How should genocide affect philosophy?

Frederick Sontag

pp. 29-34

in: John K. Roth (ed), Genocide and human rights, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Abstract

In the twentieth century, it could be said that evil caught up with philosophy, has called philosophy to account, but to what extent has philosophy recognized and responded to that impact? If the twentieth century has aptly been called an age of genocide, to what extent has genocide affected philosophy and its views about evil, goodness, human existence, and God in particular? Has genocide changed how we must think about humanity and God? Have genocide and its possible relationship to God affected how we should think about evil? Viewed with humanity's genocidal impulses in mind, must evil now become a key concept for self-understanding, including philosophy's understanding of itself? Philosophy is as good as the questions it asks. These questions are among the ones that philosophy most needs to ponder if it is to make its best contributions in the twenty-first century.