Epilogue: On the Rights of Victims

Abstract

What does it mean to be a victim? To be human is, inevitably, to be a victim in some sense, and equally to have the capacity and undoubtedly the certitude of the strong manipulating the weak. Instinctively we think of the victim as the widows and orphans of the old testament, Christian martyrs, the sacrificial lambs of Crusades and inquisitions, and finally, in the twentieth century, of nuclear holocaust and genocide. It is difficult, however, to see how it is possible to contain the victimization phenomenon and to produce out of it a legitimate social science or a set of discrete philosophical premises. To say that everyone who is human is both a victim and a victimizer is similar to saying that in every human being there is both the capacity for love and hate.