Introduction i This book is about how we study history, how we research and write about it, and how we read it. In the postmodern age, historians are being ...

There has been a widespread recovery of public memory of the events of the Second World War since the end of the 1980s, with war crimes trials, restitution actions, monuments and memorials to the victims of Nazism appearing in many countries. This has inevitably involved historians being called upon to act as expert witnesses in legal actions, yet there has been little discussion of the problems that this poses for them. The French historian Henry Rousso has argued that this confuses (...) memory with history. In the aftermath of the Second World War, judicial investigations unearthed a mass of historical documentation. Historians used this, and further researches, from the 1960s onwards to develop their own ideas and interpretations. But since the early 1990s there has been a judicialization of history, in which historians and their work have been forced into the service of moral and legal forms of judgment which are alien to the historical enterprise and do violence to the subleties and nuances of the historian's search for truth. This reflects Rousso's perhaps rather simplistically scientistic view of the historian's enterprise; yet his arguments are powerful and should be taken seriously by any historian considering involvement in a law case; they also have a wider implication for the moralization of the history of the Second World War, which is now dominated by categories such as "perpetrator," "victim," and "bystander" that are legal rather than historical in origin. The article concludes by suggesting that while historians who testify in war crimes trials should confine themselves to elucidating the historical context, and not become involved in judging whether an individual was guilty or otherwise of a crime, it remains legitimate to offer expert opinion, as the author of the article has done, in a legal action that turns on the research and writing of history itself. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 3, pp 457 - 467 This reply to the critiques by Daniel Woolf, Cass R. Sunstein and Daniel Nolan of my book _Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History_, takes each of their contributions in turn, and reasserts the centrality to counterfactual history of positing definite, long term alternative timelines rather than a vague claim that things might have turned out differently to the way they actually did. Such alternate timelines have no claim to either truth or (...) utility since they ignore the many possible contingencies that would most likely have taken place following the initial deviation from the real timeline of history. (shrink)

This text brings together what is known about liberal feminist and socialist movements for the emancipation of women all over the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Richard Evans trad in 2000 op als expert-getuige in het proces dat historica Deborah Lipstadt aanspande tegen haar collega David Irving. Lipstadt beschuldigde Irving ervan in zijn geschriften een grote hoeveelheid goedverkopende historische boeken over de Tweede Wereldoorlog, stelselmatig de Holocaust te ontkennen. Evans, eveneens een historicus, kreeg de taak te onderzoeken of er inderdaad sprake was van verdraaiing van de feiten in het werk van Irving. Zijn bevindingen, die hij in dit essay uit de doeken doet, (...) en het uiteindelijke oordeel van de rechter leiden hem ertoe na te denken over de verantwoordelijkheid die de geschiedschrijver heeft tegenover de waarheid. (shrink)

The Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity), the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad, hold an eminent position in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia, the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). This compendium contains fifty-two epistles offering synoptic accounts of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age; divided into four classificatory parts, it treats themes in mathematics, logic, (...) natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, and theology, in addition to didactic fables. The Rasa'il constitutes a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization, as well as having shown a permeating influence in Western culture. The present volume is the first of this definitive series consisting of the very first critical edition of the Rasa' il in its original Arabic, with a complete, fully annotated English translation. This epistle, The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn (Epistle 22), prepared by Professors Lenn E. Goodman and Richard McGregor, is arguably the best known, on account of its prominent ecological fable which casts the exploited and oppressed animals pursuing a case against mankind. Perhaps yet more relevant in modern times, the Ikhwan demonstrate the arrogance of man's claim to superiority, in contrast to the animals' pious understanding of their respective roles within nature. The fable complements and expands upon the short exposition on zoology featured at the beginning of the epistle. (shrink)

