Download or read book Complicity and Moral Accountability written by Gregory Mellema and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema presents a philosophical approach to the moral issues involved in complicity. Starting with a taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas, according to whom there are nine ways for one to become complicit in the wrongdoing of another, Mellema analyzes each kind of complicity and examines the moral status of someone complicit in each of these ways. Mellema's central argument is that one must perform a contributing action to qualify as an accomplice, and that it is always morally blameworthy to perform such an action. Additionally, he argues that an accomplice frequently bears moral responsibility for the outcome of the other's wrongdoing, but he distinguishes this case from cases in which the accomplice is tainted by the wrongdoing of the principal actor. He further distinguishes between enabling, facilitating, and condoning harm, and introduces the concept of indirect complicity. Mellema tackles issues that are clearly important to any case of collective and shared responsibility, yet rarely discussed in depth, always presenting his arguments clearly, concisely, and engagingly. His account of the nonmoral as well as moral qualities of complicity in wrongdoing--especially of the many and varied ways in which principles and accomplices can interact--is highly illuminating. Liberally sprinkled with helpful and nuanced examples, Complicity and Moral Accountability vividly illustrates the many ways in which one may be complicit in wrongdoing.
Download or read book Complicity and Moral Accountability written by Gregory Mellema and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema presents a philosophical approach to the moral issues involved in complicity. Starting with a taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas, according to whom there are nine ways for one to become complicit in the wrongdoing of another, Mellema analyzes each kind of complicity and examines the moral status of someone complicit in each of these ways. Mellema’s central argument is that one must perform a contributing action to qualify as an accomplice, and that it is always morally blameworthy to perform such an action. Additionally, he argues that an accomplice frequently bears moral responsibility for the outcome of the other’s wrongdoing, but he distinguishes this case from cases in which the accomplice is tainted by the wrongdoing of the principal actor. He further distinguishes between enabling, facilitating, and condoning harm, and introduces the concept of indirect complicity. Mellema tackles issues that are clearly important to any case of collective and shared responsibility, yet rarely discussed in depth, always presenting his arguments clearly, concisely, and engagingly. His account of the nonmoral as well as moral qualities of complicity in wrongdoing—especially of the many and varied ways in which principles and accomplices can interact—is highly illuminating. Liberally sprinkled with helpful and nuanced examples, Complicity and Moral Accountability vividly illustrates the many ways in which one may be complicit in wrongdoing.
Download or read book Being White Being Good written by Barbara Applebaum and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-03-18 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary scholars who study race and racism have emphasized that white complicity plays a role in perpetuating systemic racial injustice. Being White, Being Good seeks to explain what scholars mean by white complicity, to explore the ethical and epistemological assumptions that white complicity entails, and to offer recommendations for how white complicity can be taught. The book highlights how well-intentioned white people who might even consider themselves as paragons of antiracism might be unwittingly sustaining an unjust system that they say they want to dismantle. What could it mean for white people 'to be good' when they can reproduce and maintain racist system even when, and especially when, they believe themselves to be good? In order to answer this question, Barbara Applebaum advocates a shift in our understanding of the subject, of language, and of moral responsibility. Based on these shifts a new notion of moral responsibility is articulated that is not focused on guilt and that can help white students understand and acknowledge their white complicity. Being White, Being Good introduces an approach to social justice pedagogy called 'white complicity pedagogy.' The practical and pedagogical implications of this approach are fleshed out by emphasizing the role of uncertainty, vulnerability, and vigilance. White students who acknowledge their complicity have an increased potential to develop alliance identities and to engage in genuine cross-racial dialogue. White complicity pedagogy promises to facilitate the type of listening on the part of white students so that they come open and willing to learn, and 'not just to say no.' Applebaum also conjectures that systemically marginalized students would be more likely and willing to invest energy and time, and be more willing to engage with the systemically privileged, when the latter acknowledge rather than deny their complicity. It is a central claim of the book that acknowledging complicity encourages a willingness to listen to, rather than dismiss, the struggles and experiences of the systemically marginalized.
Download or read book Complicity written by Christopher Kutz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-16 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a morally flawed world. Our lives are complicated by what other people do, and by the harms that flow from our social, economic, and political institutions. Our relations as individuals to these collective harms constitute the domain of complicity. This book examines the relationship between collective responsibility and individual guilt. It presents a rigorous philosophical account of the nature of our relations to the social groups in which we participate, and uses that account in a discussion of contemporary moral theory.
Download or read book Moral Responsibility written by Christopher Cowley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and to what degree are we responsible for our characters, our lives, our misfortunes, our relationships and our children? This question is at the heart of "Moral Responsibility". The book explores accusations and denials of moral responsibility for particular acts, responsibility for character, and the role of luck and fate in ethics. Moral responsibility as the grounds for a retributivist theory of punishment is examined, alongside discussions of forgiveness, parental responsibility, and responsibility before God. The book also discusses collective responsibility, bringing in notions of complicity and membership, and drawing on the seminal contemporary discussion of collective agency and responsibility: the Nuremberg trials.
