Faced with a national tragedy, citizens respond in different ways. Some will initiate debate about the possible connections between this tragedy and broader moral and political issues. But others often complain that this is too early, that it is inappropriate to debate such larger issues while ‘the bodies are still warm.’ This paper critically examines the grounds for such a complaint. We consider different interpretations of the complaint—cynical, epistemic, and ethical—and argue that it can be resisted on all of these readings. Debate shortly after a national disaster is therefore permissible. We then set out a political argument in favor of early debate based on the value of broad political participation in liberal democracies and sketch a stronger argument, based on the duty to support just institutions, that would support a political duty to engage in debate shortly after tragedies have occurred.

中文翻译：

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灾难与辩论

面对一场民族悲剧，公民们的反应各不相同。有些人会就这场悲剧与更广泛的道德和政治问题之间可能存在的联系展开辩论。但其他人经常抱怨说这为时过早，在“身体还热”的时候讨论如此大的问题是不合适的。本文批判性地审查了此类投诉的理由。我们考虑了对抱怨的不同解释——愤世嫉俗的、认知的和道德的——并认为它可以在所有这些阅读中被抵制。因此，在国家灾难发生后不久进行辩论是允许的。然后，我们根据自由民主国家广泛政治参与的价值提出支持早期辩论的政治论点，并根据支持公正机构的义务勾勒出更有力的论点，