Moral Responsibility in the Holocaust. A Study in the Ethics of Character, David H. Jones (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), xi + 257 pp., cloth $80.00, pbk. $24.95.

Abstract

In this volume, Jones attempts to establish a strictly philosophical foundation for dealing with the problem of moral responsibility that arises out of an ethical analysis of the Holocaust. To those who ground their ethical reasoning and concrete moral responses in religious convictions as well as in philosophy, the argumentation may seem incomplete. But given the increasing heterogeneity of contemporary society, in which the language of one particular religion or secular ideology is insufficient to shape public moral discourse, Jones’s effort to develop a basis for evaluating moral responsibility on a more neutral philosophical foundation is a welcome addition to the growing body of post-Holocaust ethics literature. Jones begins with a brief overview of the book and its methodology. He has divided the volume into two major sections. The first section offers a capsule summary of what in the field is termed the “ethics of responsibility,” sometimes also referred to as the “ethics of character” or “virtue ethics,” although Jones focuses on the individual agent more than some approaches—particularly religious—that emphasize the moral ethos within the community. Jones often takes examples from the Holocaust era. The purpose of this first section is to propose a basis for evaluating the specific moral dilemmas, which are discussed in section two, that emerged from the Holocaust.