Moral Works Research Articles

Duch ustawy o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych – 20 lat ulatniania się

Autor wskazuje liczne przykłady oraz przyczyny erozji ustawy o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych w minionym 20-leciu jej obowiązywania. Odwołując się do fundamentalnych zasad prawa autorskiego, wśród przyczyn ww. erozji wymienia: błędne nowelizacje, złe implementacje przepisów międzynarodowych, ułomną działalność doktryny i praktyki prawniczej, błędne orzecznictwo na wszystkich szczeblach sądownictwa, ale także ignorancję prawną twórców i użytkowników, przemożny wpływ na proces legislacyjny mediów i różnych grup interesów, pozaparlamentarne mieszanie się w stosowanie ustawy przez polityków. Autor wskazuje także na uhandlowienie ustawy i postrzeganie prawa autorskiego przez pryzmat potrzeb odbiorców i rynkowe motywacje użytkowników, spychanie na drugi plan praw osobistych autorów i unikatowości twórczości. Autor wskazuje także na konieczność kompleksowej regulacji sfery obrotu prawami autorskimi i pokrewnymi w jednym akcie i podaje przykład absurdu zastosowania przepisów wolnościowych konkurencji do zbiorowego zarządu prawami autorskimi. Erozję prawa autorskiego autor analizuje także na gruncie Uzasadnienia ustawy z 1994 r., będącego podstawą jej uchwalenia. W tym zakresie wskazuje na: odejście od prawidłowych regulacji droit de suite, utworu audiowizualnego i powiązanych z nim wynagrodzeń autorskich, przepisów regulujących zbiorowy zarząd, contra legem interpretacje domniemań prawnych (m.in. legitymacji organizacji zbiorowego zarządzania (OZZ), nabycia praw majątkowych do utworu audiowizualnego), naruszania bezwzględnie obowiązujących przepisów ustawy w zakresie zbywania autorskich praw majątkowych, błędne realizowanie przepisów o tzw. opłacie reprograficznej. Podając przykłady przepisów wprowadzanych w życie nowelizacjami ustawy, autor wskazuje na upadek techniki legislacyjnej i konieczność stosowania skomplikowanych metod interpretacyjnych, aby dotrzeć do sensu przepisu, np. art. 331 i następnych. Lekceważenie ustawy przejawia się także w niestosowaniu ustawowych terminów przez sądy polskie, np. art.80 pr.aut. Wieloma niekorzystnymi skutkami stosowania ustawy obarcza doktrynę prawną niepodejmującą interpretacji wielu pojęć i instytucji ustawowych np. „ogólnego obciążenia” z art. 11013 ust. 5 pkt 2; „inne środki publicznego udostępniania” z art. 70 ust. 21 pkt 3 pr.aut. Autor z niepokojem też wskazuje na projekty nowelizacji ustawy, będące ciągiem dalszym odchodzenia od jej ducha i zagrażające właściwemu zabezpieczaniu praw twórców, artystów wykonawców i innych podmiotów praw pokrewnych.

Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages ed. by Dallas G. Denery, II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman (review)

