Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Philosophy

Having survived the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's genocide against the Jews, the philosopher Jean Améry concluded that the Nazis "hated the word humanity" (Amery, 1980, p. 31). They wanted to destroy the idea that all men, women, and children possess shared and perhaps even divinely created origins, which imply basic equality and obligations to respect human life. Instead, Adolf Hitler called for racial purity that would be Aryan or German, and not merely human. According to this ideology, allegedly inferior forms of life—Jewish life first and foremost—threatened German superiority. Genocide eventually became the Final Solution for the Nazis' Jewish question.

Although philosophy often highlights characteristics shared by all persons, its history contains theories that have negatively emphasized differences—religious, cultural, national, and racial. Such theories have encouraged senses of hierarchy, superiority, and "us versus...