai’s apology and reconciliation policies, instead of facilitating reconciliation, the apology appears to exacerbate the long-standing latent tension between indigenous and non-indigenous groups. While the apology opens a window for reconciliation, a higher level of commitment is required to promote structural and systemic changes, such as land restitution, before the apology can be deemed adequate. (shrink)

How can we respond in the aftermath of wrongdoing? How can social trust be restored in the wake of intense political conflict? In this challenging work, philosopher Trudy Govier explores central dilemmas of political reconciliation, employing illustrative material from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Peru, and elsewhere. Govier stresses that reconciliation is fundamentally about relationships. Whether through means of truth commissions, apologies, community processes, or criminal trials, the basic goal of reconciliation is improved social trust among alienated (...) individuals and groups. A major strength of Govier's approach is her creative practical framework for reflection. She explains that people should not to be identified with the roles they may have played, and she points out that, with reference to wrongs committed in political conflicts, individuals often play several roles. The perpetrators of some acts can be the victims of others; the victims in some circumstances may become responsive interveners in others. Rare is the political conflict in which one group commits all wrongs. Govier argues that, to build social trust and sustainable peace, acknowledgment of past wrongs is crucial. The need for mutuality in acknowledgment is an underappreciated aspect of the aftermath of conflicts. She further examines the themes of responsibility ; apology; forgiveness; reparations; the rehabilitation of child soldiers; the problems of monetary compensation; and truth-telling and truth commissions. Govier's lucid style and willingness to explore counterarguments make this a lively and thought-provoking work. (shrink)

In the last decades, interest in the study of the negative consequences of bullying for the victims has increased. Victims are often known to show emotional adjustment issues, such as negative self-concept and low life satisfaction. Moreover, some studies have observed important associations between self-concept and life satisfaction, in which a positive self-concept is related to high levels of life satisfaction. Other studies have pointed out the importance of emotional intelligence, as a regulatory and protective factor against the negative impact (...) of victimization on adjustment in adolescents. The main objective of this work was to analyze the mediating effect of self-concept on life satisfaction and the moderated mediation effect of EI on self-concept and life satisfaction in the context of peer victimization. The participants in the study were 1,318 Spanish students of both sexes and aged between 11 and 18 years, from four compulsory secondary education centers. The results indicated that, on the one hand, self-concept mediated the relationship between victimization and life satisfaction. On the other hand, EI was not only positively associated with self-concept, but it also significantly moderated the negative influence of victimization on self-concept. EI may also indirectly moderate the relationship between victimization and life satisfaction through the self-concept. These data show the importance of EI as a possible protective and moderating factor of the negative effect of bullying on emotional adjustment, which is interesting for the design of future prevention and intervention programs in school contexts. (shrink)

Do victims’ emotions underlie preschoolers’ moral judgment abilities? Study 1 asked preschoolers (n = 72) to judge actions directed at characters who could and could not feel hurt and who did and did not cry. These judgments took into account only the nature of the action, not the nature of the victim. To further investigate how victims’ emotions might impact children’s moral judgments, Study 2 presented preschoolers (n = 37) with stories that varied in transgression type (Moral, Conventional, or (...) None) and victim’s reaction (Crying Present or Crying Absent). As in Study 1, children’s judgments were affected primarily by transgression type, and not by emotion. In an analogous task, judgments of children with autism spectrum disorders (Study 3; n = 12) were affected by both transgression type and crying. Typically developing children’s moral judgments are thus concerned primarily with action type, not with emotional displays, but the judgments of children with autism spectrum disorders can be swayed by victims’ emotions. (shrink)