Reviewed by: Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages ed. by Dallas G. Denery, II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman Lola Sharon Davidson Denery, Dallas G., II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman, eds, Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages (Disputatio, 14), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014; hardback; pp. viii, 345; 10 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503547763. This book originated in a research project and workshop examining uncertain knowledge in the Middle Ages. The papers fall broadly into two camps, philosophical and literary. The editors’ Introduction makes clear that this breadth arises from an explicit strategy aimed at exploring both the role played by scepticism in the scholastic production of authorised knowledge and the subversion of that institutional knowledge by vernacular and lay cultural players. The focus is determinedly epistemological and largely ignores the vexed and voluminous subject of religious orthodoxy and heresy. Dallas G. Denery II opens the discussion with John of Salisbury’s meditations on the attitude of the superior man in an environment, namely the court, rendered inherently deceptive by flattery and illusory pleasures. Denery sees in John a continuing humanist tradition masked by the ascendancy of scholasticism until its resurgence in the early modern era. Eileen C. Sweeney looks at the reception of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics by Grosseteste and Roger Bacon whose move to privilege scientific knowledge, and thereby implicitly problematise other forms, was resisted by the Summa fratris Alexandri and William of Auvergne’s championing of faith as the only possible certainty. Dominik Perler brings us to medieval considerations of the classical grounds of scepticism through Walter Chatton’s and William Ockham’s responses to Peter Aureol’s attempt to account for sensory illusions by mediated perception. Perler concludes that radical scepticism was impossible within an Aristotelian framework committed to the reliability of our natural capacities. Christophe Grellard continues this theme with John Buridan’s explanation of how it is possible to believe falsely. Buridan sympathetically employed the figure of the ‘little old woman’ to explain how habit, social pressure, and imagination might combine to distort perception and permit false belief. Concluding the more strictly philosophical section, Rita Copeland reveals the difficulty commentators, such as Giles of Rome, Buridan, and even the translator, William of Moerbeke, had in situating Aristotle’s Rhetoric within the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. Notwithstanding Aristotle’s placing it under logic, the manuscript tradition preferred to group it with ethics and politics. Lesley Smith bridges the shift from the scholastic to the literary by looking at uncertainty in the study of the Bible. Medieval scholars were aware that they were dealing with fallible translations from unreliable texts and not all were content to resolve problems by allegorising. Nicholas of Lyra turned to a rabbi for the cultural background of the Bible. William of Auvergne and Richard and Hugh of St Victor sought rational explanations of biblical stories while accepting that uncertainty would persist. [End Page 232] Karen Sullivan shifts the focus to vernacular literature with Robert de Boron’s Merlin. Rejecting a rationalist denunciation of Merlin as diabolically inspired, Boron draws on a contemplative perspective that employs the prophet’s mysterious nature to valorise intellectual humility and faith. Helen Swift continues this perspective in her chapter on love poetry. The lover’s desire renders him peculiarly incapable of discerning the truth but this inability is itself willed for: the continuance of uncertainty is the precondition for the continuance of desire. Jean de Meun, Chaucer, and Lydgate are the subject of Nicolette Zeeman’s contribution. She sees these authors turning the weapons of the scholastic philosophers against them in a systematic problematising of sanctioned epistemological, moral, social, and gender hierarchies. Next, Mishtooni Bose focuses on the role of opinion in the vernacular philosophical and moral works of Christine de Pizan and Bishop Reginald Pecock. Notwithstanding the Introduction’s disclaimer, Kantik Ghosh addresses heresy and the policing of intellectual debate in the trials of Richard Fleming, Jerome of Prague, and Jan Hus, all of whom were accused of following Wyclif. Fleming successfully defended himself on the grounds of academic debate, but Hus and Jerome found arguments for academic freedom powerless against the Inquisition and...

Morality for skeptics? Morality for Humans Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science Mark Johnson University of Chicago Press, 2014. 273 pp.

Morality for skeptics? <b>Morality for Humans</b> Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science <i>Mark Johnson</i> University of Chicago Press, 2014. 273 pp.

Repulsion and attraction in migration: poverty and the poor in the moral works of Hume and Smith

Repulsion and attraction in migration: poverty and the poor in the moral works of Hume and Smith

From Tolstoy to Premchand: Fractured Narratives and the Paradox of Gandhi's Militant Non-Violence

1. Narratives may be fractured in many ways. In comparing Tolstoy with his Indian admirer Premchand with an eye both to broken story-lines and to the authors’ ties to Gandhi that put them on a cusp between colonialism and postcoloniality, this essay needs to begin with the disruptions brought by censorship and similar intrusions on the freedom of literary expression. This external pressure on narrative continuity, along with the more intrinsically literary ones to be addressed later, comes to a focus in two historical fictions about proto-imperial military actionsinthe1850s,Tolstoy’sposthumouslypublishedshortnovelHadji Murat and Premchand’s short story ‘The Chess Players’. 1 Tolstoy worked on his novel sporadically between 1896 and 1904, afewyears after Gandhi,duringhisLondonperiod,hadread thedidactic moral and religious works that Tolstoy had been writing after he finished Anna Karenina in 1878. The two men corresponded briefly in 1910, the year of the writer’s death, and at this time Gandhi, who was then active in South Africa, founded a utopian settlement named ‘Tolstoy Farm’ in the author’s honour. Gandhi lived there for extended periods before returning to India in 1914 and becoming a leader in the independence struggle. In the meantime Hadji Murat, which Tolstoy had laid aside in his lifetime, in part due to his doubts about the value of even writing fiction, was finally published in 1912. A dozen years later, in 1924, Premchand wrote ‘The Chess Players’, three years after joining Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and taking the decisive step of resigning his government post as a teacher. At some point during this period, probably

