ABSTRACT
From the period that Karl Jaspers called the “Axial Age” (c. 800-200 B.C. when nearly a dozen of the major religious and philosophical traditions still practiced today came into being) to the Nurnberg trials after World War II, it has been widely affirmed that all people know “in our hearts” what is right. Furthermore, because we know, we must be held accountable for our actions. The Nazi defendants’ pleas during the trial that their actions in the death camps were simply a matter of “following orders” were rejected because, the judges said, despite training or conditioning, the officers should have known inherently that the orders were morally indefensible, and refused to obey.