Introduction: As an occupational group, medical providers working with victims of trauma are prone to negative consequences of their work, particularly secondary traumatic stress symptoms. Various factors affect susceptibility to STS, including work-related and organizational determinants, as well as individual differences. The aim of the study was to establish the mediating role of cognitive trauma processing in the relationship between job satisfaction and STS symptoms among medical providers.Procedure and Participants: Results were obtained from 419 healthcare providers working with victims (...) of trauma. Three questionnaires, namely the Secondary Traumatic Stress Inventory, Work Satisfaction Scale, and Cognitive Trauma Processing Scale, were used in the study, as well as a survey developed for this research. Correlational and mediation analyses were applied to assess relations between variables.Results: The results showed significant links between STS symptoms and both job satisfaction and cognitive processing of trauma. Three cognitive coping strategies play the intermediary role in the relationship between job satisfaction and symptoms of secondary traumatic stress. However, this role varies depending on preferred strategies.Conclusion: Nurses and paramedics are significantly exposed to the occurrence of STS. Thus, it is important to engage health care providers in activities aimed at preventing and reducing symptoms of STS. (shrink)

This article was a response to and completion of a Liturgy on Domestic Violence, marking the start of the UN's End Domestic Violence to Women Week, 2001. This article examines some of the causes and results of domestic violence from within a feminist theological viewpoint. Although domestic violence has deep roots in human culture, this article considers the possibilities for curbing this destructive form of human behaviour. The pattern of domestic violence that is found in contemporary societies has remarkable parallels (...) with some of the stories of women found in the Hebrew Scriptures. These parallels are examined and the conclusion offered is that there are theological connections with domestic violence. Christianity could do more both to acknowledge its responsibility for the conditions that give rise to domestic violence, and to help to eradicate it. (shrink)

Victim/survivor stories have become one of the primary means for conveying human rights abuses. Even as these kinds of stories have captured our collective imagination, we do not know much about how they operate in a transitional democracy: whether they are transformative and contribute to the peacemaking process, or disruptive and can thwart the process.This article discusses the value of such stories and asks, first, whether an emerging democracy has an ethical obligation to provide spaces for victims and survivors (...) to tell their stories of the harms that befell them under the former regime. It concludes that victim/survivor storytelling can assist former victims in finding and building of voice that enables them to become contributing citizens in the new country. It enables them to become less alienated from and suspicious of the state, and to become empowered enough to participate in governance. It is thus in a country’s best interest to encourage storytelling activities. Second, the article attempts to provide a framework by which we might recognize different kinds of stories and begin to distinguish between those that a country should support and those that it should discourage. (shrink)

While many possible goals could be achieved by punishing offenders, the reality of punishment in today's criminal justice system is that lawmakers have created the illusion of purpose in punishment when in fact the expectations are unrealistic and the options for punishment too few to expect the simultaneous accomplishment of all possible desirable goals. This lack of clear purpose has led to a punishment policy shaped largely by what some scholars refer to as “paranoid politicians,” who have used public fear (...) of crime as a fulcrum to launch “tough on crime” policies. Over a long period of time, this process has created a punishment system that many scholars argue has become too harsh and exceeds what a system of just deserts would allow for. This outcome has led some to propose that systematic mercy be implemented where appropriate, in order to offset the perceived harshness of the criminal justice system. While such a proposal is problematic, a re-evaluation of punishment policy seems appropriate. This paper suggests that any re-evaluation of punishment policy should include provisions for a broader consideration of victims' issues in sentencing as an integral part of the implementation of punishment in a truly just system. (shrink)

Are all norms cognized in the same way? I present experimental evidence suggesting that they are not. I propose a distinction between two main classes of violations—the victimful and the victimless—and show that while people tend to rate acts belonging to either category as impermissible, the justifications for their judgments refer to salient features of the act only in the former case. I further show that Feinberg's distinction between harmful and offensive acts is useful in discriminating between different types of (...) victimful violations. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that victims of unjust harm should take priority over victims of other forms of harm. We explore four arguments for this view: that victims of unjust harm experience greater suffering; that prioritizing victims of unjust harm would help prevent unjust harm in the future; that it is good for perpetrators that their victims be prioritized; and that it is impersonally better that victims of unjust harm are prioritized. We argue that the first three arguments fail but (...) that the fourth argument succeeds. Moral agents have a reason to prioritize victims of wrongdoing because this secures the impersonal value of corrective justice. However, this reason can be activated differently for different agents depending on how they are situated relative to the wrongdoing, and it may be outweighed by other factors, such as the extent of the harm that could be alleviated. (shrink)

