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

by John K. Roth

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191038488
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	07/30/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	676 KB

About the Author

John K. Roth is the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights (now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights) at Claremont McKenna College. In addition to service on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, he has published hundreds of articles and authored, co-authored, or edited more than fifty books, including Approaches to Auschwitz, Ethics During and After the Holocaust, and The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies. He has been Visiting Professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Haifa, Koerner Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2012 he received the Holocaust Educational Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award for Holocaust Studies and Research.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Thread
Part One: Protesting Failures
1. The Failures of Ethics
2. Rape as Torture and the Responsibility to Protect
3. Philosophy and the 'Logic' of Racism
4. 'You Shall Not Murder'
5. God's Failures
Part Two: Resisting Failures
6. The Holocaust's Impact on Christian-Jewish Relations
7. The Effects of Genocide
8. What Has Been Learned?
9. The Politics of Testimony
10. Death and Meaning
Epilogue: The Right Side of History?

Editorial Reviews

"The best parts of The Failures of Ethics reflect Roth's acute sense of the moral implications and demands of his field." — Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

"Roth's philosophical contribution to attempting to understand the Holocaust and its implications is impressive not only in his productivity, but in his scope. His diverse interests are signalled in the important plurality of his book's title: there are multiple failures and therefore multiple ways in which to think about how they might be countered."—Adam Brown, Journal of Religious History, Religious History Association

"[A] significant resource on Holocaust and genocide scholarship. The book is Roth's recent contribution to . . . his staggering body of research on the Holocaust. The Failures of Ethics will be suitable to university professors, students, and researchers interested in the subject of the Holocaust and genocide. The book embodies a very rich review of important research and scholarship on the Holocaust, and contributes enormously to the debates on the discourse of ethical practices and dispositions that emerged in the Holocaust's aftermath.'"Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba, International Journal on World Peace

"Everything John K. Roth writes is thoughtful, measured, and insightful, and so is this deeply disturbing yet hopeful book. Part intellectual autobiography, part philosophical treatise, and part call to action in dark times, The Failures of Ethics deserves and will reward a wide readership." —Peter Hayes, Theodore Z. Weiss Professor of Holocaust Studies, Northwestern University

"John K. Roth has joined the issue of historical scholarship with a consideration of ethical discourse and of the inability of that discourse to remain the same in the presence of such anti-human events. His focus on racism and tribalism is pivotal. Roth is boldly willing to challenge himself and others most especially as he confronts the failures of ethics - and overcoming those failures. His style invites engagement — insists on engagement and dialogue and unlike many philosophers — dare I say most — his insights are both profound and accessible." —Michael Berenbaum

"The publication of John K. Roth's The Failures of Ethics is an occasion for rejoicing—not in the failures of ethics but in Roth's profound realization that those failures matter. Eloquent, insightful, and deeply personal, Roth's reflection resonates with anyone whose soul hungers for meaning. For those who would embrace the ethical in an age haunted by nihilism and despair, reading this book is a matter of ethical responsibility." —David Patterson, Hillel Feinberg Chair in Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas

"The Failures of Ethics by John K. Roth, one of America's preeminent scholars and educators, reflects more than 40 years of scholarship, thinking, and teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries. Thoughtful, provocative, and elegantly written, it is a book educators and students alike should read, ponder, discuss, and learn from, but only if they are willing to confront questions with no easy answers." —Dr. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., Distinguished Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust Studies, The Richard Stockton University of New Jersey

"The Failures of Ethics is a testimonial to Roth's extensive research and analysis about a topic with significant implications for humanity's survival. This masterful book/textbook offers a critical exploration of the vulnerability of ethics and why genocide remains a persistent possibility for vulnerable groups and cultures." —New York Journal of Books

"John Roth's The Failures of Ethics is anything but a resigned, world-weary confession of helplessness before the iniquities of the Holocaust and other terrible wrongs. To the contrary, this latest book by one of America's senior and widely respected Holocaust scholars is a resolutely ethical reflection on his four decades of scholarship and teaching in the field, looking back over his professional and pedagogical confrontations with some of the most vexing questions of our times." —Journal of Central European History

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