This essay, which is the editor's introduction to part 1 of a multipart symposium on quietism, also constitutes his call for symposium papers. The symposium is meant be comprehensive. It is described as political and broadly cultural as well as religious, and in religious terms is said to cover not only the Catholic and Protestant quietisms (most properly so called) of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also the proto-quietisms of the medieval Western church and reputedly quietist aspects of (...) the Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, early Hasidic, Shi'ite, Jain and other Indic, Taoist, and Zen religious traditions. This introduction emphasizes the secular approaches, mostly antipolitical or postphilosophical, that wear the adjective “quietist” metaphorically, including the postmodern currents that Martha Nussbaum has named “hip quietism” and the “minimalist” philosophical version developed by Wittgenstein and some of his successors, notably Richard Rorty. This introduction concludes with attention to Rorty's late essay “Naturalism and Quietism,” then with a dedication of the entire symposium to Rorty's memory. (shrink)

"Augustine's City of God is not a treatise of political or social philosophy." So begins Christian Tornau's section on political philosophy in his entry on Augustine for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Evident in this remark is the ambivalence with which historians of philosophy have generally treated the political philosophy of the great late antique philosopher of northern Africa. Despite its suggestive title and its extended apologetical attacks on the Earthly City, the City of God is decidedly not a work (...) of political philosophy in the traditional sense: it does not reason about the best form of government; it only rarely functions as a mirror for Christian princes; it recommends no real social or... (shrink)

Most individuals realise that we have a moral obligation to avoid the evils of war. But this realization raises a host of difficult questions when we, as responsible individuals, witness harrowing injustices such as ""ethnic cleansing"" in Bosnia or starvation in Somalia. With millions of lives at stake, is war ever justified? And, if so, for what purpose? In this book, Richard J. Regan confronts these controversial questions by first considering the basic principles of just-war theory and then applying (...) those principles to historical and ongoing conflicts. Part One presents two opposing viewpoints: first, that war is not subject to moral norms and, second, that war is never morally permissible. The author rejects both perspectives, and moves to define the principles of just-war theory. He evaluates the roles of the president, Congress and, most importantly, the UN Security Council in determining when long-term US military involvement is justified. The moral limits of war conduct and the moral problem of using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons are also discussed. On the just cause to wage war, Regan argues that defense of nations and nationals - whether in self-defense or in defense of others - remains the ""only"" classical cause that in the modern world would justify resorting to war. With respect to military intervention in secessionist and revolutionary wars, he contends that such intervention might be justified, but that prudence dictates extreme caution. In considering acceptable war conduct, Regan elaborates the specific principle of discrimination and proportionality; he maintains that civilians uninvolved in the enemy's war should not be directly targeted and that the costs of military action must be proportionate to the anticipated benefits of destroying military targets. The second part of the book presents case studies of eight historical wars - World War I, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the revolution and civil war in Nicaragua, the civil war in El Salvador, the Gulf War, the intervention in Somalia, and the Bosnian War - and poses several provocative questions about each. It invites readers and students to apply just-war principles to complex war-related situations and to understand the factual contingencies involved in moral judgements about war decisions. The book should be of particular interest to students of the moral issues of international relations and to readers interested more generally in philosophy, theology and political science. (shrink)

At present, there is an enormous gulf between the visibility of evil and the paucity of our intellectual resources for coming to grips with it. We have been flooded with images of death camps, terrorist attacks and horrendous human suffering. Yet when we ask what we mean by radical evil and how we are to account for it, we seem to be at a loss for proper responses. Bernstein seeks to discover what we can learn about the meaning of evil (...) and human responsibility. He turns to philosophers such as Kant, who coined the expression 'radical evil', as well as to Hegel and Schelling. He also examines more recent explorations of evil, namely the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche on the moral psychology of evil. Finally, he looks at the way in which three post-Holocaust thinkers - Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt - have sought to come to grips with evil "after Auschwitz." Bernstein's primary concern throughout this challenging book is to enrich and deepen our understanding of evil in the contemporary world, and to emphasize the vigilance and personal responsibility required for combating it. Radical Evil will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social and political theory, and religious studies. (shrink)

