The Question of the Holocaust's Uniqueness: Was it Something More Than or Different From Genocide?

Dating back to the very beginning of our knowledge of the events that constituted the Holocaust, some historians, social scientists, philosophers, theologians and public intellectuals argue that it was a unique historical, or even trans‐historical, event. The aim of this article is to clarify what the uniqueness question should be about and to ascertain whether there are good reasons for judging that the Holocaust is unique. It examines the core meanings of ‘unique’ that feature in the literature and identifies which of these is most apt for considering the possible uniqueness of the Holocaust. It then works out what it would take for the Holocaust to be unique in the appropriately rigorous sense, which is facilitated by inquiring into the nature of genocide. The key question turns on the relation of the Holocaust to genocide: was the Holocaust more than, or different from, genocide?     

THE NORMATIVE PROJECT OF POSTCOLONIAL APPROACHES

As postcolonial approaches in the studies of religion have challenged liberal‐secular presuppositions in addressing non‐Western forms of life, there has been a growing concern to examine the normative presuppositions of postcolonial approaches in the field of religious ethics. This paper addresses how Charles Taylor, Talal Asad, and Homi Bhabha show their normative concerns for addressing the interstitial existence of ethnic‐religious minorities, negoriating between their subaltern religions and the inclusive‐but‐exclusive potential of the liberal secular frame of integration. These thinkers raise normative critiques of the spatiotemporal and moral frameworks of liberal, secular integration while suggesting thgeir own normative visions for transforming the existing form of liberal secular democracy. They reveal different models in their normative critiques and visions: Taylor suggests a postsecular and dialogical model, while Asad sets forth an antisecular traditionalist model and Bhabha a pro‐secular and vernacular one.     

关于全球伦理的哲学审思

全球化过程有两个基本方面：一是科学技术的发展,一是资本主义的发展。迄今为止的全球化过程是资本主义利用不断更新的科学技术来实现自己发展的过程,此过程的社会实质在于资本主义全球化——包括资本主义经济全球化和与之相适应的资本主义伦理全球化。然而,诸如反全球化浪潮之美的国际现象和国际事件表明,原来作为全球化之推动力量的资本主义,如今正在走向其反面,愈来愈成为全球化的阻碍力量了;而日益严重的全球性生态危机,更其表明资本主义再也不能按其固有的方式存在和发展了。因此,客观上要求变革现存的资本主义经济制度及其伦理——包括资本主义经济理性、人理性和科学理性。适应解决当今全球性生态危机的需要,一种新伦理——生态伦理正在形成之中,它有望最终演变为取代传统资本主义伦理的全球伦理。     

Rediscovering Meaning

The present crisis of the Western countries involves not just the world of politics, finance, and the economy, but also the ecosystem balance, the world of the values on which the model of social organization and economic development is based. The crisis is therefore systemic, epoch-making, and overcoming it will require radical changes, above all in the way we think, in our scale of values, and therefore our culture. On the other hand, for decades the world—in particular the West—has been experiencing a cultural sea-change that is challenging many of the pillars of society that have stood for centuries. The young people of today and their use of technological social networks to develop non-profit initiatives for social change may create a more positive future while maintaining our human values.     

Broadening Ethics Teaching in Engineering: Beyond the Individualistic Approach

There is a widespread approach to the teaching of ethics to engineering students in which the exclusive focus is on engineers as individual agents and the broader context in which they do their work is ignored. Although this approach has frequently been criticised in the literature, it persists on a wide scale, as can be inferred from accounts in the educational literature and from the contents of widely used textbooks in engineering ethics. In this contribution we intend to: (1) Restate why the individualistic approach to the teaching of ethics to engineering students is inadequate in view of preparing them for ethical, professional and social responsibility; (2) Examine the existing literature regarding the possible contribution of Science, Technology and Society (STS) scholarship in addressing the inadequacies of the individualistic approach; and (3) Assess this possible contribution of STS in order to realise desired learning outcomes regarding the preparation of students for ethical and social responsibility.     

A Realist Sexual Ethics

A very liberal sexual ethics now holds sway in Western culture, such that mutual consent alone is widely seen as morally legitimizing almost any sexual activity between adults. It is further commonly assumed by both philosophers and nonphilosophers that arguing for some alternative to liberal sexual ethics requires appeal to ethical commands specific to some religious tradition or other. The purpose of this paper is to challenge that assumption by suggesting some purely naturalistic and independently‐plausible premises that can be used to argue for a much more conservative system of sexual ethics than is widely accepted today.     

