MORAL DISTRESS & COLLECTIVE ADVOCACY Moving beyond individualization of ethical struggle As social workers who labour in systems, we are embedded
with the violence of corporations toward labourers, citizens,
in structures and processes designed to maintain the status
and the natural world, i.e., mining projects in Canada and
quo, what Dorothy Smith (1996) so aptly terms “relations of
abroad, or the recently reported corporate concentration of
ruling.” This embeddedness has been exacerbated by changes
agribusiness controlling the production, distribution, and
to the social work profession over the last two decades such
pricing of food across the globe. We often fail to connect the
as the marketization of social welfare. Our sphere of action as
violence of the political economy to our experiences of moral
social workers has shrunk alarmingly and we often have little
distress in the workplace, instead drawing a line about causes
power to address clients’ needs. Support for recognizing, let
at the walls of the organization.
alone exploring, ethical struggles in the workplace appears to have evaporated under managerialism. Also, organizational
These tentacles of violence encompass the often futile
discourse often employs middle-class language to frame moral
social work task of trying to marshal scarce or non-existent
distress as individual rather than systemic and structural.
resources for clients, i.e., helping a client find decent and affordable housing or resolve an issue for which there are no
In the situations of moral distress I have experienced,
cross-institutional policies. Frustration and anger are healthy
I have felt frustrated and powerless even when I have
the individual client. At an organizational level, managers may
acted in good faith to resolve them within the web of relationships in the organization.
responses to systemic and structural issues much larger than be unable or unwilling to act or problem-solve to support staff facing moral distress. Violence erupts from a particular set of values to constrict the political choices of politicians and citizens, choke off life-giving public policies, and incapacitate hierarchical bureaucratic systems to disregard workers and
Predominantly I have felt torn asunder by tentacles of violence
clients (citizens). Thus, moral distress generated by such
that both pummel from a distance and buffet the workplace.
violence cannot be resolved by individual advocacy, by moral
Violence is pervasive in our Western colonialist capitalist
courage, or by unrelenting rage because the situations that
society; it is normalized, legitimized, and socially tolerated as
produce it have their roots in oppressive values, systems,
the way it is. Think of the everyday violence carried out here
and structures.
in Canada and globally. There is the violence of class and other “isms” perpetuated and legislated by our political and
An alternative definition of moral distress may help us
economic institutions, ensuring vast inequalities of income
appreciate the range of emotional responses to moral
and wealth as well as inequities in access to health care.
compromise: “One or more negative self-directed emotions or
The violence of the fossil fuel industry and the governments
attitudes that arise in response to one’s perceived involvement
subsidizing it are destroying the Earth and all her living things.
in a situation that one perceives to be morally undesirable”
And then there is the violence of driving Indigenous peoples
(Campbell, Ulrich & Grady, 2018, p. 67). I have certainly
from their land and demolishing their “life-worlds” (Ghosh,
experienced the erosion of self-respect, purpose, and even
2021, p. 67) in the Amazon and elsewhere. We live daily
of the life force itself. Feeling powerless, anguished, trapped,
16 Connection | Fall 2022