If Hitler unveils himself after the last war/Holocaust victim dies, who is anyone to pass judgment on him?

Question

For "war crimes", when all accusers are dead and he cannot face any of them?

My male roommate is 23, he said that it would be the greater moral right to kill Hitler for the rest of the world if he ever met him. My 21 year old female roommate agreed with him and stood at odds with me on the matter.

I argued. I said that you never knew him, you werent even alive during his lifetime, you have no right to judge him. I said, you claim to be a moral subjectivist, you say you dont think we should judge one another, but here you are passing judgment on someone... someone that never even harmed you. I said, if you were moral, you would arrest Hitler and hand him over to a jury of his peers, and let society deal his punishment... any punishment wielded by you is nothing more than vengeance for crimes you never suffered.

Then my female roommate sided with me. How do you side?

It dawns on me, though, that if all accusers are dead and no one can point the finger, do we have any rights under our judicial system to prosecute someone? Would we launch a full scale forensics investigation, or would we be hypocrites and lock him away without formal trial like we did with people in that Cuban concentration prison camp

Answer 1

a) your arguments are all over the place

"If Hitler unveils himself after the last war/Holocaust victim dies"..."it also is unfair to the victims... they deserve to watch the arrest and conviction"

So are they dead or aren't they?

"who is anyone to pass judgment on him for war crimes"..."if you were moral, you would arrest Hitler and hand him over to a jury of his peers, and let society deal his punishment"

That's what a war crimes trial is: a *trial* that passes judgement on society's behalf.



b) "they deserve to watch the arrest and conviction"

"all accusers are dead and he cannot face any of them"

"if all accusers are dead and no one can point the finger, do we have any rights under our judicial system to prosecute someone"

You seem to think the judicial system is about giving the immediate victims revenge. It's not. The point is to uphold the idea that actions have consequences, and that justice is valuable for it's own sake. In so doing, we hope to prevent the similar crimes from being committed in the future, but the value of justice for it's own sake is what allows it to stand even when convenience would tear it down.



c) "if all accusers are dead and no one can point the finger, do we have any rights under our judicial system to prosecute someone? Would we launch a full scale forensics investigation"

It would have to be a trial with evidence, but I'm pretty sure you could find enough evidence to get a conviction.



d) "you are passing judgment on someone... someone that never even harmed you."

Just FYI, the idea of 'crmes against humanity' means actions that harmed the dignity and worth of the human race generally. While your friend certainly never got put to a concentration camp or saw his family gassed and stuffed in mass graves or crematoria, that doesn't necessarily mean Hitler's action have no effect on him whatsoever.



e) "Families deserve compensation? Is that like black people having reversed segregation rights... dont 'deserve' anything"

There's a difference between "you kicked my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents out of their country." (a grievance I could hold and don't, because it would be moronic) and "you made my father's life a living hell for years and then he had to go to a foreign country with nothing because you stole everything he and his family had worked for." The latter is just a bit more personal.



f) bit of a side note, but...

"If Hitler unveils himself after the last war/Holocaust victim dies"

iIf Hitler re-appeared today he would be 110 years old, and I know a few holocaust survivors who are still quite healthy, so actually, it's all a moot point, since he'd be dead.

Answer 2

"It dawns on me, though, that if all accusers are dead and no one can point the finger, do we have any rights under our judicial system to prosecute someone? Would we launch a full scale forensics investigation, or would we be hypocrites and lock him away without formal trial like we did with people in that Cuban concentration prison camp."



1) It would be an international court or German court, not an American court that would try him.



2) Comparing Guantanimo Bay to a Nazi labor camp like Dachau is absurd. Comparing it to an extermination camp is ******* crazy.



3) It is documented that Hitler was responsible for the crimes against humanity. It isn't like there is some kind of giant question as to who was responsible.

