POS 431 - Genocide

Credits: 3

This course studies one of the central and most distressing phenomena of history’s most brutal century-genocide. Comprehension of the act of genocide is sought through studying some examples from the century just ended. We will examine their causes and consequences, and will try to understand some of the peculiar and distressing features of the phenomenon we are studying. Finally, we will raise and consider some philosophical questions about the causes of genocide and the nature of our obligations when encountering the “crime of destroying or conspiring to destroy a group of people because of their ethnic, national, racial or religious identity.”