Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide

A master of formal argumentation and logic. . . The historical mode Professor Lang subsequently recommends becomes a remarkable instrument in his hands. We watch a master craftsman building moral judgments. He picks and chooses among the facts, using imagination and logical inference to probe, juxtapose, and join. He finds evidence in unexpected places. With brilliance, Lang invites us to consider . . . how we can be confident in claiming that the Nazis intended the genocide of the Jews. Berel Lang argues that the events of the genocide compel reconsideration of such fundamental moral concepts as individual and group responsibility, the role of knowledge in ethical decisions, and the conditions governing the relation between guilt and forgiveness. . .Lang shows how the moral implications of genocide extend to linguistic and artistic presentations of the Nazi extermination of the Jews.