God, Reason and Evil (RS 3D03)
Winter 2012


TEXT PREPARATION 2

Assignment due in class on February 27*

*Since part of the value of the text preparation assignment is that it will prepare you to be an engaged participant in class, it may only be submitted in class on the day it is due.  If you have to miss that day's class, please plan to complete a different Text Preparation assignment for a different date.

This assignment is based on:
  • Andrew Altman, Arguing About Law. An Introduction to Legal Philosophy, 2nd ed. (2001): "Judgment at Nuremberg," 43-49 [selection in coursepack / book on reserve]
  • Howard Ball, Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide (1999), chap. 2: "World War II in Europe and the Nuremberg Tribunal," esp. 44-61 [chapter in coursepack / book on reserve]
  • Nuremberg Trial Proceedings: Charter of the International Military Tribunal [print out personal copy]
  • Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgment. Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (2001), chap 2: "The Idiom of Judgment: Crimes Against Humanity": pp. 38-46  ("...interstitial transgression") and pp. 63 bottom ("In The Reawakening...") - 64  [chapter in coursepack / book on reserve]

As Altman points out, disagreements about whether the Nuremberg Trial was justified can be framed in terms of the conflicting demands of legality and morality (Altman, 48-49).  Explain briefly this distinction (1-2 sentences).  Then, drawing on material from the Altman, Ball, and Douglas readings (i.e., from all three texts), lay out at least two of the important claims that have been made about the Nuremberg Trial that appeal to the need to uphold legality.  Then present at least two important claims that have been made about the trial that appeal to the demands of morality.  

The assignment should consist of well-written paragraphs, and should be 650-800 words long.

Since this is your first reading of this text, and since we have not yet discussed it fully in class, you needn't aim for definitive answers but preliminary, thoughtful responses based on close attention to the text.  As was the case for the Text Summary, your observations should be backed up with textual evidence; for this purpose, please use parenthetical page references - for examples of these, see Harvey, Writing with Sources, pp. 50-51.  Please use the author name plus page number for citations to Altman, Ball, or Douglas.  Please use "IMT Charter" and Article number for citations to the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

Your assignment may also include 1-2 important questions raised by your reading for further discussion.




**Please print your assignment double-spaced and with one-inch margins, using a 10-12-point font.  Please number and staple the pages you hand in. 

Please keep a copy of your assignment to refer to in our class discussions.

 

posted February 15, 2012