Where have all the critics gone? Moral psychology and the question of selective resistance to war: From Vietnam, to an Israeli Vietnam, to the Intifada

War has been particularly a world apart for the vast majority of psychological studies on morality which for the most part were conducted in university settings among first-year psychology students. Combatant soldiers, their moral dilemmas, and their critical narrative of criticism and position of moral resistance are missing from the formative stages of our psychological theories. This paper discusses Kohlberg's pioneering and only attempt to understand moral criticism in the battlefield. In what follows it will be argued that from Kohlberg's perspective, Bernhard's case is analyzed as a case of “moral separateness” and thus provides limited view on the narrative of moral resistance. It will be further argued that the narrative of moral resistance, particularly as involving a detachment from one's own community, might as well be seen as a narrative of “moral connectedness.” This thesis will further be supported with the analysis of a narrative of moral criticism of an Israeli combatant during the Intifada.