Domination et impérialisme en psychologie

We offer some arguments in support of the idea that the only goal the teaching and research system of the United States can serve is that of the global system to which it belongs, namely, domination. We show how, within the last few decades, French research in psychology - its issues, its institutions, its practices, its ethics - has undergone a process of Americanization that has turned it into a mainstream Western (and basically American) psychology. We point out some research trends that have contested this mainstream psychology, either because it appears too male chauvinist or liberal (opposition psychologies) or because it is grounded in the individualist and liberalist postulates of Western cultures (indigenous psychologies). Unfortunately, because dominant epistemology is governed by a principle of continuity, these contesting trends have not increased our scientific requirements; on the contrary, they have often led to anti-scientific approaches. It is still the task of psychology to break away from kwoledges and values of common sense.     

Representation and the active consumer

One of the central tasks for naturalistic theories of representation is to say what it takes for something to be a representation, and some leading theories have been criticised for being too liberal. Prominent discussions of this problem have proposed a producer-oriented solution; it is argued that representations must be produced by systems employing perceptual constancy mechanisms. However, representations may be produced by simple transducers if they are consumed in the right way. It is characteristic of representations to be consumed by systems which are capable of independent action. This paper defends this claim; discusses more precise, naturalistic formulations; and shows how it can illuminate the explanatory payoffs which science achieves by appealing to representation.

     

The satanic novel: A philosophical dialogue on blasphemy and censorship

This dialogue is concerned with the problems raised by the Rushdie affair for Western intellectuals, whose thought on social issues derives either from the Christian or the Western liberal tradition. This has brought to a head the many difficulties which beset a Western European country as it develops into a multicultural one. Since the concern of the dialogue is with a crisis in the thinking of Western intellectuals about free speech, censorship, tolerance, etc., the four participants are university teachers of philosophy in a British university. They are: Ambrose Taylor, a self‐styled defender of ‘British’ and ‘Christian’ values, Archie Runciman, a progressive Christian or religious eclectic, Freddie Stuart Hill, a committed Mill type liberal and Jenny Spring, whose liberalism is tempered by the belief that the state should take a positive role in promoting certain values. The author should not be identified with any of the speakers.     

论现代医学视野中的伦理与现代伦理视野中的医学

医学与伦理的关系从古代、近代到现代,经过了一个浑然一体、相互分离和重新融合的否定之否定过程。通过对这一过程的简要考察和分析,着重阐述了现代医学视野中的伦理与现代伦理视野中的医学应当所具有的本质形相。在现代医学视野中,现代医学伦理是来自人类伦理遗产和对现实生命道德问题的伦理认识结果两方面的理论交汇。现代伦理应当是多层次的理论与实践系统,其中包括道德哲学层次的思考;生命伦理中的道德原则和规范的构建;关于生命道德规范长入现代医学的机制问题的思考;现代医学伦理的发展与相关学科的相互借鉴的研究。在现代伦理的视野中,现代医学的本质在于,现代“大医学”的概念已经取代了对医学的传统认识;医学作为现代社会文化构成部分的特质逐渐地被揭示出来;现代医学已经成为特定社会职业群体以科学技术为主体的重要社会活动。站在现代医学和现代伦理各自的立场认识和了解对方,对全面把握二者之间的关系和推进二者之间的有机结合具有重要意义。     

Feasibility and Stability in Normative Political Philosophy: The Case of Liberal Nationalism

Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism.     

The Holocaust after 70 years: Holocaust survivors in the United States

Over 70 years, there have been different narratives of the Holocaust survivors coming to the United States. Survivors’ stories begin with an event of major historical significance. Difficulties in conceptualizing historical trauma, along with common distortions and myths about Holocaust survivors and their children are examined. This article proposes that it is impossible to discuss the consequences of extreme suffering without consideration of historical meaning and social context with which they are entwined. The evolution of the social representation of the Holocaust and the contradictions in clinical attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described. Attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described.     

THEOLOGICAL ETHICS, THE CHURCHES, AND GLOBAL POLITICS

Several discourses about theology, church, and politics are occurring among Christian theologians in the United States. One influential strand centers on the communitarian theology of Stanley Hauerwas, who calls on Christians to witness faithfully against liberalism in general and war in particular. Jeffrey Stout, in his widely discussed Democracy and Tradition (2004), responds that religious people ought precisely to endorse those democratic and liberal American traditions that join religious and secular counterparts to battle injustice. Hauerwas, Stout, and many of their interlocutors envision liberal U.S. culture as the context of Christian social ethics. The ensuing debate rarely incorporates Catholic scholars, feminist scholars, scholars of color, or international and liberationist voices. Their inclusion could enhance an understanding of the role of the church in society, and support a common morality in the face of global pluralism. More importantly, it could broaden the scope of discourse on religion and politics to envision global Christian social ethics.     

SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST AND THEIR CHILDREN

Despite the importance given in their narratives to the birth of their children and grandchildren, in most of the interviews I conducted with Holocaust survivors they do not discuss their children or family life in detail. Rather, for many of them, discussion is generally connected to how or what they have explained to their children about their experiences during the war. Survivors’ preoccupation with this issue could be understood as a response to the context in which they find themselves, in which a particular social discourse about survivors has developed. This discourse arguably engendered particular responses from survivors: it is a question that survivors expect to be asked, and it is seen as part of their prescribed role. Based on over 50 narrative interviews with survivors of the Holocaust, this article explores how survivors reflect and understand their parenting. It examines to what extent their behaviour has been influenced by their experiences during the war, or in reaction to a particular social discourse. Whilst literature on the second generation has been predominantly based on the responses of the children of survivors, this article provides important evidence of how survivors reflect on and understand their parenting.     

Some methodological aspects of ethics committees’ expertise: The Ukrainian example

Today local, national and international ethics committees have become an effective means of social regulation in many European countries. Science itself is an important precondition for the development of bioethical knowledge and ethics expertise. Cultural, social, historical and religious preconditions can facilitate different forms and methods of ethics expertise in each country. Ukrainian ethics expertise has some methodological problems connected with its socio-cultural, historical, science and philosophy development particularities. In this context, clarification of some common legitimacies or methodological approaches to ethics committee (EC) phenomena such as globalization, scientization and the prioritization of an ethics paradigm are very important. On the other hand, elaborate study and critical analysis of international experience by Ukraine and other Eastern European countries will provide the integration of their local and national ethics expertises into a world bioethics ethos. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference entitled ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

Observer perceptions of moral obligations in groups with a history of victimization

The authors investigated when observers assign contemporary group members moral obligations based on their group's victimization history. In Experiment 1, Americans perceived Israelis as obligated to help Sudanese genocide victims and as guiltworthy for not helping if reminded of the Holocaust and its descendants were linked to this history. In Experiment 2, participants perceived Israelis as more obligated to help and guiltworthy for not helping when the Holocaust was presented as a unique victimization event compared with when genocide was presented as pervasive. Experiments 3 and 4 replicated the effects of Experiment 1 with Cambodians as the victimized group. Experiment 5 demonstrated that participants perceived Cambodians as having more obligations under high just world threat compared with low just world threat. Perceiving victimized groups as incurring obligations is one just world restoration method of providing meaning to collective injustice.     

SCIENCE AND CONFUCIANISM IN RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

In contrast to Western science and religion, a topic which has been studied very much since the twentieth century, less research has been done on science and Confucianism. By way of a comparative viewpoint within the history of science, this article will deal with some aspects of science and Confucianism in retrospect, for instance, the Confucian origin of the idea of tian yuan di fang 天圓地方, the natural philosophy of qi, and the wu xing li tian zhi qi 五行沴天之氣 bringing abnormal astrological phenomena and reflecting a negative Confucian relation between politics, ethics, and nature. In the late Ming, Xiong Mingyu found that abnormal astrological phenomena, as atmospheric events, happened in the sublunar region rather than in the stars, and in the present time we can reinterpret the crisis of air pollution or global climate change as reflecting a negative Confucian relation between politics, ethics, and nature and as a warning of collective misbehavior in our use of modern scientific technologies.     

Catholic Feminist Ethics Reconsidered

Taking Catholic sexual ethics and liberal feminist ethics as points of departure, this essay argues that both frameworks are ill‐prepared to deal with the moral problems raised by sex trafficking: while Catholic sexual ethics is grounded in a normative understanding of sexuality, liberal feminist ethics argues for women's sexual autonomy, resting upon freedom of action and consent. From a perspective that attends both to the phenomenological interpretation of embodied selves and the Kantian normative interpretation of dignity, it becomes possible to critique both the Catholic and the liberal feminist frameworks of ethics. I argue that Catholic sexual ethics requires a reconceptualization as social ethics in order to meet the challenges of our present time, but that the shift is possible without giving up the moral imperatives of both Catholic and feminist ethics to protect human dignity and women's rights.     

From the lonely crowd to the cultural contradictions of capitalism and beyond: The shifting ground of liberal narratives

This paper investigates how key social issues related to American culture, social character, and politics are addressed in the work of two of America's leading liberal sociologists, David Riesman and Daniel Bell. It maps out the trajectory of Riesman's and Bell's early contributions to a critique of mass society in post‐war America, as well as Bell's later formulation of “liberalism in crisis” and his assessment of culture in The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. This analysis pays particular attention to the intellectual, biographical, and social settings that helped to shape the often conflicting ideas of each thinker, and examines the discursive shifts within liberal thinking as it attempted to explain and deal with perceived new social crises from the 1950s to the present. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.