Download or read book On Complicity and Compromise written by Chiara Lepora and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on philosophy, law and political science, and on a wealth of practical experience delivering emergency medical services in conflict-ridden settings, Lepora and Goodin untangle the complexities surrounding compromise and complicity.
Download or read book The Crime of Complicity written by Amos N. Guiora and published by Ankerwycke. This book was released on 2017 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complicity is a ground-breaking examination of the legal culpability of the bystander told through the lens of the author's family experiences in the Holocaust. It provides an exploration of three distinct events: the death marches; the German occupation of Holland; and the German occupation of Hungary, all of which allow an in-depth discussion of the role of the bystander in varied circumstances. Through a narrative of his parents' stories, Amos Guiora, Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, author, and former Lieutenant Colonel in the Israel Defense Fo.
Download or read book Complicity and Responsibility in Contemporary African Writing written by Minna Johanna Niemi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2023-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the many ways in which contemporary African fiction has reflected on themes of responsibility and complicity during the postcolonial period. This book will be of interest to researchers of African literature, postcolonial studies, and peace and conflict studies.
Download or read book In Our Name written by Eric Beerbohm and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-29 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a government in a democracy acts in our name, are we, as citizens, responsible for those acts? What if the government commits a moral crime? The protestor's slogan--"Not in our name!"--testifies to the need to separate ourselves from the wrongs of our leaders. Yet the idea that individual citizens might bear a special responsibility for political wrongdoing is deeply puzzling for ordinary morality and leading theories of democracy. In Our Name explains how citizens may be morally exposed to the failures of their representatives and state institutions, and how complicity is the professional hazard of democratic citizenship. Confronting the ethical challenges that citizens are faced with in a self-governing democracy, Eric Beerbohm proposes institutional remedies for dealing with them. Beerbohm questions prevailing theories of democracy for failing to account for our dual position as both citizens and subjects. Showing that the obligation to participate in the democratic process is even greater when we risk serving as accomplices to wrongdoing, Beerbohm argues for a distinctive division of labor between citizens and their representatives that charges lawmakers with the responsibility of incorporating their constituents' moral principles into their reasoning about policy. Grappling with the practical issues of democratic decision making, In Our Name engages with political science, law, and psychology to envision mechanisms for citizens seeking to avoid democratic complicity.
Download or read book Humanitarian Ethics written by Hugo Slim and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanitarians are required to be impartial, independent, professionally competent and focused only on preventing and alleviating human suffering. It can be hard living up to these principles when others do not share them, while persuading political and military authorities and non-state actors to let an agency assist on the ground requires savvy ethical skills. Getting first to a conflict or natural catastrophe is only the beginning, as aid workers are usually and immediately presented with practical and moral questions about what to do next. For example, when does working closely with a warring party or an immoral regime move from practical cooperation to complicity in human rights violations? Should one operate in camps for displaced people and refugees if they are effectively places of internment? Do humanitarian agencies inadvertently encourage ethnic cleansing by always being ready to 'mop-up' the consequences of scorched earth warfare? This book has been written to help humanitarians assess and respond to these and other ethical dilemmas.
Download or read book Reason Value and Respect written by Mark Timmons and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In thirteen specially written essays, leading philosophers explore Kantian themes in moral and political philosophy that are prominent in the work of Thomas E. Hill, Jr. The first three essays focus on respect and self-respect.; the second three on practical reason and public reason. The third section covers a set of topics in social and political philosophy, including Kantian perspectives on homicide and animals. The final set of essays discuss duty, volition, and complicity in ethics. In conclusion Hill offers an overview of his work and responses to the preceding essays.
Download or read book Responsibility and Judgment written by Hannah Arendt and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-04-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each of the books that Hannah Arendt published in her lifetime was unique, and to this day each continues to provoke fresh thought and interpretations. This was never more true than for Eichmann in Jerusalem, her account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, where she first used the phrase “the banality of evil.” Her consternation over how a man who was neither a monster nor a demon could nevertheless be an agent of the most extreme evil evoked derision, outrage, and misunderstanding. The firestorm of controversy prompted Arendt to readdress fundamental questions and concerns about the nature of evil and the making of moral choices. Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt’s life, as she struggled to explicate the meaning of Eichmann in Jerusalem. At the heart of this book is a profound ethical investigation, “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy”; in it Arendt confronts the inadequacy of traditional moral “truths” as standards to judge what we are capable of doing, and she examines anew our ability to distinguish good from evil and right from wrong. We see how Arendt comes to understand that alongside the radical evil she had addressed in earlier analyses of totalitarianism, there exists a more pernicious evil, independent of political ideology, whose execution is limitless when the perpetrator feels no remorse and can forget his acts as soon as they are committed. Responsibility and Judgment is an essential work for understanding Arendt’s conception of morality; it is also an indispensable investigation into some of the most troubling and important issues of our time.