All humans have an equal basic moral status. They possess the same fundamental rights, and the comparable interests of each person should count the same in calculations that determine social policy. Neither supposed racial differences, nor skin color, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, intelligence, nor any other differences among humans negate their fundamental equal worth and dignity. These platitudes are virtually universally affirmed. A white supremacist racist or an admirer of Adolf Hitler who denies them is rightly regarded as beyond the (...) pale of civilized dialogue. However, a very simple line of argument developed by Peter Singer challenges our understanding of these platitudes and forces us to rethink the basis and nature of the moral equality of all humans. What I call the “Singer Problem” arises if one accepts that the morally significant cognitive capacities that are relevant to the determination of the fundamental moral status of a being vary from individual to individual by degree. The problem is to specify a moral principle determining fundamental moral status that assigns a superior status to humans compared to other animals on the basis of the superior cognitive capacities of humans but also assigns all human persons an equal fundamental moral status regardless of their differing cognitive capacities. More broadly posed, the problem is to specify moral principles that yield intuitively satisfactory implications for the treatment of human individuals and other individual animals given that cognitive capacities differ across species and individuals. A search for a resolution of the Singer problem leads to disappointing results. (shrink)

Philosophers perennially debate the nature of the good for humans. Is it subjective or objective? That is to say, do the things that are intrinsically good for an agent, good for their own sakes and apart from further consequences, acquire this status only in virtue of how she happens to regard them? Or are there things that are good in themselves for an individual independently of her desires and attitudes toward them? The issue sounds recondite, but has been thought to (...) be pregnant with implications for politics as it ought to be. Plato vigorously insists that knowledge of the good is precious and the person who has it is uniquely fit to rule: "In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of whatever is right and good; in the visible world it gives birth to the light and to the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of wisdom and truth. Without having had a vision of this Form no one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or in matters of state.". (shrink)

This essay surveys varieties of the luck egalitarian project in an exploratory spirit, seeking to identify lines of thought that are worth developing further and that might ultimately prove morally acceptable. I do not attend directly to the critics and assess their concerns; I have done that in other essays. 7 I do seek to identify some large fault lines, divisions in ways of approaching the task of constructing a theory of justice or of conceiving its substance. These are controversial (...) in the sense that in the present state of discussion it is unclear how best to view them or to which side it is better to scramble. But in the end of course I’m not a moral geographer and map-maker, just an involved spectator/tourist offering yet another view of the cathedral. (shrink)

This essay reexamines the idea of paternalism and the basis for finding it objectionable in light of recent writings on “libertarian paternalism.” Suggestion: to qualify as paternalistic, an interference that restricts someone’s liberty or interferes with her choice-making with the aim of helping the individual must be contrary to that very individual’s will. A framework for determining the justifiability of paternalistic action is proposed, under the assumption that the individual has a personal prerogative, up to a point, to engage in (...) less than maximally beneficial action. Beyond that point, the content of the will of the individual disposed against interference can extinguish the presumptive wrongness of paternalism. (shrink)

"A fascinating and timely treatment of the objectivism versus relativism debates occurring in philosophy of science, literary theory, the social sciences, ...

In her recent, provocative essay “What Is the Point of Equality?”, Elizabeth Anderson argues against a common ideal of egalitarian justice that she calls “ luck egalitarianism” and in favor of an approach she calls “democratic equality.”1 According to the luck egalitarian, the aim of justice as equality is to eliminate so far as is possible the impact on people’s lives of bad luck that falls on them through no fault or choice of their own. In the ideal luck egalitarian (...) society, there are no inequalities in people’s life prospects except those that arise through processes of voluntary choice or faulty conduct, for which the agents involved can reasonably be held responsible. Anderson asserts that the adherents of luck egalitarianism, which can be elaborated in many different ways, include John Roemer, Erik Rakowski, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, Gerald Cohen, Richard Arneson, and Philippe Van Parijs.2 In contrast, according to the democratic equality conception, justice as equality requires an end to oppressive social relationships. In the ideal society of democratic equality, the social conditions of everyone’s freedom are secured, each stands to every other in a relationship of fundamental equality, including equal respect, and all have real freedom to participate in democratic self-government. (shrink)