Moral licensing theory suggests that observers may liberate actors to behave in morally questionable ways due to the actors’ history of moral behaviors. Drawing on this view, a scenario experiment with a 2 (high vs. low ethical)×2 (internal vs. external motivation) between-subject design (N = 455) was conducted in the current study. We examined whether prior ethical leader behaviors cause subordinates to license subsequent abusive supervision, as well as the moderating role of behavior motivation on such effects. The results (...) showed that when supervisors demonstrated prior ethical behaviors, subordinates, as victims, liberated them to act in abusive ways. Specifically, subordinates showed high levels of tolerance and low levels of condemnation towards abusive supervision and seldom experienced emotional responses to supervisors’ abusive behaviors. Moreover, subordinates tended to attribute abusive supervision, viewed as a kind of mistreatment without an immediate intent to cause harm, to characteristics of the victims and of the organization rather than of the supervisors per se. When supervisors behaved morally out of internal rather than external motivations, the aforementioned licensing effects were stronger. (shrink)

Citizen-gathered evidence (CGE) gathered by individuals organized in collectives have the potential to demonstrate environmental and social wrongdoings in court. We identify (collective) agency and resistance in how individuals and communities that have been exposed to socio-environmental stressors turn to gather CGE. We explore the modes through which people gather scientific data, produce CGE, alert authorities to environmental harm, and the methods by which data can be shared with communities, beginning with the case studies of civic environmental monitoring addressing coal (...) ash pollution in North Carolina. We analyze the case studies through a theoretical lens built on (1) the theory of civic monitoring “as resistance;” (2) the argument that CGE can embody “collective intelligence;” and (3) the concept of “crowd science” through a decentralized yet coordinated network. In the first part of the article, we introduce the case studies. Then, we illustrate our theoretical frame as applied to the analysis of the cases. We discuss the cases and in particular the CGE at issue through the prism of the frame. We demonstrate how CGE can be valuable not only for civil society and civic organizations, but also for competent authorities. In our conclusion, we identify critical junctures of our case studies, such as that of “knowledge crowdsourcing” to demand justice that triggers the government to take action and the existence of a “coordinated” yet decentralized crowd to capture the full extension of the problem. Lastly, we outline the limitations of our study, a future research agenda, and still open questions. (shrink)

Although several philosophical approaches to shame emphasize the role of the ‘other’ this has attracted less attention from psychologists. The psychological construct of self-awareness does not adequately account for the shift in perspective that is involved in shame or embarrassment. This paper outlines a framework for the analysis of shame which emphasises the adoption of another perspective on the self. It proposes that shame is experienced when an individual recognises that an action can give rise to a negative interpretation (...) by others of core aspects of the self, even if he or she does not share that interpretation and there is no self-attribution of responsibility for any wrongdoing. The framework is applied to the analysis of two episodes from Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South. The character is described as experiencing intense shame, despite her belief that she has behaved properly, and this is accompanied by her preoccupation with how her behaviour can be interpreted by others. (shrink)

Agents sometimes innocently benefit from the wrongdoing perpetrated by others. It has been asserted that when this happens the beneficiary acquires a defeasible duty to disgorge these benefits until the beneficiary’s gain is extinguished or the victim’s loss has been reversed. At the same time, critics have denied the existence of duties of disgorgement. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by proposing a novel account of the underlying justification, or rationale, for disgorgement duties grounded in the (...) value of corrective justice. An agent benefiting from injustice has a duty to disgorge, on this account, because fulfilling this duty helps correct injustice by making it as though the transaction that wrongfully enriched them had never happened. We go on to address five objections to this account of disgorgement duties and argue that the corrective justice account can withstand these objections. (shrink)

