著者

柴嵜 雅子 シバサキ マサコ Masako Shibasaki

雑誌

国際研究論叢 : 大阪国際大学紀要 = OIU journal of international studies

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, no.1, pp.75-88, 2007-10-31

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Studies on the Holocaust have revealed that those involved in the despicablehorrors were not abnormal sadists but ordinary people. This paper examinesethical problems raised by this unpalatable reality. The first part, drawing on sociopsychological experiments as well as historical research on Nazi Germany,demonstrates that legitimizing authority or peer pressure can easily prod us intoharming others, and that we are not such autonomous moral agents that we areusually assumed to be. Secondly, I explore sanctioned killings. Analogous tosoldiers slaughtering enemy combatants, people have no pangs of guilt inexterminating targeted individuals, once they are branded as dangerous beings andexpelled from the moral community. The last section suggests what we can do inethical education to forestall another Auschwitz.