Non-Killing as the Primary Act

Abstract

Morality, being understood as a form of value-normative regulation, as a set of norms, com­mandments, ideas, was actively involved in the mechanics of Auschwitz. One of the key concepts of Nazi morality is “humane” killing: the Nazis’ understanding of it as “humane” is connected with an idea of fighting evil, with the fact that its performer morally justifies and motivates it (with the good of others, including the victim), with a method of its realisa­tion, which should be merciful towards both the killer and his victim. In Nazi morality, the “virtuous” person takes the decision to kill on the basis of moral ideology; killing as an ac­tual action, as a given one, turns out to be outside of morality. They reproduce the mistake of Adam, who took the words of god’s truth for a commandment, a law, which is described by Spinoza. Criticizing the single-level position of moral commandments, the author comes to the conclusion that Auschwitz is opposed not by the commandment, not by the moral prohi­bition “Thou shalt not kill”, but by non-killing as an act. Philosophy, having emphasized the fundamental nature of human mortality, is forced by Auschwitz to place the concept of killing at the center and postulate the givenness of non-killing as a primary act – outside of verbal expression, consideration, distinction: as the beginning that makes the language, the thinking and the individual as an acting human possible. This means a turn of moral philoso­phy: from the substantive development of moral ideology and the specification of morality through the nuance of motives, norms and values – back to the givenness of an act, which excludes the differentiation of killing on moral grounds. The act of non-killing is not medi­ated by morality, it is not defined by the fact that killing is evil, but the very fact that it is evil follows from the primacy of the act of not committing killing, from the decision not to kill given in the act of non-killing. Moral philosophy itself is conceived by the author as the thinking of the one who does not kill.