Liturgy and Morality. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium in the Context of Moral Theology

50. rocznica uchwalenia Konstytucji o liturgii świętej zachęca do teologiczno-moralnej interpretacji tego dokumentu Vaticanum II. Jej owocem jest stwierdzenie istniejącej w historii zbawienia korelacji pomiędzy liturgią i moralnością. Objawienie Starego Testamentu odsłania koniunkcję kultu i moralności, a próby jej rozerwania w historii Narodu Wybranego spotykają się z ostrym sprzeciwem proroków. Krytyka ta zawiera jednak zapowiedź nowej przyszłości, w której Bóg usunie podział między kultem a moralnością. Nowy Testament przedstawia realizację tej obietnicy w wydarzeniu Jezusa Chrystusa. Jego zbawcze dzieło ustanawia chrześcijańską liturgię, w której człowiek uczestniczy jako istota duchowo-cielesna. Zbawienie aktualizowane w liturgii uświęca przez łaskę, która może być przyjęta jako miłość Boga respektująca wolne działanie człowieka. Zbawienie uobecniane w liturgii Kościoła jest bowiem relacją, współdziałaniem Boga i człowieka, łaski i wolności. Sacrosantum Concilium wyraża tę objawioną prawdę, podkreślając obiektywny i subiektywny wymiar liturgii jako dzieła Chrystusa, w którym chrześcijanin czynnie, świadomie i owocnie uczestniczy (participatio actuosa). Jest to przede wszystkim udział duchowy, zatem również moralny. Tylko wtedy możliwy jest zewnętrzny wymiar liturgii, w którym zawierają się szczegółowe formy, postawy, gesty i różnego rodzaju działania uczestnika świętej liturgii. Oznacza to, że liturgiczna participatio actuosa wymaga moralnego działania poprzez konkretne naśladowanie Chrystusa, prowadzące do nawrócenia. Wówczas „wiara działa przez miłość” (por. Ga 5, 6). W ten sposób dochodzimy do pojęcia ofiary, która w przypadku człowieka polega na jego całościowej przemianie. Grzeszny człowiek obdarowany miłością Trójjedynego Boga może na nią odpowiedzieć własną, stopniowo dojrzewającą miłością. Proces ten konstytuuje dramat Boga i człowieka, czyli napięcie pomiędzy łaską i wolnością, któremu odpowiada właśnie korelacja liturgii i moralności. Co więcej, zależność ta pozwala na autentyczne doświadczenie liturgii i moralności, chroniąc je przed redukcją do rytualizmu i moralizmu.

Recritude: Reflections on Postural Ontology

Recritude: Reflections on Postural Ontology

Recritude: Reflections on Postural Ontology

Recritude: Reflections on Postural Ontology

Cooperation and Collaboration in Higher Education

This study illustrates different practices of knowledge co-construction by exploring argumentation processes from its (1) cognitive, (2) affective, and (3) moral dimensions (respect), and by clarifying the meaning of cooperation and collaboration, terms that are commonly used as synonyms. The authors adopted a critical constructivist approach consistent with the cognitive and moral works of Habermas (1987) and Piaget (1977, 1932/2000), and refined a method of online argumentation analysis (Campos, 2004) to better understand knowledge co-construction in the context of electronic conferencing in university courses. Their data analysis focused on the form as well as on the content of online argumentation. Results concerning the cognitive dimension of online discourse confirmed previous studies. However, regarding the affective and moral (respect) dimensions of online discourse, results were less clear. The authors highlight that the technology, the course design, and the instructor’s actions are equally important to successfully achieve set goals in online learning communities.

