Defined by deliberation about the difference between right and wrong, encouragement not to be indifferent toward that difference, resistance against what is wrong, and action in support of what is right, ethics is civilization's keystone. The Failures of Ethics concentrates on the multiple shortfalls and shortcomings of thought, decision, and action that tempt and incite us human beings to inflict incalculable harm. Absent the overriding of moral sensibilities, if not the collapse or collaboration of ethical traditions, the Holocaust, genocide, and other mass atrocities could not have happened. Although these catastrophes do not pronounce the death of ethics, they show that ethics is vulnerable, subject to misuse and perversion, and that no simple reaffirmation of ethics, as if nothing disastrous had happened, will do. Moral and religious authority has been fragmented and weakened by the accumulated ruins of history and the depersonalized advances of civilization that have taken us from a bloody twentieth century into an immensely problematic twenty-first. What nevertheless remain essential are spirited commitment and political will that embody the courage not to let go of the ethical but to persist for it in spite of humankind's self-inflicted destructiveness. Salvaging the fragmented condition of ethics, this book shows how respect and honor for those who save lives and resist atrocity, deepened attention to the dead and to death itself, and appeals for human rights and renewed spiritual sensitivity confirm that ethics contains and remains an irreplaceable safeguard against its own failures.

The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

Politics & Social Sciences

Roth, John K.

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Defined by deliberation about the difference between right and wrong, encouragement not to be indifferent toward that difference, resistance against what is wrong, and action in support of what is right, ethics is civilization's keystone. The Failures of Ethics concentrates on the multiple shortfalls and shortcomings of thought, decision, and action that tempt and incite us human beings to inflict incalculable harm. Absent the overriding of moral sensibilities, if not the collapse or collaboration of ethical traditions, the Holocaust, genocide, and other mass atrocities could not have happened. Although these catastrophes do not pronounce the death of ethics, they show that ethics is vulnerable, subject to misuse and perversion, and that no simple reaffirmation of ethics, as if nothing disastrous had happened, will do. Moral and religious authority has been fragmented and weakened by the accumulated ruins of history and the depersonalized advances of civilization that have taken us from a bloody twentieth century into an immensely problematic twenty-first. What nevertheless remain essential are spirited commitment and political will that embody the courage not to let go of the ethical but to persist for it in spite of humankind's self-inflicted destructiveness. Salvaging the fragmented condition of ethics, this book shows how respect and honor for those who save lives and resist atrocity, deepened attention to the dead and to death itself, and appeals for human rights and renewed spiritual sensitivity confirm that ethics contains and remains an irreplaceable safeguard against its own failures.

Few scholarly fields have developed in recent decades as rapidly and vigorously as Holocaust Studies. At the start of the twenty-first century, the persecution and murder perpetrated by the Nazi regime have become the subjects of an enormous literature in multiple academic disciplines and a touchstone of public and intellectual discourse in such diverse fields as politics, ethics and religion. Forward-looking and multi-disciplinary, this handbook draws on the work of an international team of forty-seven outstanding scholars.The handbook is thematically divided into five broad sections. Part One, Enablers, concentrates on the broad and necessary contextual conditions for the Holocaust. Part Two, Protagonists, concentrates on the principal persons and groups involved in the Holocaust and attempts to disaggregate the conventional interpretive categories of perpetrator, victim, and bystander. It examines the agency of the Nazi leaders and killers and of those involved in resisting and surviving the assault. Part Three, Settings, concentrates on the particular places, sites, and physical circumstances where the actions of the Holocaust's protagonists and the forms of persecution were literally grounded. Part Four, Representations, engages complex questions about how the Holocaust can and should be grasped and what meaning or lack of meaning might be attributed to events through historical analysis, interpretation of texts, artistic creation and criticism, and philosophical and religious reflection. Part Five, Aftereffects, explores the Holocaust's impact on politics and ethics, education and religion, national identities and international relations, the prospects for genocide prevention, and the defense of human rights.

