A01=J. M. Bernstein
abolition
alienation
amerys
Author_J. M. Bernstein
beccaria
Category=QDTQ
dependence
devastation
dignity
emotion
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
ethics
human rights
humanity
humiliation
interdependence
morality
necessity
nonfiction
nuremberg
pain
philosophy
rape
reason
recognition
respect
rule of law
self consciousness
society
sovereignty
suffering
torture
treblinka
trust
Product details
- ISBN 9780226266329
- Weight: 652g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 14 Sep 2015
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this unflinching look at the experience of suffering and one of its greatest manifestations-torture-J.M. Bernstein critiques the repressions of traditional moral theory, showing that our morals are not immutable ideals but fragile constructions that depend on our experience of suffering itself. Morals, Bernstein argues, not only guide our conduct but also express the depth of mutual dependence that we share as vulnerable and injurable individuals. Beginning with the attempts to abolish torture in the eighteenth century, and then sensitively examining what is suffered in torture and related transgressions, such as rape, Bernstein elaborates a powerful new conception of moral injury. Crucially, he shows, moral injury always involves an injury to the status of an individual as a person-it is a violent assault against his or her dignity. Elaborating on this critical element of moral injury, he demonstrates that the mutual recognitions of trust form the invisible substance of our moral lives, that dignity is a fragile social possession, and that the perspective of ourselves as potential victims is an ineliminable feature of everyday moral experience.
J. M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of many books, including Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics, Against Voluptuous Bodies: Adorno's Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting, and Recovering Ethical Life: Jurgen Habermas and the Future of Critical Theory.