Download or read book Responsible Citizens Irresponsible States written by Avia Pasternak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States are often held responsible for their wrongdoings. States pay compensation for their unjust wars, as did Iraq in the aftermath of its invasion of Kuwait. States pay reparations for their historical wrongdoings, as did Chile to the victims of the Pinochet Regime, or Germany to Israel and other countries because of the Holocaust. Some argue that they should pay punitive damages for their international crimes as well. But state responsibility has a troubling feature: states are corporate agents, comprising flesh and blood citizens. When they turn to the public purse to finance their corporate liabilities, it is their citizens who pay the price. Even citizens who protested against their state's policies, did not know about them, or had no influence on policy makers end up sharing the burden. Why should these citizens pay for their state's wrongdoings, if they don't carry the blame? Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible States develops a fresh justification for citizens' duties to share the burden of their state's wrongdoings. This justification revolves around citizens' participation in their state: drawing on recent debates in the philosophy of collective action, Avia Pasternak shows that citizens are acting together in their state and that their state policies are the product of this collective action. Given this participation, citizens ought to share the burden of remedying harmful wrongs their state policies bring about. However, she also argues that not all citizens in all states are participating in their state. In many authoritarian states, citizens' participation in the state is highly restricted or coerced. Here, ordinary citizens do not share responsibility for their state policies and should not be forced to pay for them. These conclusions carry significant real-world implications for the way domestic international law holds various types of states, and their citizens, responsible for their wrongdoings. This work is essential for political theorists and philosophers grappling with citizen responsibility and duty.
Download or read book Principles of Shared Responsibility in International Law written by André Nollkaemper and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shared Responsibility in International Law series examines the underexplored problem of allocation of responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. The International Law Commission, in its work on state responsibility and the responsibility of international organisations, recognised that attribution of acts to one state or organisation does not exclude possible attribution of the same act to another state or organisation, but has provided limited guidance on allocation or reparation. From the new perspective of shared responsibility, this volume reviews the main principles of the law of international responsibility as laid down in the Articles on State Responsibility and the Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations, such as attribution of conduct, breach, circumstances precluding wrongfulness and reparation. It explores the potential and limitations of current international law in dealing with questions of shared responsibility in areas such as military operations and international environmental law.
Download or read book Reader as Accomplice written by Alexander Spektor and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reader as Accomplice: Narrative Ethics in Dostoevsky and Nabokov argues that Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov seek to affect the moral imagination of their readers by linking morally laden plots to the ethical questions raised by narrative fiction at the formal level. By doing so, these two authors ask us to consider and respond to the ethical demands that narrative acts of representation and interpretation place on authors and readers. Using the lens of narrative ethics, Alexander Spektor brings to light the important, previously unexplored correspondences between Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Ultimately, he argues for a productive comparison of how each writer investigates the ethical costs of narrating oneself and others. He also explores the power dynamics between author, character, narrator, and reader. In his readings of such texts as “The Meek One” and The Idiot by Dostoevsky and Bend Sinister and Despair by Nabokov, Spektor demonstrates that these authors incite the reader’s sense of ethics by exposing the risks but also the possibilities of narrative fiction.
Download or read book The Responsibility of Intellectuals written by Noam Chomsky and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by Newsweek as one of “14 nonfiction books you’ll want to read this fall” Fifty years after it first appeared, one of Noam Chomsky’s greatest essays will be published for the first time as a timely stand-alone book, with a new preface by the author As a nineteen-year-old undergraduate in 1947, Noam Chomsky was deeply affected by articles about the responsibility of intellectuals written by Dwight Macdonald, an editor of Partisan Review and then of Politics. Twenty years later, as the Vietnam War was escalating, Chomsky turned to the question himself, noting that "intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments" and to analyze their "often hidden intentions." Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky's essay eviscerated the "hypocritical moralism of the past" (such as when Woodrow Wilson set out to teach Latin Americans "the art of good government") and exposed the shameful policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying it. Also included in this volume is the brilliant "The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux," written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, which makes the case for using privilege to challenge the state. As relevant now as it was in 1967, The Responsibility of Intellectuals reminds us that "privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities." All of us have choices, even in desperate times.
Download or read book Collective Responsibility written by Gregory Mellema and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 1997 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Groups of people are commonly said to be collectively responsible for what has happened. Sometimes the groups claimed to be responsible are vast in size, as when collective responsibility is ascribed to the class of all Americans or the class of all white males. In this book the concept of collective responsibility is analyzed. It is examined not only in the light of what philosophical proponents (such as Cooper, Held, Bates, French, Swinburne, and May) have said about it, but a genuine attempt is made to make sense of what ordinary people say about responsibility when it is ascribed to groups of people. Accordingly, it is distinguished from related concepts such as shared responsibility and moral taint. Parallels are examined between the actions of an individual and the actions of a group or collective, parallels which seem to make ascriptions of collective responsibility more plausible. Some philosophers oppose collective responsibility and argue for an individualist type of position; in this regard the positions of Lewis and Sverdlik are critically examined. The final chapter contains the author's own position, a position which affirms that collective responsibility is possible but which also preserves some of the central intuitions of the individualist.