The stigma of reporting wrongdoing at work: When doing right is perceived as wrong The act of reporting unethical, illegal and illegitimate practices at work, whistleblowing, can be associated with a stigma for the individual in question. This article presents the stigmatizing position of reporting wrongdoing at work, types of wrongdoing and individual antecedents. Since empirical studies have shown very few systematic results regarding individual differences, one way to decrease societal stigma can be to relate the act (...) of reporting to other known acts that are perceived upon as more positive within society. We therefore also discuss similarities and differences between the idea of whistleblowing and other concepts such as Organizational Citizenship Behaviour, in-role, and extra-role behaviour before we make some concluding remarks. (shrink)

This paper proposes that Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil furnishes both philosophical and empirical elements to understand not only the Nazi crimes but also cases of wrongdoing by and within current organizations. It is suggested that Arendt provides three relevant standpoints to how wrongdoing is banalized within organizations: a critique of bureaucratic administration, an account of the role of interactive socialization, and a reflection on the cognitive and meaning-attribution processes. (...) Arendt originally connected these three dimensions to thoughtlessness, understood as a process of routinization in which organizations discourage critical thinking, personal responsibility, and reflection about the ultimate meaning and consequences of actions and decisions. As opposed to this, thoughtfulness is proposed as an approach based on meaningful pursuit within organizations to avoid some of the normative, cognitive, and routine elements that encourage, justify, and reproduce the banalization of misconduct. (shrink)

Information of high evidentiary quality plays a crucial role in forensic investigations. Research shows that information provided by witnesses and victims often provide major leads to an inquiry. As such, statements should be obtained in the shortest possible time following an incident. However, this is not achieved in many incidents due to demands on resources. This intersectional study examined the effectiveness of a chatbot (the AICI), that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and a cognitive interview (CI) to help record statements (...) following an incident. After viewing a sexual harassment video, the present study tested recall accuracy in participants using AICI compared to other tools (i.e., Free Recall, CI Questionnaire, and CI Basic Chatbot). Measuring correct items (including descriptive items) and incorrect items (errors and confabulations), it was found that the AI CI elicited more accurate information than the other tools. The implications on society include AI CI provides an alternative means of effectively and efficiently recording high-quality evidential statements from victims and witnesses. (shrink)

In this article Goffman's theories on participation framework and change in footing are applied to discursive material from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The main finding is that a discursive setting such as the public hearings of a truth and reconciliation commission can be highly intricate and layered when considering the role of the various discourse participants. The testifying victims, the TRC commissioners and the audience engaged in various forms of subordinate communication — byplay, crossplay and sideplay (...) — in addition to the standardized and expected interaction between victims and commissioners. This tells us that face-to-face talk should not be regarded as the prototypical participation framework, even not in a highly stage-managed discursive setting. Moreover, by paying attention to the co-presence of also a `virtual' audience, the Goffmanian framework is taken beyond its confines of only discussing interaction between discourse participants who are physically present in a speech situation. In the end, each of the discourse participants tried to exploit the possibilities offered by this complex framework, thus adding to the impact the TRC had on South African society at large. (shrink)

The victim is a universal cultural phenomenon. It consolidates the community, causes a powerful affect that allows the community to experience itself as a collective body. The main hypothesis of the article is that on the basis of understanding the specifics of the victim in modern culture, trauma can be understood as a biopolitical concept. The authors assume that in the modern cultural space the meaning of sacrifice is pushed to marginal positions by the meaning of victim, (...) and show that the talk about the victim takes place within the narrative of trauma. Such semantic transformations vividly illustrate the logic of changing power dispositions. A clear marker of trauma is not so much the painful sense of loss caused by catastrophic events, but the breakdown and identity crisis that accompany the trauma. The victim appears as a protest of a unique collective body-topos opposed to a society of unified consumption. Arguments are given for understanding trauma as a biopolitical concept: it is a compromise between biopolitical ethics, which emphasises the sanctity of life, and the basis of biopolitics, which is connected with the reproduction of the figure of the victim as the embodiment of ‘bare life’. It is concluded that cultural trauma with its collective affectation can be regarded as the main nerve of modern biopolitics. Further reflection on trauma in the biopolitical context will make it possible to actualise the issue of transformation of the role of the victim in culture, to show a new perspective of trauma in the dramatic play of knowledge and power. (shrink)

