Defining Genocide: It Might Not Be What You Think

Filed in archive General on January 5, 2009

Philosophy Bites is among my favorite little websites. The website makes podcasts available - podcasts of interviews with leading academics in the field today. They discuss, well, philosophy. And occasionally an issue comes up that touches on something I write about.

Late last month the people at Philosophy Bites interviewed Chandran Kukathas of the London School of Economics. The topic of discussion was genocide - specifically, the definition of genocide. I was surprised to learn that under the current U.N. definition, you don't actually have to kill anyone to commit genocide. Genocide it the effort to do away with a group of people, and you can do that by assimilating them into larger communities without ever hurting an individual.

Kukathas recognizes the moral problems with any effort to do away with an ethnic group. But he's arguing for a change in the definition of genocide. He wants to make a sub-category of mass murder.

It's an interesting discussion. And you can listen to it here.


Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Image# 1169300