A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice / Edition 1

by Raimond Gaita

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415241137
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/25/2000
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

Table 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;

What People are Saying About This

Tim Crane

An absorbing read from beginning to end, its discussions are memorable and in many places moving, A quite exceptional work.
— Tim Crane, University College, London

Simon Critchley

A wise and beautifully written book. It is a wonderful example of how philosophy can still speak without any condescesion to the educated reader. (Professor Simon Critchley, University of Essex)

Editorial Reviews

'An exploration of how people make moral and ethical judgments by a controversial Autralian moral philosopher. Raimond Gaita's insights are original and his prose is as eloquent as it is affecting.' - The Economist, Books of the Year, 2000

'Gaita's genius ... is his ability to weigh the soul on a scale, and to show how goodness and justice might yet prevail.' - The Scotsman

'Profound and original ... his humane and wise book offers a view on life which deserves to be taken seriously.' - The Times Literary Supplement

'Gaita's gait bedazzles. In both writing and content, there appear senstivity, significance and feeling ... Wittgenstein advises 'Take your time'. I advise such with the issues of this book.' - The Philosophers' Magazine

'A striking and revelatory read ... I warmly recommend it.' - Timothy Chapell, Mind

'Distinctive and very interesting.' - The Tablet

'A Rare and distinguished contribution to our public life.' - Australian Review

'This Philosophy for the educated public is philosophy at its most profound' - Jean Curthoys, Australian Book Review

'The reflections in it are first hand: the author does not follow the beaten tracks and he is someone who has something to say. His book is one of the rare books in philosophy which has both breadth and depth at one and the same time' - Ilham Dilman, Philosophical Investigations

'The trenchant beauty of the discussion, the courage and independence of the mind at work, are a magnificent accomplishment.' - Andrew Gleeson, Philosophical Books

'Raimond Gaita's insights are original and his prose as eloquent as it is affecting.' - The Economist, Books of the Year, 2000

'Gaita's genius ... is his ability to weigh the soul on a scale, and to show how goodness and justice might yet prevail.' - The Scotsman

'Distinctive and very interesting.' - The Tablet

'A rare and distinguished contribution to our public life.' - Australian Review of Books

'An absorbing read from beginning to end ... A quite exceptional work.' - Tim Crane, University College London

'A wise and beautifully written book. It is a wonderful example of how philosophy can still speak without any condescension to the educated reader.' - Simon Critchley, University of Essex

'A wonderful piece of writing. The disciplined individuality of Gaita's voice shows how a humanly serious practice of philosophy might make a decisive contribution to our public culture.' - Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford

From the Publisher

Winner of the Victoria Prize for Literature for Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, Gaita (philosophy, Kings Coll., UK) argues that much contemporary moral philosophy is misguided. Both utilitarian and Kantian theories are divorced from our moral practices, he claims; a better approach would be to use the behavior of saints to help us understand that every human being is precious. Gaita shows the power of his conception in sensitive essays on the Holocaust and on the Australian treatment of the Aborigines. He holds that we condemn the Nazis not because they violated abstract principles of justice but because they denied the humanity of their victims. Gaita believes that by stressing humanity, he can avoid moralizing in a way that competing views of morality do not. His stimulating book, which reflects the influence of Wittgenstein and his Swansea followers, is highly recommended.--David Gordon, Bowling Green St. Univ., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Drawing on examples of the Holocaust, the David Irving affair, the case of Mary Bell, and the taking of children of mixed blood from Aboriginal parents in Australia, Gaita (moral philosophy, Kings College, London, and Australian Catholic U.) argues that the humanity of fellow humans is sometimes not fully visible to others. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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