Since the first diagnosis of an HIV infection in 1956, the number of victims infected with the virus has dramatically increased to 40.3 million in 2005. The countries of sub-Saharan Africa carry the largest burden of HIV/AIDS worldwide. Various programs against the spread of the epidemic in this region have been promised. The objective of this article is to analyze to what extent these programs can achieve a sustainable effect. This article examines in detail the sustainability of thirteen programmes initiated (...) by large American and European pharmaceutical companies. It finds that none of the examined programs offers a fully sustainable solution. However, programs that were organized in cooperation with local authorities or organizations appear suitable to reach sustainable effects in high-prevalencecountries. As a result, cooperation seems to be an important prerequisite to implement the infrastructural measures necessary to guarantee sustainable effects in sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)

The study of discursive understandings of cybervictimisation draws on a dataset of crime news reporting and asks the question of if and how cybervictimisation is construed in ways that differ from other types of victimisation. Building on a critical discourse perspective employing corpus-based text analysis methods, the composition of news discourses about cybervictimisation are analysed, alongside the relationship between such representations and news media discourse on crime victimisation generally. The aim is to see what effect the presence of a digital (...) dimension has for how the notion of victimisation is socially and culturally understood. The study shows, first, that news reporting on cybervictimisation has a strong bias towards crimes that fit well with the notion of ‘the ideal victim’ while excluding other types like hacking and identity theft. The question is raised whether ‘victim’ discourse is able to account for the latter types or if new understandings and concepts will emerge. Second, the study shows that discourses promoting understandings of technology as contributing to amplifying danger, and that represent technology as potentially undermining social order, are strong in cybervictimisation news reports. These discourses are consequential for who is seen as a legitimate victim and not. Just as it can be very difficult to identify and apprehend perpetrators of cybercrime, so is also the identification and definition of cybervictims ambiguous and demands to be further researched. (shrink)

The comfort women case in South Korea has been a polemic issue in the context of inherited responsibility. The Japanese government who emphasizes on state as an agent for taking the responsibility tends either to deny collective responsibility of historic wrongdoings or to limit the scope of its roles to superficial ways such as reparation. Meanwhile South Korea demands not only reparation but official apology, emotional compassion, and material compensation on the ground that nation, not state, should be accountable for (...) historic injustice, but this claim still encounters a difficulty of application to cases originated in multinational countries. Based on these observations, I will develop two arguments: (1) that reciprocal nondomination conceptualized with civic responsibility will better the comfort women case in the context of inherited responsibility because this contains full ground of deliberation in which those who come from regardless of state or nation can participate; (2) that reciprocal nondomination embodied with civic responsibility can be operated as a regulative principle which prompts both victims and wrongdoers to have their deliberative stances and to reach an agreement conducive to transitional justice. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of parental and peer relationships’ quality on homophobic victimization and possible consequences on mental health during adolescence. Participants were 394 adolescents, (41.6% male and 58.4 % female) aged 15-20 years (M = 16.55; SD =.85), attending the third and fourth classes of public high schools in Italy. Participants completed the Homophobic Bullying Scale to evaluate homophobic victimization toward gays and lesbians or assumed homosexuals, the Symptom Check-list-90 to evaluate mental health, and the Inventory of (...) Parent and Peer Attachment to investigate quality of peer and parental relationships (in term of communication, disaffection and trust). Results show how quality of peer relationships is not connected with victimization, as well as quality of parental relationships is linked with homophobic victimization, that is also connected with anxiety and somatization problems. Theoretical and educational implications were discussed. (shrink)

