All the silly images we see in safety of psychosocial harm as a monster are myth. Moral harm is insidious, deceptive and often not realised till well after an event/decision.
A good start in understanding moral harm/hazards is here: https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-moral-hazards/
At the foundation of understanding moral hazards/harm is the need to have a clear understanding of personhood and power. Neither of these are discussed in risk and safety as is evidenced by the AIHS BoK Chapter on non-ethics.
A good example of a moral hazard is the confusion invoked by the HOP slogan ‘blame fixes nothing’. Indeed, calling such a nonsense slogan a ‘principle’ is deceptive and dishonest. A principle is a fundamental truth or proposition and, in this slogan, we see neither. The truth is, blame fixes many things and is the foundation of the court system. Being sucked in by this slogan and the silly idea of shifting blame from individuals to systems, is just more safety myth (https://safetyrisk.net/the-myth-of-shifting-blame-from-individuals-to-systems/). Yet, follow the money and you will find out why it’s such a good seller.
Why have a mature approach to blame when a slogan will do? (https://safetyrisk.net/the-meaning-of-blame-thinking-beyond-the-spin-and-slogans/ )
At the foundation of moral harm is the dilemma of a contested moral principle, what ethicists often call a ‘moral dilemma’. For example, being asked to harm someone in the name of good. We see this often in the semantics of safety where something desired by Safety (eg. zero injury rates) is used to override the privacy, dignity, autonomy, consent and beneficence of a person.
One of the results of Safety being so weak and blind to Ethics is the creation of moral harm. We see this evidenced where people unqualified in Ethics (eg. engineers and safety advisors – https://safetyrisk.net/assp-the-ethics-amateurs/) pronounce simplistic propositions about how to tackle risk ethically/morally. And yet, at no place in such discourse is there any mention of personhood, power or moral meaning. This is how Safety creates moral hazards and then runs around shouting about psychosocial harm!
If you want to make a positive start in The Ethics of Risk, you could start here: https://safetyrisk.net/the-ethics-of-safety/ or the free book download here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/
Prof. Robert Long
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Rob Sams says
This is such an important topic (moral injury) and one I don’t hear referenced often in risk and safety, although it has been increasingly discussed, especially on LinkedIn in recent years. While I appreciate the references in this article, another person who may be relevant on this topic is Dr Nikki Jamieson, see- linkedin.com/in/dr-nikki-jamieson-658835154. Having completed her PhD in this area, I find her work is insightful as it takes a different, although similar path to the author of this blog piece.
Dr. Jamieson founded Moral Injury Australia, which now has a LinkedIn page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/moral-injury-australia/about/) and is currently developing a website. This might interest some readers of this post.
Finally, the post makes me wonder how many people carry these tensions alone, unsure how to name the conflict between what they believe is right and what the system demands. I’m curious about what might change if we created spaces to explore these dilemmas together. And I’m left reflecting on what leadership would look like if moral meaning and personhood were our starting points rather than an afterthought?