Avishai Margalit

Avishai Margalit, professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will write a book on how care and trust cement relations of solidarity within groups. People's sense of solidarity is grounded in diverse attributes: kinship, age, gender, nationality, proximity, occupation. In Margalit's book, a sequel to two previous books, The Decent Society (1996) and Ethics of Memory (2001), he will single out the shared history of oppression and persecution and examine its force and validity as ground for solidarity. Are there obligations of solidarity among victims? If so, do victims who waive these obligations betray the trust of their fellow victims? Basing his argument on an ethics-backed epistemology, Margalit will also explore the relation between ethical and epistemic communities and the significance of testimony in the formation of trust.