The shift from a welfarist to a retributivist perspective on crime, which is one of the themes of David Garland?s book, has brought with it a renewed emphasis on the victims of crime and their rights. This shift in emphasis, I suggest, raises questions about the way we think of the relationship between individual citizens and between citizens and the state. Different political theories will produce different accounts of this relationship and hence different ways of characterising the status and (...) class='Hi'>role of victims in the criminal process. In this paper then I sketch a roughly communitarian view of the citizen relationship as a context for an account of the status of victims. Thus, I argue, we need to consider not just the expectations that victims rightly have that they have rights which should to be recognised in the criminal process but also their duties as participants. Duties which require them to bear witness in calling offenders to account. This gives victims an active role in the criminal process but one that may come at a price since it might require victims to be subjected to greater scrutiny in the process of a criminal trial than they might find bearable. (shrink)

In this paper, I take issue with the widespread philosophical consensus that only victims of wrongdoing are in a position to forgive it. I offer both a defense and a philosophical account of third-party forgiveness. I argue that when we deny this possibility, we misconstrue the complex, relational nature of wrongdoing and its harms. We also risk over-moralizing the victim's position and overlooking the roles played by secondary participants. I develop an account of third-party forgiveness that both (...) demonstrates how successful, morally legitimate, acts of third-party forgiveness are possible and simultaneously highlights the particular moral risks that would-be third-party forgivers face. I conclude insofar as they are appropriately grounded and cautiously bestowed, at least some acts of third-party forgiveness contribute significantly to post-conflict repair. (shrink)

Increased interest in positive changes in the aftermath of traumatic events led researchers to examine assumptions about the process of posttraumatic growth. However, existing studies often use samples from mixed trauma survivors and investigate separate factors and their associations with growth. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine the path from centrality of event to PTG involving intrusive and deliberate rumination and self-blame as a coping strategy in women survivors of intimate partner violence. The study sample consisted (...) of 200 women with a history of IPV. Results of the path analysis indicated that higher centrality of event was related to higher levels of intrusive rumination which was positively related to self-blame and deliberate rumination eventually leading to PTG. Indirect effects from centrality of event to PTG through intrusive and deliberate rumination, and from intrusive to deliberate rumination through self-blame were examined. This study gave support to some theoretical assumptions of the process of PTG and pointed out problematic areas of investigation of coping strategies in this process. (shrink)

Control accounts of moral responsibility argue that agents must possess certain capacities in order to be blameworthy for wrongdoing. This is sometimes thought to be revisionary, because reflection on our moral practices reveals that we often blame many agents who lack these capacities. This paper argues that Control accounts of moral responsibility are not too revisionary, nor too permissive, because they can still demand quite a lot from excused wrongdoers. Excused wrongdoers can acquire duties of reconciliation, which require that (...) they improve themselves, make reparations for the harm caused, and retract the meaning expressed in the original wrong. Failure to do these things expresses a lack of regard for the victims, and can make those wrongdoers appropriate targets of blame. (shrink)

