Is every man a free agent whose moral decisions are autonomous? Historically, we’ve been on shaky ground, more of a landslide really when our eggs have been in the humanism basket, a faith in an innate quality that would ensure the preservation of universal ideals, the so-called belief in core morality, the reverence for life. However, nothing has been proven about innate rightness or goodness. It seems every moral judgment is subject to the same fate for philosophy cannot logically declare one or the other to be right. Hence, would determine what was right and what was wrong, and it was basically this type of majority culture that spawned Auschwitz, the “new morality, which to the Nazis was logical application of situational ethics. There was no reason for moral relativists to get their Irish up over the Holocaust.
At the beginning of the 1930′s moral relativists still stood on solid ground. Who would have thought a civilized Europe could morph into SS guards capable of murdering children. It was the logic of moral relativism pushed to its horrifying conclusion. The alleged civilizing effects of culture , learning and intellectuality were placed in grave doubt shattering the myth of correlation between intellectual superiority and moral excellence. If anything was learned from Auschwitz, it taught us what man can be, either saint or demon, and based on moral relativism each can be justified and legitimate, the man as verbal biped theory with the idea of soul being negated; a kind of Gresham law in operation where the bad tends to drive out the good.
There is a good argument that states that our freedom lies in the ability to choose between good and evil, and not the capacity to define what is right and wrong. In the final analysis, there is a need to appeal to a higher standard than a made made definiton, and Eichmann’s or Marxist book of ethics, since there are problems that exceed society’s and science’s ability to deal with. Obviously, Auschwitz taught nothing about god , but a heck of a lot about man and only Auschwitz could teach that like no other.
Auschwitz demonstrated infinite depths to which man could sink, which seem incredible in a civilized world. Our reliance as the measure of all things could have remained intact- except for Auschwitz. As John Luckacs stated, what would we then think of the Nazis and Hitler if he had not used Death camps? Men had persuaded themselves that humanity could discard barbarism, though Auschwitz proved them to be confidence tricksters, false prophets, snake oil salesmen claiming to chart a course of life and architects of a viable and moral society. ( to be continued)…
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