Morality After Auschwitz
Morality After Auschwitz

Author: Peter J. Haas

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1625645732

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Endorsements: "This book is a study of the Holocaust as problem in ethical theory. How could a whole society participate in an ethic of mass torture and genocide for over a decade without opposition from responsible political, legal, medical, or religious leaders? How does a society create and adopt its ethical norms? This is a study in narrative ethics at its best, yet the author's purpose is to discover how a people redefined evil to the degree that they committed heinous atrocities that were reprehensible under normal circumstances." --Guy Greenfield, Southwestern Journal of Theology "Peter Haas gives us a good overall description of the Holocaust, the way the Nazis and their myriad collaborators treated the Jews. The book . . . is well formulated and well written. It makes a good one-volume introduction to the Holocaust." --Frederick K. Wentz, Lutheran Quarterly "Peter Haas urges us to recognize ourselves in the perpetrators of the Holocaust. . . . In the course of setting forth his position, the author offers a concise and wonderfully accessible account of the formation of German political culture from Bismarck through Hitler. . . . Morality After Auschwitz is a serious book that should provoke long thoughts, and perhaps useful disputes, about the power of ethics to shape political cultures." --First Things

Mortality and Morality
Mortality and Morality

Author: Hans Jonas

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 1996-07-08

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0810112868

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Hans Jonas, a pupil of Heidegger and a colleague of Hannah Arendt at the New School for Social Research, was one of the most prominent phenomenologists of his generation. This carefully chosen anthology of Jonas's shorter writings - on topics from Jewish philosophy to philosophy of religion to philosophy of biology and social philosophy - reveals their range without obscuring their central unifying thread: that as living, biological beings, we are also beings who die, and who must consider the implications for current and future ethical and social relations.

Autonomy After Auschwitz
Autonomy After Auschwitz

Author: Martin Shuster

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-09-12

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 022615548X

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Could our modern commitment to freedom be related to or even cause a variety of extreme modern evils, most notably (but not exclusively) Auschwitz? Ever since Kant and Hegel, the notion of autonomythe idea that we are beholden to no law except one imposed upon ourselvesis considered the truest philosophical expression of free human agency. In this context, philosopher Martin Shuster examines the notion of autonomy and its relationship to modern evil. Taking its cue from the work of Theodor Adorno, this book shows that the notion of autonomy, as emblematically conceived in this German philosophical tradition, is not only self-defeating and unstable, but also dangerous and connected to extreme evils like genocide because it ultimately dissolves our capacities for reason, especially practical reason, and thereby our very standing as agents. Examining Adorno s understanding of modern evil in the context of his debate with Kant on autonomous agency, Shuster shows how Adorno developed a conception of autonomous agency that manages to avoid any connection to extreme evil. Throughout, Adorno is put into dialogue not only with many traditional European philosophical interlocutors (including Kant, Hegel, Horkheimer, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty), but innovatively, also with a variety of Anglo-American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Bernard Williams, John McDowell, and Robert Pippin. Shuster aims to integrate and situate Adorno s work, then, within both traditions discussions of freedom and autonomy, demonstrate the deep ethical stakes that are involved in these debates, and offer new insights and lessons from Adorno s writings."

Ethics After Auschwitz?
Ethics After Auschwitz?

Author: Carole J. Lambert

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9781433109645

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Ethics after Auschwitz? Primo Levi's and Elie Wiesel's Response demonstrates how, after their horrific experiences in Auschwitz, both Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel could have deservedly expressed rage and bitterness for the rest of their lives. Housed in the same barracks in the depths of hell, a dark reality surpassing Dante's vivid images portrayed in The Inferno, they chose to speak, write, and work for a better world, never allowing the memory of those who did not survive to fade. Why and how did they make this choice? What influenced their values before Auschwitz and their moral decision making after it? What can others who have suffered less devastating traumas learn from them? «The quest is in the question», Wiesel often tells his students. This book is a quest for hope and goodness emerging from the Shoah's deepest «night».

Can One Live after Auschwitz?
Can One Live after Auschwitz?

Author: Theodor W. Adorno

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 9780804731447

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This is a comprehensive collection of readings from the work of Theodor Adorno, one of the most influential German thinkers of the twentieth century. What took place in Auschwitz revokes what Adorno termed the "Western legacy of positivity,” the innermost substance of traditional philosophy. The prime task of philosophy then remains to reflect on its own failure, its own complicity in such events. Yet in linking the question of philosophy to historical occurrence, Adorno seems not to have abandoned his paradoxical, life-long hope that philosophy might not be entirely closed to the idea of redemption. He prepares for an altogether different praxis, one no longer conceived in traditionally Marxist terms but rather to be gleaned from "metaphysical experience.” In this collection, Adorno's literary executor has assembled the definitive introduction to his thinking. Its five sections anatomize the range of Adorno's concerns: "Toward a New Categorical Imperative,” "Damaged Life,” "Administered World, Reified Thought,” "Art, Memory of Suffering,” and "A Philosophy That Keeps Itself Alive.” A substantial number of Adorno’s writings included appear here in English for the first time. This collection comes with an eloquent introduction from Rolf Tiedemann, the literary executor of Adorno’s work.

