On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:05:45 -0700 (PDT) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> I ahven't read it, but I know Hondorich's work in
> general. His political work in somewhat abstract and
> idiosyncratic, very tough-minded defenses of unpopular
> positions. He tends to work from mid-range moral
> intuitiosn (i.e., things we want to say about
> particular case)(rather than first principles such as
> Maximize Happiness); he has some historical
> sensitivity, but he's basically a philosophical
> creature. He wrote a book long ago defending violence
> in thestruggle for equality, argued that exploitation
> and oppression is or causes violence, and there's no
> moral difference between not doing anything to stop it
> and actually exploting and oppressing people. He wrote
> a funny and bitter attack on Thatcherite conservatism.
> In a more strict philosophical vein, he has written a
> long defense of hard determinism, denying the
> existence of moral responsibility. I would say the
> chances that he is an antisemite are less than zero.
> But he probably thinks that it is OK for Palestinians
> to make the Israeli occupation intolerable by blowing
> up children on buses. jks
That seems to be quite a good summary of Honderich's political and philosophical positions. His views concerning the Palestinians are summarized in his lecture on the morality of terrorism
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/terrforhum.html.
There he defends the moral acceptability for armed resistance by the Palestinians to Israeli occupation, up to and including suicide bombings. At the same time, Honderich insists that the creation of some sort of a Jewish state following the Holocaust was morally mandatory and that the use of terrorist tactics by Zionists back in the 1940s for the attainment of that objective (i.e. the Irgun and Lehi) was morally acceptable too.
Apparently, the basis of the charge of anti-Semitism against Honderich lies with his anti-Zionism. Yet the application of the term anti-Zionist to Honderich requires qalification given his view that the Holocaust had made the creation of a Jewish state mandatory.
Jim F.
>
> --- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> > Jim Farmelant wrote:
> >
> > >http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08132003.html
> > >
> >
> > So what's in the book? Ace is rather short on that
> > detail.
> >
> > Doug
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