Purpose. The aim of this article is an analysis of the main versions of the biodeterminist tradition of re­solving the issue of the nature of gender identity, as well as identification of the advantages of the new version of biodeterminism, which involves elements of social constructivism. Theoretical basis. Social norms determine the extent to which a person has the right to independently determine his or her gender identity, and even more so, to change his or her body according to such (...) gender concepts. Social norms regulate gender relations in society and direct the gender behavior of individuals. However, social norms do not create either the human body, or those biological laws, according to which it functions. Originality. The biodetermist theories of the gender were analyzed from the position of "week" social constructivism. The role of social norms as a factor of gender self-certification, as well as a factor of control over social interference in the functioning of human corporeality is considered. The role of modern medicine as an increasingly influential institutional means of control over the functioning of human corporeality, and therefore, indirectly, and for the implementation of gender identity self-identification is revealed. Conclusions. According to the "week" social constructivism the gender emerges as an integral result of biological, psychological and social construction. The role of personality in the design of the gender has historically grown, but this role can never exclude the influence of biological and social factors that are increasingly becoming the nature of biological and social technologies. Personality can become a victim of these technologies, but he/she can program them, or at any rate selectively use, combine, or to some extent adjust existing biological and social technologies. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the theory of changes in perspectives allows a different presentation of the problems which arise from a loss of recognition as an element of punishment, particularly in reference to others, the entire structure of the interaction is changed. Communicative conditions of moral discourses assume that every participant of the argumentation process takes place in all spheres of social life and can assume the perspective common to all other participants. The main task (...) of criminal law is, then, the protection of elementary aspects of one’s role as a participant of interaction without which the chain of mutual recognition and understanding could be freely and at any moment infringed by any given participant of interactions, i.e. the protection of such rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary FictionAndrew J. McKennaThe Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary Fiction, by Cesareo Bandera; 318 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, $16.50.When we consider the early relations of philosophy and literature, we most often think of Republic X and about degrees of separation between (...) reality and its image. That is a mistake, according to Cesareo Bandera, who shows in his deft reading of Laws that Plato expelled the poets chiefly because of their threat to the difference between sacred and profane: their mournful harmoniae polluted sacred rites. In this Plato is closer to the religious world examined by Durkheim, where the absolute difference between sacred and profane alone guarantees all other differences. Aristotle is shown to be starkly misleading here, since his Poetics discuss tragedy as if it had nothing to do with the ritual practices in which it originates. His vaunted realism can only save poetry—and ontological appearances—by ignoring, by virtually expelling the sacred from its purview.This expulsion of the sacred from the horizon of our rationality is the thematic core of Bandera’s argument about modern literary fiction as it [End Page 189] emerges in the Renaissance. He does not bring the religious back to our attention to enthrall us with it anew, but to explain via formidable literary and historical scholarship how we stand with respect to it, and how we misunderstand our enlightened disrespect for it. Our modern scientific spirit, our really amazing freedom of inquiry, has a different genealogy than we commonly suppose.It is not primarily philosophy which grounds our humanist irreverence, but our Western religious tradition, which Bandera reads, along with René Girard, Roberto Calasso, and Marcel Gauchet, as a uniquely desacralizing agency in culture. His book’s central endeavor is to expand the implications of Girard’s sacrificial theory of social formation across close readings of ancient and Renaissance literature and criticism in order to show the constraints on rationality within a culture where the sacred veiled human violence. According to this view, that veil is rent irreparably with the revelation of the innocent victim as the vantage point from which to interpret the murderous fury of the crowd, however ritualized as awe for the god(s), or as art. A stunning analysis of Virgil (with an assist from Michel Serres’s reading of Lucretius) reveals a writer holding back from his appalled understanding of violent foundations. With the Renaissance, art is cannily deritualized; not pious Aeneas, born of a goddess, but Don Quixote, born in prison, sets the course for modern fiction.Bandera’s astute readings of Renaissance literature and criticism shed decisively new light on the significance of this axial period, poised at the fulcrum of his argument. His vast and probing research reminds us how modern literary fiction nourished its self-consciousness and freedom amidst lavish and vehement debate over mixing the human and divine. Stripped of the taboos limiting classical thought, the sacred’s monopoly on violence had eroded to reveal individual culpability—but also vast, new possibilities for thought and action. A clear ethical impulse accompanies these readings, in which Calderon and Cervantes are shown to deprive us of a sacred alibi for human violence, which is now a matter for me to resolve with my neighbor. Organically cultural imperatives lose ground to a sense of individual responsibility, which Bandera traces back to the historically documented ascendancy of devotio moderna in late medieval Europe.Despite and because of debates over its cultural role, Renaissance literature’s very marginality freed it to explore every dimension of human error. And we learn how those who unwittingly conspire to resacralize it, from Tasso and Shelley through Arnold and Frye, only continue to play the sacred game that caused shudders in Plato and inspires just plain silliness among our own critical anarchs and demystifyers.Bandera’s net is cast wide and deep, including a bracing debate with Milbank and Blumenberg, whose sweep he emulates successfully, and whose powerful analyses he corrects. Witty and adroit scrutiny of our “sacred allergy” extends... (shrink)

