Negative moral emotions as the affective component of moral distress

Abstract

This article examines the affective component of moral distress and argues for its theoretical specification through reference to negative moral emotions. It claims that the affective component of moral distress has been inadequately addressed in existing research. This omission has led to an ambiguous relationship between the affective and causal components of moral distress and to difficulties in distinguishing it from other forms of psychological distress. This article argues that the affective component of moral distress must be specified in order to operationalize the concept properly, and that this should be done by referring to a psychological phenomenon necessarily tied to a moral problem. Moral psychology suggests that negative moral emotions—such as guilt and anger—fulfill this condition, insofar as they arise in response to perceived violations of normative expectations concerning one’s own conduct or that of others. On this basis, the affective component of moral distress is identified with negative moral emotions. This approach provides a theoretically grounded and empirically tractable framework for conceptualizing moral distress, integrates separate lines of research, and opens new ways to describe, assess, and address it.