Ethics After the Holocaust

by Roth, John K.

• ISBN13: 9781557787712
• ISBN10: 1557787719
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-08-01
• Publisher: Atlas Books

Summary

Ethics after the Holocaust is concerned with trying to answer the following questions: How could such a catastrophe happen? Why did it take place? Where were the ethical traditions and teachings that seemingly should have kept such things from occurring? The book's six contributors, Leonard Grob, Peter J. Haas, David Hirsch, David Patterson, Didier Pollefeyt, and John K. Roth -- experienced Holocaust scholars from the fields of literature, philosophy, religious studies, and theology -- have each written a substantive essay that sets forth fundamental concerns about post-Holocaust ethics. After each essay, they offer critiques of other essays and respond to critiques of their own. The book's distinctive dialogue format deepens inquiry that interprets the Holocaust not only as an assault on millions of innocent human beings -- Jews first and foremost among them -- but also as an attack on goodness itself.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ethics after Auschwitz	vii
John K. Roth
Emmanuel Levinas and the Primacy of Ethics in Post-Holocaust Philosophy	1	(48)
Leonard Crob
Critiques	15	(28)
Response	43	(6)
Science and the Determination of the Good	49	(41)
Peter J. Haas
Critiques	60	(26)
Response	86	(4)
The Gray Zone or the Banality of Evil	90	(58)
David H. Hirsch
Critiques	108	(30)
Response	138	(10)
Nazis, Philosophers, and the Response to the Scandal of Heidegger	148	(62)
David Patterson
Critiques	172	(32)
Response	204	(6)
The Kafkaesque World of the Holocaust: Paradigmatic Shifts in the Ethical interpretation of the Nazi Genocide	210	(70)
Didier Pollefeyt
Critiques	243	(30)
Response	273	(7)
Returning Home: Reflections on Post-Holocaust Ethics	280	(53)
John K. Roth
Critiques	296	(28)
Response	324	(9)
Postscript: Post-Holocaust Ethics and the Future	333	(6)
John K. Roth
Select Bibliography	339	(10)
Index	349