Objectives: This study explored a multidimensional model of the relationships between social media use, gender, peer bullying victimization experiences, and the onset of anxiety symptoms among children. We hypothesized that greater experience of bullying would be associated with greater onset of anxiety. We also expected that gender and social media use would be linked with anxiety among elementary school children. To test this hypothesis, a structural equation modeling approach was used.Methods: A total of 456 elementary children aged 11–13 years from (...) nine schools were recruited for this research. We used two psychological measures: The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders and the Personal Experience Checklist as well as a sociodemographic questionnaire.Results: The social media usage survey found that all participants used social media. Instagram and YouTube were the platforms most used by the participants. The Structural Equation Model results suggest that bullying victimization and gender predicted the onset of anxiety in elementary school children. The model explained 32.1% of the variance of the outcome with very adequate fit indicators based on most indices, χ2 = 173.56, df = 52, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.92; TLI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.07. Instagram use was correlated positively with generalized anxiety disorder. Gender was negatively correlated with Instagram use and positively correlated with YouTube use. Girls were found to use Instagram more and boys were found to use YouTube more. It was also found that girls had higher scores onSCARED dimensions, except for school avoidance. Girls were more prone to onset of anxiety than boys, except for school avoidance, which was not related to gender. Boys were found to experience significantly more physical bullying than girls. On the other hand, girls were found to experience more panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and social anxiety than boys.Conclusion: This study found that bullying victimization significantly influences the onset of anxiety in children. Particular attention should be paid to cyberbullying in this context. This study also found a link between gender and anxiety—girls had a greater tendency to experience the onset of various types of anxiety, including panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and social anxiety. Gender was also correlated with the form of bullying victimization. The findings of this study suggest that boys were more likely to experience physical bullying than girls. Interestingly, we found that Instagram use was significantly correlated with developing separation anxiety. In particular, children demonstrated school avoidance when experiencing cyberbullying. Limitations and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

Nirbhaya, Asifa, Manisha Valmiki, and the list of victims, (be it women, children or men) in India goes on. There is myriad of legislations enacted in the past to curb the offences, but the crimes in the society seem to be unstoppable. During the COVID time, in the lockdown too, the crimes continued to take place. There were several instances of domestic violence and rapes heard in news. Many instances of suicides were reported. It is really difficult to understand what (...) place in the country is safe for the existence and peaceful survival of any person? The question that arises is whether a victim who comes before the court is provided with the adequate relief? Has the Judiciary or the Parliament done something with this regard? Does the concept of compensatory jurisprudence exist in India? What more is required to be done to enhance the position of victims and rehabilitate them? The research article shall look into the concept of compensatory jurisprudence with respect to India and other nation states as well. There are prevailing enormous laws which discuss about the punishment to be given to the accused person guilty to have committed crime, but unfortunately, there is no specific law regarding the steps to be taken to rehabilitate a victim who has been the subject matter of any crime. The research paper shall deal with various aspects and try to analyse laws or rules, if any, existing with regard to the protection of victims in India or around the globe. It shall also try to look into the role that the States play in rehabilitating and compensating the sufferers and victims of various crimes. The article shall conclude with suggestions as to how the research gaps related to victim reparation be filled. (shrink)

Research has paid scant attention to reparative behavior to compensate for unintended wrongdoing or to the role of emotions in doing the right thing. We propose a new approach to investigating reparative behavior by looking at moral emotions and psychological proximity. In this study, we compare the effects of moral emotions (guilt and shame) on the level of compensation for financial harm. We also investigate the role of transgressors’ perceived psychological proximity to the victims of wrongdoing. (...) Our hypotheses were tested through a scenario based questionnaire on a sample of 261 participants. Analyses indicate that (1) guilt has a stronger effect on the level of compensation than shame; (2) psychological proximity influences the level of guilt, shame, and compensation; and (3) shame interacts with psychological proximity to predict compensation, whereas guilt mediates the relationship between psychological proximity and compensation. (shrink)