RT Article
T1 Disaster and Debate
JF Journal of moral philosophy
VO 15
IS 5
SP 516
OP 544
A1 Couto, Alexandra
A1 Kahane, Guy
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2018
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1817473093
AB Faced with a national tragedy, citizens respond in different ways. Some will initiate debate about the possible connections between this tragedy and broader moral and political issues. But others often complain that this is too early, that it is inappropriate to debate such larger issues while ‘the bodies are still warm.’ This paper critically examines the grounds for such a complaint. We consider different interpretations of the complaint—cynical, epistemic, and ethical—and argue that it can be resisted on all of these readings. Debate shortly after a national disaster is therefore permissible. We then set out a political argument in favor of early debate based on the value of broad political participation in liberal democracies and sketch a stronger argument, based on the duty to support just institutions, that would support a political duty to engage in debate shortly after tragedies have occurred.
K1 Political Participation
K1 moral epistemology
K1 Democracy
K1 Grief
K1 Emotion
K1 political debate
K1 Tragedy
DO 10.1163/17455243-20170011