Evolutionary Psychology and Morality. Review Essay

Evolution has since the publication of The origin of species (1859) been a source of inspiration, and a bone of contention, not only for biology but also for philosophy and the sciences of man. The moral consequences of Darwinism have been a concern for ethicists since Herbert Spencer elevated the survival of the fittest to a norm underwriting cultural and societal progress—hard for the individual perhaps, but good for mankind. In contrast, Thomas Huxley saw evolution as a story of cruelty and ruthless selfishness (“nature, red in tooth and claw”), that a human moral society should combat rather than imitate. In the past 150 years several varieties of evolutionary ethics have been proposed. This review considers three books broadly concerned with meta-ethics. Meta-ethics is about the meaning of moral statements and the nature of moral judgments, about the specific characteristics of moral behaviour and moral attitudes, and about the nature of moral properties. If we want to understand how moral judgement works, we have to understand the mental architecture that produces such judgments, one might argue. That is why we should also look at psychology, in particular moral psychology (see e.g. Sinnott-Armstrong 2008), as a resource for meta-ethics. In psychology, evolutionary thinking has in recent years acquired a place, explaining emotions, cognition, etc, as biological adaptations (e.g., Buss 2007). So, we can see the big issue looming: can morality be explained as a biological adaptation, as an instinct, and most importantly, what does that mean for the status of moral judgments and moral facts? If what we do is not the result of a judgment about what is universally and objectively right or wrong, but of the blind instincts of our animal nature, designed to promote survival of Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2011) 14:117–125 DOI 10.1007/s10677-010-9223-1

How the Russians read the French: Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy

Russian writers of the nineteenth century were quite consciously creating a new national literary tradition. They saw themselves through Western European eyes, at once admiring Europe and feeling inferior to it. This ambivalence was most keenly felt in relation to France, whose language and culture had shaped the world of the Russian aristocracy from the time of Catherine the Great. In their novels, Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy responded to the French realists by setting the French works into dialogue with Russian and biblical texts. Answering the French novels with Pushkin's prose as well as with the Gospels, the Russian authors created moral and philosophical works of art based in the spiritual values they felt the French had lost. Meyer argues that each of these great Russian authors takes the French tradition as a thesis, proposes his own antithesis, and creates in his novel a synthesis meant to create a genuinely Russian national tradition, in dialogue with rather than imitative of Western models. Winner, University of Southern California Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies

À la place du mort. Une lecture politique de La Belle Dame sans Mercy

Nowadays, the ins and outs of the quarrel around the Belle Dame sans Mercy are well known and abundantly researched. However, voices were sometimes raised to show surprise at – or even get scandalised about – this passionate debate on love casuistry taking place in the French court while the Hundred Years’ War was still raging. But it is worthwhile to note that this debate – not as fr ivolous as it may seem – might contain many more allusions to the general political situation that what one usually thinks. Th is actual reading aims at linking the Belle Dame sans Mercy to Alain Chartier’s other polemical and moral works, thus casting a new light on the deep unity between his mind and his poetics.

Wonders of America: The curiosity cabinet as a site of representation and knowledge

This essay examines the representation of the New World in cabinets of curiosities throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite the contrasting nature of these private collections and the varying degrees of access that European states had to such exotic objects, the characterization and assessment of the Americana displays a consistent similarity. It is argued here that the meaning of these items within the microcosm of the cabinets can be comprehended by the intellectual enterprise that sustained the gathering of curiosities and by the representation of Amerindian societies in moral history works.

Reading Aristotle through Rome

In recent years, scholars have begun to give greater attention to the 14th-century political writer, Ptolemy of Lucca, mostly on account of his avid defense of republican government in the treatise, De regimine principum. Educated in the scholastic curriculum at the University of Paris, Ptolemy has typically been identified by scholars as one of the most thoroughly Aristotelian medieval thinkers. Ptolemy, like many of his contemporaries, peppered his writing with citations from Aristotle's major works. This article, however, examines the sources employed in Ptolemy's republican arguments, finding that the legacy of Republican Rome played a far more critical role in shaping his republicanism than could be attributed to Aristotle's moral or political works. Though conversing fluently in an Aristotelian language system, Ptolemy's arguments in De regimine principum are derived, at their core, from his reading of Roman Republican sources, not from Aristotelian influence. This discovery reveals Ptolemy to be an even more artful and original writer than was previously assumed, and should add to, rather than detract from, his place as a key figure in the development of western political thought.

