Response to “Dubious Premises— Evil Conclusions: Moral Reasoning at the Nuremberg Trials” by Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma (CQ Vol 9, No 2)

Abstract

Because we are often nagged by the thought that we might not have behaved any differently than those good citizens whose respect for the law and fear of punishment led them to support the Nazi regime, we are fascinated with the behavior of ordinary Germans. Careful to first strip away the pathological explanations of German behavior, Pellegrino and Thomasma ask simply whether ordinary Germans could have reasoned and, by implication, acted differently. Although their affirmative answer is consistent with the activism we have all come to demand of the Germans, it is not clear whether we, ourselves, can lay full claim to the moral high ground.