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Moral Maze

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Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

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Moral Maze: Morality and Ethics in the Gaza Conflict

21/11/2012

Morality and Ethics in the Gaza Conflict

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Morality and Ethics in the Gaza Conflict

Combative, provocative and engaging debate on morality and ethics in the Gaza conflict.

Combative, provocative and engaging debate on morality and ethics in the Gaza conflict, chaired by Michael Buerk with Michael Portillo, Anne McElvoy, Matthew Taylor and Claire Fox.

Both sides in the current conflict in Gaza have been claiming the moral high ground. To the Israelis it's an issue of self-defence and they're trying to avoid casualties. To Hamas it's about responding to the oppression and aggression of a much more powerful neighbour. The world looks on, counting the bodies and is almost inevitably drawn to the graphic simplicities of competing victimhood. The Palestinians win that hands down, but, terrible though it is, there's more to morality than suffering. What if, as the Israeli writer Amos Oz says, they're both right? Should we substitute pragmatism for morality? Stop trying to weigh up competing moral claims in the interests of some sort of solution. Or is giving up the idea of right and wrong, relativism of the worst kind, that could lead to a different kind of moral tragedy? Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk with Michael Portillo, Anne McElvoy, Matthew Taylor and Claire Fox. Witnesses: Professor Daniel Statman - Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa; one of the authors of the IDF Code of Conduct, Dr David Rodin - Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, University of Oxford, Dr Philip Cunliffe - Lecturer in International Conflict, University of Kent.

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