淺議桐城文派的韓、柳古文比較論

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 韓、柳古文的優劣，自來是文評家討論的焦點。而在衆多的評論中，以桐城文派的看法最值得注意。方苞將道德與文章看成同一回事，并以此爲基礎，建立起“義法”之説。方苞對柳宗元文多方挑剔，幾於吹毛求疵，甚而大肆詆毁，不過是實踐其理論罷了。在桐城文派的流傳過程中，對柳宗元的這種成見，儘管不能説是定調，却也是主流意見，難怪给人留下“桐城始於排柳，终於排柳”的印象。桐城中人評論柳文，特别是談到他的文氣時，就一直受到這種成見的干擾。方苞以文氣不充譏貶柳文，并認爲是自反不縮所造成。後來的劉大櫆，甚至是賀濤等，皆沿用其説。但不容忽視的是，劉大櫆以後，桐城中人評論柳文，受到成見的干擾已有減少的迹象，已開始自覺地從文學的角度來評析柳文。這種微妙的轉變，不能不説是一種進步。這跟他們逐漸把道德與文章離析爲二是分不開的。從曾國藩的懷疑，到吳汝綸明確判别義理與文章爲二事，他們對文學獨立性的認識漸趨清晰，創作如此，評論也如此，觀念上的這種轉變，就反映在吳汝綸等人對柳文的評價上。Comparing the works of Han Yu (韓愈) and Liu Zong-yuan (柳宗元) has been a focal point of critics. Among the many discussions, the point of view of the Tong-cheng Literary School (桐城文派) deserves special notice. Fang Bao (方苞) regarded morality and literary works as the same thing and established the concept of "Yi-fa (義法)”. He attempted to put this theory into practice by criticizing Liu’s works harshly and unfairly. During the spread of the Tong-cheng Literary School (桐城文派), Fang’s preconceived notion about Liu might not be the final conclusion but certainly the mainstream opinion, and hence no wonder the impression of “Tong-cheng Literary School starts and ends on attacking against Liu” was made. In fact, Tong-cheng Literary Schools” discussions on Liu's works, especial on his style of writing, have been interfered with by such kind of prejudice. Fang commented that the Wen-qi (文氣) of Liu’s works were not strong enough due to the defect in his moral character. His descendants, such as Liu Da-kui (劉大櫆) and even He Tao (賀濤), continued to adopt this approach toward Liu’s works. Yet, the critics after Liu Da-kui (劉大櫆）had made a fine adjustment consciously that their discussions became less biased and they started to evaluate Liu’s works from a literal perspective. The change, which could be attributed to the gradual development of the mentality of dividing morality and literary works could be regarded as a kind of progress and should not be ignored. From Zeng Guo-fan (曾國藩) with doubt to Wu Ru-lun (吳汝綸) with certainty, Tong-cheng Literary School (桐城文派) regarded moral and literary works, including literary writing and literary criticism, as two different matters. The change of the point of view of Wu Ru-lun (吳汝綸) and the other critics toward Liu’s works is a result of the recognition of the independent features of literature.

Noble Infirmity

The love of fame is a common theme in republican thought. But few, historically or now, have examined with rigor this sentiment’s nature, purpose, and worth. The work of David Hume is an exception. Hume, this paper argues, dialectically took up not only all the classic reasons for loving fame—as spur to useful effort, motivator of virtue, consolation to virtue unrewarded, and safe harbor in the midst of historical flux—but the skeptical reasons for doubting that fame is attainable or that, even if it is attainable, its pursuit motivates good actions. The theme pervades not only his systematic moral works but his essays and letters, his autobiography, and History of England. Hume’s subtle, ambivalent arguments suggest reasons to value the love of fame in spite of modern, or postmodern, doubts regarding the nature of true fame or even its existence—and perhaps to regard such love as unavoidable.

