Concurrent Session 6b: Contextualizing Moral Autonomy

Chair: xxx(University)

Is Moral Pluralism a Prerequisite For Moral Responsibility? Some Lessons From Nazi Germany

Kristof Van Assche
Department of Philosophy
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussels, Belgium

Moral theories usually presume that people can only be blamed for those detrimental aspects of their actions that are intentional, readily knowable or reasonably predictable. However, the capacity to recognise the wickedness of our actions may be drastically reduced by the social structures that we live in. In full-fledged totalitarian societies like North Korea and the former Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent Nazi Germany, the basic structures of society make autonomous moral deliberation simply impossible. In those circumstances, perpetrators may participate in horrendous crimes, strongly believing that they act righteously or are exempt from all responsibility or without even knowing that they are involved in a meaningful way. The standard response is that these perpetrators nevertheless remain responsible, because their moral reasoning must at all times be open to evaluative and normative standards that are independent of those embodied in their own social structures. However, this response doesn’t suffice, because it fails to take into consideration that the main prerequisite for questioning established beliefs – the existence of milieus in which alternative opinions are espoused and with which one can readily identify oneself – is completely lacking. This insight has some far-reaching implications for our notions of moral responsibility and our self-image as moral subjects.

A Moral and Historical Research into the Moral Responsibility of Pope Pius XII Regarding the Final Solution to the Jewish Question

Dirk Verhofstadt
Liberales
Ghent, Belgium

Fifty-two years ago, on October 9^th 1958, Pius XII, the most talked about pope in world history, died. The Roman Catholic Church, and fore mostly the Romans, mourned the loss of the man who had led the Holy City seemingly undamaged through the war. Until Rolf Hochhuth published his controversial play Der Stellvertreter (‘The Surrogate’) in 1963, many people considered Pius XII the greatest of all popes. Hochhuth accused Pius XII that he had not taken action to condemn the extermination of the Jews, let alone to stop it. Ever since historians debate the role of the pope concerning the fate of the Jews before, during and after World War II. To what extend did Pius XII know about the extermination of the Jews? And what was the reaction of the world’s highest moral leader to it?

These questions have become relevant again. Firstly, the Vatican is taking action to canonize Pius XII. Secondly, because the Roman Catholic Church still has not taken co-responsibility. And lastly, because the last of the direct witnesses of this dramatic event are vanishing. It is still a necessity to uncover the mechanisms which have lead to the Holocaust and to draw lessons from them.

Dirk Verhofstadt examines the position of Pacelli, the later Pius XII, towards Hitler’s policy against the Jews. The purpose of his presentation is an answer to the following three questions. 1. Was Pacelli, later Pius XII, aware of the atrocities of the Nazis, in particular of the destruction of the Jews? 2. What was the attitude of the German episcopate regarding Nazism and the extermination of the Jews? 3. What was the attitude of a typical German Catholic regarding Nazism, taking into account what the church leaders told him to do?