The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (Oxford Handbooks)

History

Hayes, Peter

Military

Few scholarly fields have developed in recent decades as rapidly and vigorously as Holocaust Studies. At the start of the twenty-first century, the persecution and murder perpetrated by the Nazi regime have become the subjects of an enormous literature in multiple academic disciplines and a touchstone of public and intellectual discourse in such diverse fields as politics, ethics and religion. Forward-looking and multi-disciplinary, this handbook draws on the work of an international team of forty-seven outstanding scholars. The handbook is thematically divided into five broad sections. Part One, Enablers, concentrates on the broad and necessary contextual conditions for the Holocaust. Part Two, Protagonists, concentrates on the principal persons and groups involved in the Holocaust and attempts to disaggregate the conventional interpretive categories of perpetrator, victim, and bystander. It examines the agency of the Nazi leaders and killers and of those involved in resisting and surviving the assault. Part Three, Settings, concentrates on the particular places, sites, and physical circumstances where the actions of the Holocaust's protagonists and the forms of persecution were literally grounded. Part Four, Representations, engages complex questions about how the Holocaust can and should be grasped and what meaning or lack of meaning might be attributed to events through historical analysis, interpretation of texts, artistic creation and criticism, and philosophical and religious reflection. Part Five, Aftereffects, explores the Holocaust's impact on politics and ethics, education and religion, national identities and international relations, the prospects for genocide prevention, and the defense of human rights.

Polls through the '90s show that many Americans believe the nation is in a period of spiritual decline, yet public religious display and discussion often is deemed politically incorrect. Philosopher John K. Roth feels that more outward sharing of religious beliefs, thoughts, and ideas would bridge the gap between our private needs and our public selves--and would give Americans of differing faiths a common identity .

Private Needs, Public Selves: TALK ABOUT RELIGION IN AMERICA (Public Express Religion America)

World

University of Illinois Press

After-words: Post-Holocaust Struggles with Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justice (Pastora Goldner Series)

More than fifty years after it ended, the Holocaust continues to leave survivors and their descendants, as well as historians, philosophers, and theologians, searching for words to convey the enormity of that event. Efforts to express its realities and its impact on successive generations often stretch language to the breaking point--or to the point of silence. Words whose meaning was contested before the Holocaust prove even more fragile in its wake.David Patterson and John K. Roth identify three such "after-words": forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice. These words, though forever altered by the Holocaust, are still spoken and heard. But how should the concepts they represent be understood? How can their integrity be restored within the framework of current philosophical and, especially, religious traditions? Writing in a format that creates the feel of dialogue, the nine contributors to After-Words tackle these and other difficult questions about the nature of memory and forgiveness after the Holocaust to encourage others to participate in similar inter- and intrafaith inquiries.The contributors to After-Words are members of the Pastora Goldner Holocaust Symposium. Led since its founding in 1996 by Leonard Grob and Henry Knight, the symposium’s Holocaust and genocide scholars--a group that is interfaith, international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational--meet biennially in Oxfordshire, England.

PATTERSON, DAVID

University of Washington Press

Advancing Holocaust Studies (Routledge Studies in Second World War History)

The growing field of Holocaust studies confronts a world wracked by antisemitism, immigration and refugee crises, human rights abuses, mass atrocity crimes, threats of nuclear war, and environmental degradation. What does it mean to advance Holocaust studies--what are learning and teaching about the Holocaust for--in such dire straits? Vast resources support study and memorialization of the Holocaust. What assumptions govern that investment? What are its major successes and failures, challenges and prospects? Across thirteen chapters, Advancing Holocaust Studiesshows how leading scholars grapple with those tough questions.

Rittner, Carol

Europe

Routledge

An imaginative and diverse sampling of philosophers within each chapter illustrates alternative conceptualizations that allow students to develop their own views. Each chapter includes readings from the major philosophers, as well as shorter passages from other philosophers presented within the chapter. This book should be of interest to 1st year undergraduate courses in philosophy.

The Questions of Philosophy

Sontag, Frederick

Wadsworth Pub. Co.

Freedom and the moral life;: The ethics of William James,

Westminster Press

More than half a century after Nazi Germany's genocidal assault on the Jewish people, the Holocaust grips our attention as never before, raising hotly-debated questions: how is the Holocaust best remembered? What are its lessons? Who gets to answer those questions? Who owns the Holocaust? These questions provoke disagreements that can be cutthroat or constructive. Taking its point of departure from the controversy that swirled around the author's aborted appointment as director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Holocaust Politics shows how contemporary attitudes and priorities compete to determine that all-important difference.

Holocaust Politics

Westminster/John Knox Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roth, John K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Roth, John K.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roth, John K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (Oxford Handbooks)

The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (Oxford Handbooks)

Private Needs, Public Selves: TALK ABOUT RELIGION IN AMERICA (Public Express Religion America)

After-words: Post-Holocaust Struggles with Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Justice (Pastora Goldner Series)

Advancing Holocaust Studies (Routledge Studies in Second World War History)

The Questions of Philosophy

Freedom and the moral life;: The ethics of William James,

Holocaust Politics