Mise en scène de l'opinion publique dans la littérature des Lumières

By Nicolas Veysman. (Les Dix-huitième Siècles, 83). Paris, Champion, 2004. 801 pp. Hb €120.00. Building on the work of Roger Chartier, Keith Michael Baker and others, Veysman bases this study on the premise that the eighteenth century saw the birth of public opinion in France, both as concept and social reality. This development is commonly associated with the French philosophes, whose writings are seen as having mobilized popular opinion in preparation for the Revolution. In an effort to question this traditional association, Veysman innovatively explores the ways in which pre-Revolutionary French authors chose to represent the ‘le public’, ‘l'opinion’ and ‘l'opinion publique’ in their works. His aim throughout is to show that the philosophes' relationship with their audience is more complex and ambivalent than traditional accounts would suggest. In a first section, Veysman addresses the classical representation of popular opinion as synonymous with credulity and error. Examining the ways in which the philosophes, as playwrights, poets and art critics, depicted their different audiences, Veysman reveals the extent to which the idea of a fickle and ignorant public persisted into the eighteenth century. He subsequently traces the debate surrounding the paradoxical position of the esoteric philosopher. As d'Alembert suggests, the writer who criticizes or dismisses his readers' judgement has forgotten the essential aim of his work, for, ‘on n'écrit […] que pour être lu’ (p.147). In a second section that focuses on the philosophes' historical and moral works, Veysman maps the emergence of a new, positive concept of public opinion over the course of the eighteenth century. This concept was shaped by developments in Enlightenment historiography and, as Veysman skilfully argues, by English empiricism. On the one hand, the study of human manners and morals by the likes of Voltaire and Montesquieu revealed the importance of public opinion in forming the ‘esprit’ or character of a nation. On the other, French Enlightenment writers followed Locke in proclaiming their faith in the judgement of the reasoning layman. As a result, public opinion was gradually freed from its traditional association with error, and came to represent consensual truth and the will of the majority. Veysman interestingly traces this evolution through a study of the different metaphors used to represent public opinion, from the hydra to the rushing torrent. It is perhaps slightly disconcerting to find that Veysman concludes his study on the eve of the Revolutionary era, at the moment when this new notion of public opinion was to come into its own. However, he does conduct an in-depth analysis of intellectual developments earlier in the century and cites an impressive range of authors throughout. Alongside familiar works by Diderot and Voltaire appear less well-studied texts such as Duclos's Considérations sur les mœurs de ce siècle (1751), to which Veysman fortuitously draws our attention. This study not only exposes the reader to French Enlightenment literature in all its various forms, but also stimulates reflection on the cultural origins of the Revolution. Veysman draws his techniques of analysis from the history of ideas, literary criticism, reception theory and studies of the public sphere. His work therefore widens the scope of these different fields of research and bridges divisions between disciplines in eighteenth-century studies.

Rational Ignorance and Political Morality*

People frequently advance political proposals in the name of a goal while remaining apparently indifferent to the fact that those proposals, if implemented, would frustrate that goal. Theorists of “deliberative democracy” purport to avoid this difficulty by arguing that deliberation is primarily about moral not empirical issues. We reject this view (the moral turn) and propose a method (The Display Test) to check whether a political utterance is best explained by the rational ignorance hypothesis or by the moral turn: the speaker must be prepared to openly acknowledge the bad consequences of his political position. If he is, the position is genuinely moral; if he is not, the position evinces either rational ignorance or posturing. We introduce deontological notions to explain when the moral turn works and when it does not. We discuss and reject possible replies, in particular the view that a moral‐political stance insensitive to consequences relies on a distribution of moral responsibility in evildoing. Finally, we show that even the most plausible candidates for the category of purely moral political proposals are best explained by the rational ignorance/posturing hypothesis, if only because enforcing morality gives rise to complex causal issues.

Holocaust Politics (review)

