The Double Binds of Ethics After the Holocaust : Salvaging the Fragments

The Double Binds of Ethics after the Holocaust advances the idea that the Holocaust undermined confidence in basic beliefs about human rights and shows steps of salvage and retrieval that need to be taken if ethics is to be a significant presence in a world still besieged by genocide and atrocity. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages 1-4 Double Binds: Ethics after Auschwitz....Pages 5-23 Morality after Auschwitz? Haas, Nietzsche, and the Possibilities for Revaluation....Pages 25-41 Cutting the Roots of the Holocaust: Resisting the Enlightenment’s Universalizing Impulse....Pages 43-53 The Tikkun of Philosophy and the Idea of Humanity....Pages 55-65 Front Matter....Pages 67-70 Survival of the Closest: Gender and Agency in Holocaust Resistance....Pages 71-88 The Role of Moral Examples in Teaching Ethics after the Holocaust: Reconsidering the Rescue of the Danish Jews....Pages 89-100 Dignity and Despair: The Double Bind of Jean Améry’s Odyssey....Pages 101-113 Front Matter....Pages 115-118 Banal Evil and Useless Knowledge: Hannah Arendt and Charlotte Delbo on Evil after the Holocaust....Pages 119-132 Making Ethical Sense of Useless Suffering with Levinas....Pages 133-154 Reconstituting Political Philosophy after the Holocaust: Toward the Prevention of Genocide....Pages 155-171 Back Matter....Pages 173-183 The Double Binds of Ethics after the Holocaust sheds new light on the ethical repercussions of the Nazi genocide against the Jews. Contributors focus on two key dilemmas : first, that the Holocaust did immense harm to ethics by undermining confidence in beliefs about the fundamental status of ethical values, including human rights. Second, the Holocaust and subsequent genocides have destroyed confidence that human beings will fulfill their moral obligations better "next time." Responding to these double binds, the contributors to this book explore what can be done in ethical theory and practice to respond effectively to the impact of the Holocaust and genocide. Its chapters not only assess the weakness of ethics in standing firmly and effectively against human-made destruction but also indicate steps of salvage and retrieval that need to be taken if ethics is to be a significant presence in a world still besieged by genocide and atrocity--Résumé de l'éditeur