Ethics During and After the Holocaust
Ethics During and After the Holocaust

Author: J. Roth

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2005-10-28

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0230513107

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Questions shape the Holocaust's legacy. 'What happened to ethics during the Holocaust? What should ethics be, and what can it do after the Holocaust?' loom large among them. Absent the overriding or moral sensibilities, if not the collapse or collaboration of ethical traditions, the Holocaust could not have happened. Its devastation may have deepened conviction that there is a crucial difference between right and wrong; its destruction may have renewed awareness about the importance of ethical standards and conduct. But Birkenau, the main killing center at Auschwitz, also continues to cast a disturbing shadow over basic beliefs concerning right and wrong, human rights, and the hope that human beings will learn from the past. This book explores those realities and the issues they contain. It does so not to discourage but to encourage, not to deepen darkness and despair but to face those realities honestly and in a way that can make post-Holocaust ethics more credible and realistic. The book's thesis is that nothing human, natural or divine guarantees respect for the ethical values and commitments that are most needed in contemporary human existence, but nothing is more important than our commitment to defend them, for they remain as fundamental as they are fragile, as precious as they are endangered.

The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima
The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima

Author: Darrell J. Fasching

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1993-07-01

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1438402368

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This book addresses the problem of religion, ethics, and public policy in a global technological civilization. It attempts to do what narrative ethicists have said cannot be done—to construct a cross-cultural ethic of human dignity, human rights, and human liberation which respects the diversity of narrative traditions. It seeks to do this without succumbing to either ethical relativism or ethical absolutism. The author confronts directly the dominant narrative of our technological civilization: the Janus-faced myths of "Apocalypse or Utopia." Through this myth, we view technology ambivalently, as both the object of our dread and the source of our hope. The myth thus renders us ethically impotent: the very strength of our literal utopian euphoria sends us careening toward some literal apocalyptic "final solution." The demonic narrative that dominated Auschwitz ("killing in order to heal") is part of this Janus-faced technological mythos that emerged out of Hiroshima. And it is this mythic narrative which underlies and structures much of public policy in our nuclear age. This book proposes a coalition of members of holy communities and secular groups, organized to prevent any future eruptions of the demonic. Its goal is to construct a bridge not only over the abyss between religions, East and West, but also between religious and secular ethics.

Morality After Auschwitz
Morality After Auschwitz

Author: Peter J. Haas

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1725233878

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"This book is a study of the Holocaust as problem in ethical theory. How could a whole society participate in an ethic of mass torture and genocide for over a decade without opposition from responsible political, legal, medical, or religious leaders? How does a society create and adopt its ethical norms? This is a study in narrative ethics at its best, yet the author's purpose is to discover how a people redefined evil to the degree that they committed heinous atrocities that were reprehensible under normal circumstances." --Guy Greenfield, Southwestern Journal of Theology "Peter Haas gives us a good overall description of the Holocaust, the way the Nazis and their myriad collaborators treated the Jews. The book . . . is well formulated and well written. It makes a good one-volume introduction to the Holocaust." --Frederick K. Wentz, Lutheran Quarterly "Peter Haas urges us to recognize ourselves in the perpetrators of the Holocaust. . . . In the course of setting forth his position, the author offers a concise and wonderfully accessible account of the formation of German political culture from Bismarck through Hitler. . . . Morality After Auschwitz is a serious book that should provoke long thoughts, and perhaps useful disputes, about the power of ethics to shape political cultures." --First Things

A Companion to Nazi Germany
A Companion to Nazi Germany

Author: Shelley Baranowski

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-06-18

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13: 1118936884

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A Deep Exploration of the Rise, Reign, and Legacy of the Third Reich For its brief existence, National Socialist Germany was one of the most destructive regimes in the history of humankind. Since that time, scholarly debate about its causes has volleyed continuously between the effects of political and military decisions, pathological development, or modernity gone awry. Was terror the defining force of rule, or was popular consent critical to sustaining the movement? Were the German people sympathetic to Nazi ideology, or were they radicalized by social manipulation and powerful propaganda? Was the “Final Solution” the motivation for the Third Reich’s rise to power, or simply the outcome? A Companion to Nazi Germany addresses these crucial questions with historical insight from the Nazi Party’s emergence in the 1920s through its postwar repercussions. From the theory and context that gave rise to the movement, through its structural, cultural, economic, and social impacts, to the era’s lasting legacy, this book offers an in-depth examination of modern history’s most infamous reign. Assesses the historiography of Nazism and the prehistory of the regime Provides deep insight into labor, education, research, and home life amidst the Third Reich’s ideological imperatives Describes how the Third Reich affected business, the economy, and the culture, including sports, entertainment, and religion Delves into the social militarization in the lead-up to war, and examines the social and historical complexities that allowed genocide to take place Shows how modern-day Germany confronts and deals with its recent history Today’s political climate highlights the critical need to understand how radical nationalist movements gain an audience, then followers, then power. While historical analogy can be a faulty basis for analyzing current events, there is no doubt that examining the parallels can lead to some important questions about the present. Exploring key motivations, environments, and cause and effect, this book provides essential perspective as radical nationalist movements have once again reemerged in many parts of the world.

Ethics and Theology After the Holocaust
Ethics and Theology After the Holocaust

Author: Didier Pollefeyt

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 9789042937505

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The Holocaust casts a heavy shadow over the twenty-first century. The Nazi extermination camps radically call into question the very foundations of Christianity, modernity and the postmodern world. This book challenges and critically reconstructs ethics and theology by bearing witness to the victims, as well as shining a light on the perpetrators and bystanders, thus providing the basis for a renewed Christian understanding of good and evil for our time. The result is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary post-Holocaust ethics and theology, charting questions at the heart of a new synthesis: our concepts of God, the human person and the (post)modern world, as well as our understanding of ecology, politics, education, sacred texts, Christology, interreligious dialogue, forgiveness and reconciliation and eschatology. The central idea running through the twenty-one chapters of this volume is that the commandment "not to grand posthumous victories to Hitler" is an ongoing and often demanding task that calls for complexity, compassion and renewed commitment to transcendence in all and everything.