A question of genocide

Dear Editor,

Defending Inga Clendinnen against my criticisms (ABR, July 2001), John Clendinnen attributes to her a controversial view about the nature of moral judgment. I don’t hold it and, if I were to judge solely by her practice, I would be surprised if she does. Be that as it may: I’ll try to put my points by keeping philosophical assumptions down as much as possible.

John Clendinnen says that I take Inga Clendinnen to task for her ‘general thesis that moral evaluation of any action will be best served by identifying, as fully possible, its relevant features’. I don’t recall commenting on such a ‘thesis’, even implicitly, but, if it comes down to the idea that whenever possible one should support one’s moral judgments by specifying as clearly as one can what it is about the action (person, policy etc.) that inclines one to make those judgments, then, of course, I agree with it.