Shining a light on the ethical depravity of the Third Reich and the ethical disorientation of its aftermath, the figure of the “good German” invites us to imagine alternative, genuinely ethical forms of individual and collective life. As such it has a utopian moment, pointing towards a society in which people would live their lives in truly ethical ways. Moreover, it has exemplary force. By the power of example, it opens up an imaginative space in which the possibility of an ethical life is momentarily present.

The ethical rightness manifested by the figure of the “good German” should be understood as a truth claim of some kind. Although the figure evidently relates to a specific historical and socio-cultural context, its normative claim is context-transcending, indeed universal in scope: it not only extends beyond the particular context in which it is articulated, it demands acceptance by everyone of the validity of the ethical modes of thought and behavior it imaginatively projects. Claims to ethical rightness, like truth claims, have a transcendent reference point; this is what accounts for their putative universality.

To speak of exemplarity is to speak of the normativity of the example: its power to inspire and to motivate us in our thinking and action. There have been some recent attempts among philosophers to offer an account of exemplary validity in terms of the Kantian paradigm of reflective judgment.