Reviewed by: Holocaust Politics Zev Garber Holocaust Politics, by John K. Roth. Louisville: Westminister John Knox Press, 2001. 354 pp. $29.95. The Shoah is the most documented genocidal event in Jewish and, arguably, world history. Three well-known survivors of the Shoah bear witness: "Auschwitz will remain as the darkest, the cruelest, the most incomprehensible event in history" (Elie Wiesel); "The decades since the end of World War II have witnessed a growing awareness throughout the world of the significance of the Holocaust as a central event in the history of the Jewish people and of Western civilization" (Israel Gutman); "What happened, happened. But that it happened cannot be easily accepted" (Jean Améry). Contemporary scholarship on the Shoah spans the spectrum of historiography, belles-lettres, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and religion, to name several of the better known venues. Though much has been written about the Holocaust planet, far less has been published to show how the Shoah educates, informs, and influences society. The Shoah has challenged and dented beyond reason and belief the foundation of Western civilization; nonetheless, learning the important lessons of the Shoah sixty years after World War II is difficult and frustrating, made so by the questions asked, the answers given, the tactics used, and the special interest served. To make sense of the crannies and nooks on the road back to Auschwitz in order to mend a shattered post-Shoah world is the purport of this book. The worth of this book by John K. Roth, Pitzer Professor of Philosophy and an outstanding Christian scholar on Holocaust, is the discussion of contemporary Shoah issues and pin-point identification of a plethora of problems caused by competing attitudes and priorities in Holocaust studies today. In six evenly parsed chapters (sections of which appeared elsewhere), Roth asks such debated questions as Who owns [End Page 141] the Holocaust? What can and cannot be said about the Holocaust? How best to remember the Holocaust? What warning signals come from the Holocaust? What is the responsibility of post-Holocaust Christianity? What can we learn about ethics from the Holocaust? Also, the Epilogue discusses standard and extreme views on the bearing of Shoah on our everyday lives and concludes with ten aides-mémoire viewed as necessary in Holocaust education. Though the book begins with a discussion and assessment of Holocaust politics (no doubt motivated by the author's aborted appointment as director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum), the focus of this work is on philosophical and religious issues emanating from the Shoah trauma. A summary of positions and research is given, with special attention to the role of effective argumentation. For example, on the meaning of the Holocaust, survivors Primo Levi and Charlotte Delbo and philosopher Emmanuel Levinas respectively say "useless violence," "useless knowledge," "useless suffering"; and Holocaust scholar Lawrence L. Langer writes, "there is nothing to be learned from a baby torn into two or a woman buried alive" (p. 272). Though Roth acknowledges the uniqueness of Jewish suffering and that holocaustal beastliness "can scarcely be morally edifying or spiritually uplifting," he fears the devastating effect of this parochial, skeptical advocacy on the legacy of the Shoah. He reasons, correctly in my opinion, that if no moral lesson can be learned from the Shoah then why bother to learn about it. Also, if the Holocaust is extreme banality of evil, and if Elie Wiesel is right that the only lesson that can be learned from the Shoah is that you can get away with it—post-Holocaust acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide suggest this—then why turn to the Shoah to explore current normative moral and ethical issues. Would not current evil ideology, religious fanaticism, racism, hatred, and global terrorism do? Not necessarily, writes Roth, who sees in the Shoah "the right kind of moral outrage" that can serve as a warning and cure in our days of rage. But Roth's moral nerve works for and against him. He defends the view that there is a causal relation between the Shoah and current events, such as the rising antisemitism in Western Europe and violence between Israelis...

Art and medicine 1: Health Hazards by Dr Jane Jackson

Paintings with a moral or educational theme were popular in the Victorian era—for example, works by George Frederick Watts and the pre-Raphaelites (notably William Holman Hunt). Art as the road to salvation went out of style in the 20th century, but the power of art to illustrate social wrongs or to promote healthy behaviours may be due for a revival. In the 2003 exhibition by the Medical Art Society, entries for the Brooke Epidemiology Art Prize, awarded by the Section of Epidemiology and Public Health, included Health Hazards by Dr Jane Jackson. Her prize-winning interpretation of the theme ‘inequalities’ was based on the Government review Tackling Health Inequalities (2002). We see a deceptively calm interior, brightly coloured in the original, which ‘becomes tragical if rightly read’, as the Victorian art critic John Ruskin observed of one of Hunt’s moral works. The room is a bizarre combination of cooker, cupboards, easy chair and deep-piled rug, with children and a mirror in the background portraying accidents about to happen, including a fire. Residential fire deaths for children are fifteen times more common in children from social class V than in those from social class I: children in social class V have also a five times greater risk of accidental death than their peers in social class I. All the figures in the picture are obese—a problem increasing more rapidly in lower socio-economic groups. The adults are heedless of the chubby children with their dangerous playthings, while the possibly drunk parent slumps indolently to one side. Granny teeters unsteadily towards us, a reminder that falls cause the largest numbers of fatal injuries in older people (62%), as well as disability. While all may turn out well in this surreal family scene, the statistics predict otherwise. An image of our times, Jane Jackson’s painting echoes past attempts to show links between health, behaviour and the environment.​environment. Figure 1