[lbo-talk] The Moral Case for Health Care

[Chris Doss]

I think it's safe to say that the causes of the Holocaust were, like those of everything, multiple. However, denying that the (normative, moral) beliefs of the people that carried it out were not one of those causes strikes me as a bit deranged -- and we are in this thread talking about the importance of (normative, moral) beliefs in determing human action in general and political action specifically.

I'm pretty sure that somebody is going to say "but those beliefs were caused by the material situation" or whatever (rooting them in some other cause). I don't think this matters. We don't need to trace the causal chain back to the Big Bang.

--- On Wed, 7/29/09, Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't think anyone would deny that Hitler was a deranged,
> hateful person.
> (It's probably the most banal political belief that one can
> have.) The
> interesting question is to what extent these personal
> characteristics matter
> in history.
> 
> *The Audacity of Hope *bubbles over with a desire for
> social justice. In *State
> and Revolution* Lenin sounds like an anarchist. Et cetera.
> Perhaps the
> causes of the Holocaust were entirely cultural, even
> subjective, but I don't
> think that follows merely from the froth off der Fuhrer's
> face.
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