A Common Humanity

The Holocaust and attempts to deny it, racism, murder, the case of Mary Bell. How can we include these and countless other examples of evil within our vision of a common humanity? These painful human incongruities are precisely what Raimond Gaita boldly harmonizes in his powerful new book, A Common Humanity.
Hatred with forgiveness, evil with love, suffering with compassion, and the mundane with the precious. Gaita asserts that our conception of humanity cannot be based upon the empty language of individual rights when it is our shared feelings of grief, hope, love, guilt, shame and remorse that offer a more potent foundation for common understanding. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Simon Weil, Primo Levi, George Orwell, Iris Murdoch and Sigmund Freud, Gaita creates a beautifully written and provocative new picture of our common humanity.

List of contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Goodness beyond Virtue; Chapter 3 Evil beyond Vice; Chapter 4 Racism; Chapter 5 Justice beyond Fairness; Chapter 6 Guilt, Shame & Community; Chapter 7 Genocide & 'The Stolen Generations'; Chapter 8 Genocide & the Holocaust; Chapter 9 Forms of the Unthinkable; Chapter 10 Truth & the Responsibility of Intellectuals; Chapter 11 Goodness & Truth; Chapter 12 Truth As a Need of the Soul; Chapter 13 A Common Humanity;

About the author

Raimond Gaita

Summary

This profound and arresting book draws on a wealth of examples to paint a provocative new picture of our common humanity.

Product details

• Authors: Raimond Gaita, Raimond (King's College London Gaita
• Publisher: Routledge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 18.01.2002
• EAN: 9780415241144
• ISBN: 978-0-415-24114-4
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 197 mm x 23 mm
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; PHILOSOPHY / General, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, PSYCHOLOGY / Movements / General, Ethics & moral philosophy, Psychological theory, systems, schools and viewpoints, Ethics and moral philosophy