Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The question of the relationship between ethics and authority is as old as civilization, but the events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seem to have raised our consciousness of it to a new level and in ways that make us sensitive to issues of cultural diversity. For the nineteenth century brought the colonial conquest of the globe in the name of Western religious and cultural “superiority” and was followed by the twentieth century, which brought us the global tragedy of two world wars, culminating in the attempted Nazi genocide of the Jews and numerous lesser wars since, intent on “ethnic cleansing.” Fascism, Nazism, colonialism, racism, sexism, and religious prejudice are part and parcel of the human journey through these centuries.What was learned from the Nuremberg trials after World War II is emblematic of these centuries, namely, that morality can be dangerous. For the crimes of war perpetrated in the death camps and elsewhere were too often “crimes of obedience.” These were crimes in which the humanity of others was violated in the name of a morality of unquestioning obedience to higher authority that defined its victims as less than human and not worthy of life. In the aftermath of World War II, reacting to these crimes, the nations of the world took the unprecedented step of establishing a covenant of nations pledged to an ethic of human dignity and human rights ... log in or subscribe to read full text