You rarely hear the term “Judeo-Christian values” these days, but in the decades immediately after the second World War it was widely used as shorthand for the best of western civilisation.
George Orwell is credited with first using the term in print as a way of emphasising the shared moral traditions of Jews and Christians. While some zealous members of each faith objected to being lumped together, the joint-identity encapsulated a common commitment to defending equality and the dignity of human life. Christianity is today a much weakened force after years of church scandals, while Judaism is increasingly politicised by the Israel-Palestine conflict. “The centre cannot hold,” said WB Yeats. Sure enough, the threads of a once dominant Judeo-Christian consensus have come apart.
Moral principles once universally accepted are now up for debate. And some of the loudest voices in Christianity and Judaism are hardliners – from evangelical Christians seeking to restrict the freedom of women and minorities, to fundamentalist defenders of Israel who cry “anti-Semitism” over any criticism of that country’s military activities.
What ever happened to the credo of Leopold Bloom? “Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life ... Love.” So declared James Joyce’s “everyman”.
What ever happened to the golden rule of ethics? Consider others as yourself. Or, rephrased in Jewish scripture: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow.” What ever happened to the prohibition on treating people as dispensable units in political calculations? “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end,” said the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
[ Unthinkable: Which ‘golden rule’ of ethics is best, the Christian or Confucian?Opens in new window ]
The latter principle is worth added attention as we approach the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas terrorist atrocity that has led to an unfathomable degree of killing by the Israeli military.
Kant believed freedom “is central to what makes us a person,” says Trinity College Dublin academic Lilian Alweiss, an expert on the German thinker.
“This leads Kant to articulate the formula of humanity: we do not only have a duty to respect our own agency, but we also have a corresponding duty not to undermine the agency of others. When we use others simply as means to our own ends, we do precisely that: we undermine their agency.”
Crucially, according to Kant, who was born 300 years ago last April and died at the dawn of the 19th century, “the dignity of the person is a supreme principle that has no borders as it concerns not some but all, ie, humanity at large”.
Kant’s formula is a challenge to anyone at war. “He thinks just war theorists are mistaken,” says Alweiss, an assistant professor in philosophy. Rather, “wars are essentially barbaric. This is why we have a duty to understand war in terms of its opposite: perpetual peace”.
Kant says we should not ask: what amount of collateral damage is morally justifiable? Rather, “the question should be instead: is the effect on civilians and the civilian infrastructure excessive to its military purpose to stop the aggression and create the conditions for a lasting peace for all?”
Alweiss continues: “It is important to note that Kant’s ‘morality’ of war – which is based on the principle of peace – does not depend on the conduct of the other party, but purely on the question whether the conduct is consistent with the aim of ending the conflict in such a way that co-operation is possible to achieve perpetual peace for both parties.”
It is tempting to write off Kant as a dreamer. Or as weak-willed in the face of threats from murderous aggressors. But he asks us to reflect on whether the ultimate answer to war is more war.
When did we stop thinking of “peace on earth” as a realistic goal?
“Kant shows us that we face an existential choice: we can either seek to end hostilities by force and create ‘a vast graveyard of the human race’ or we can uphold our belief in the humanity of the enemy. The message is: we have a duty to hope as without hope all is lost,” says Alweiss.
“I don’t think this makes Kant old-fashioned, if anything, it turns him into a thinker who refuses to get old – precisely because he refuses to make do with the status quo by telling us that we have a duty not to give up on hope, even in times of utter hopelessness.”