Seeing Atrocities: Ethics for Visual Encounters with Intolerable Harms

In Seeing Atrocities, Paul Morrow shows how visual encounters with atrocities occur and considers how we ought to respond to them. Informed by cutting-edge scholarship, the book will find readers among lawyers and policymakers, educators and curators, journalists and human rights advocates. The author's arguments are supported by 24 striking illustrations, including satellite images, Old Master paintings, classical sculptures, and humanitarian photographs. In a world where visual encounters with atrocities have become unavoidable, Seeing Atrocities promises to serve as an essential guide.

Paul Morrow is a philosopher and human rights scholar currently serving as a visiting research fellow at University College Dublin. His books include Unconscionable Crimes (2020) and the edited collection Museums and Mass Violence (2025). Paul has previously held positions at the University of Dayton Human Rights Center and the University of Virginia. Between 2023 and 2024, he co-led a federally funded grant on the prevention of domestic violent extremism titled PREVENTS-OH.