The International Studies Public Forum and UC Irvine Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality present

“Ethics in an Age of Terror and Genocide”
with Kristen Moore, Chancellor's Professor, Director, UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality

Thursday, February 13, 2014
5:00-6:50 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 1100

Monroe began with a puzzle. When she asked people who had rescued Jews during the Holocaust why they had risked their lives—and those of their families—to save strangers, rescuers invariably responded with bewilderment. “But what else could I do? They were human beings like you and me.” When she asked bystanders about this same time period and inquired whether they had done anything to help Jews, she came across the same baffled looks. “But what could I do? I was one person, alone against the Nazis,” was their reply.

The same puzzlement. The same lack of choice. But different perceptions of themselves in relation to others, and vastly different behavior. Identity, it seemed, influenced moral choice. But how, and why? Trying to understand considered the fascinating complex of relationships among identity, choice, and moral acts during war is the subject of this talk.

For further information, please contact Gloria Simpson, simpsong@uci.edu or 949-824-8687.