Answer 3

I'm more of a moral nihilist, but yes, I can agree with you. I see morality as nothing but a set of standards useful for maintaining equilibrium within a society, and thus nothing is inherently right or wrong. In fact, there is no such thing as right and wrong unless those definitions were to be forced onto a situation by some sort of a goal - thereby making "right and wrong" into "correct and incorrect", or even "efficient or inefficient". Therefore, when you're discussing the past crimes of Hitler, unless you seek to maintain and reinforce some sort of a moral standard for the purposes of equilibrium, ideological superiority, or simply political power, there is no reason to condemn Hitler of anything.

Answer 4

Here's my cop-out for all law-related ethical problems. i hope you find it interesting.

in a society, rights are granted in return of certain restrictions on total freedom (you may argue about the inexistance of partial freedom but that escapes my point, one of the deals here may grant certain possibilities and negate freedom as a total).

If there is enough evidence to see that one person violated this restriction, then as a manner of justice, certain given right or rights are taken away, at least temporarily, as a way of keeping things balanced (that's the part i don't find so convincing, that's why I call it a cop out instead of a justification).

So, there's evidence hitler crossed the line and took other people's rights (to live, to their share of freedom, etc), so the system must make him pay his debt to society in the form of rights being deducted from him.

Answer 5

well, the main reason international human rights laws and war crimes were put into place alongside the U.N. was because of this.



"Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

proclaimed by the U.N. in 1948



Let's start out with just a few of them...



genocide

famine

massacre

human annihilation

human extermination

extermination bias sick/disabled

use of weapons of mass destruction in russia vs solider

use of weapons of mass destruction in russia vs jews

neglect religious freedom

governmental forced poverty (ghettos and camps)

slave labor

forced hunger

forced death use of hunger

citizen neglect

marital neglect

educational neglect

denied humanity

dehumanization

pedophilia

child molestation

rape

sodomy

sexual discrimination

sexual abuse

sexual harassment

sexual harassment nude exposure

human trafficking

child abduction

kidnapping

dehumanized transport

environmental exposures (freezing cold)

starvation

WDM with pesticide

child labor

child slave labor

forceable body searches

forcable exposure for orifice searching

refusual of emotional mourning

mass cremation

mass burials without religious service

mass burials without compensation/family permission

theft of property

theft of valuables

theft of educational scholar titles

desecration of human bodies (shaving. tatoos, etc)

desecration of humainty

social abuse

freedom of religion

fair trial

torture

political activity denied

refusual of compliance

unlawful enforcement



we can go on for hours



I just ask that all of these factors are taken into consideration.



www.linecamp.com/merchants/freedom_doc...



www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/2008-3/20...

plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-huma...

Answer 6

you do not need people testifying to prove someone's actions. There are multiple kinds of primary evidence, not just word of mouth. In fact, if you have studied law at all you would know that people testifying is one of the lesser forms of evidence vs. lets say, Hitler's documents showing what he did.



By the way, just because somebody is a moral subjectivist does not mean that they are true. So I would say we CAN persecute him, but we would have to do it justly as you mentioned





EDIT: dude chill out you are making yourself look like a fool (or perhaps you are one?). Your argument is NOT philosophical. Rather than arguing objectivism versus subjectivism, you are merely trying to point out the flaws in your friends thinking by following the premise that he is a "moral subjectivist." Quite immature really, but I once saw the fascination in it... then I turned two.

Answer 7

You are very correct on your stance. Let nothing shake you from this ground on which you STAND.



Now see if you can put yourself in the place of someones family member who suffered because of the Hitler regime ...................

..... OK now where do you stand? Be honest with yourself.



Let me know.

I Am Engia

Answer 8

With your rationale, no "murderer" should ever be charged. The victim is dead, the accused can't face him....so we should just let the accused go?



Your male room mate is right. The girl sounds like she is very impressionable. It sounds like you are just trying to be provocative.

Answer 9

If Hitler was the only one left he'd be a pretty lonely guy.

Answer 10

I side that you are an idiot. I'm not even going to argue this point because it's so logically unsound it disgusts me.

Edit: I reiterate, you are a moron.

Answer 11

Why are some people so narrow minded?? I actually get wat u saying and it does makes sense. I would have to agree with u

Answer 12

c'mon man wake up