Doing Right - Demanding Justice How Germany deals with the migrant crisis

Abstract

In view of the new nationalisms, philosophy appears to be struck with a certain degree of helplessness. Is it the same helplessness that continually eroded the protection of human rights after World War I? The same helplessness that Hannah Arendt deplored as a failure of philosophy in her work “The Origins of Totalitarianism”? From the perspective of an ethics of conviction, the article asks how the erosion of human rights awareness can be eff ectively counteracted. Such eff orts demand a willingness of self-correction from both the individual and the community as explained on the basis of two related examples: the German government’s attitude towards the causes of migration and the relationship between the citizens of Eastern and Western Germany.