In this contribution to philosophical ethics, Claudia Card revisits the theory of evil developed in her earlier book The Atrocity Paradigm, and expands it to consider collectively perpetrated and collectively suffered atrocities. Redefining evil as a secular concept and focusing on the inexcusability - rather than the culpability - of atrocities, Card examines the tension between responding to evils and preserving humanitarian values. This stimulating and often provocative book contends that understanding the evils in terrorism, torture and genocide (...) enables us to recognise similar evils in everyday life: daily life under oppressive regimes and in racist environments; violence against women, including in the home; violence and executions in prisons; hate crimes; and violence against animals. Card analyses torture, terrorism and genocide in the light of recent atrocities, considering whether there can be moral justifications for terrorism and torture, and providing conceptual tools to distinguish genocide from non-genocidal mass slaughter. (shrink)

Cover -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One: Writing against Theodicy: Secularization in Baudelaire's Poetry and Critical Essays -- Chapter Two: The Mourning of God and the Ironies of Secularization in Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris -- Chapter Three: Sublimation and Conversion in Zola and Huysmans -- Chapter Four: The Staging of Doubt: Zola and Huysmans on Lourdes -- Chapter Five: Religious and Secular Conversions: Transformations in Céline's Medical Perspective on Evil -- Conclusion -- (...) Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Book. (shrink)

First, Do No Unjust Harm provides a practical framework for identifying evil and other forms of immorality. In response to the common observation that so much wrong seems to be perpetrated in the name of doing good, Pletz has taken on the task of clarifying the manner in which careful judgments and decisions about evil should be made.

Introduction -- Ricœr's project of a philosophical approach to evil via symbols -- Kant's radical evil: an ethical approach to evil -- Evil as foundering: Karl Jaspers' tragic view of evil -- Karl Barth's notion of das Nichtige and the problem of knowing evil -- The end of evil.

In this exchange, Peter Coghlan and Nick Trakakis discuss the problem of natural evil in the light of the recent Asian tsunami disaster. The exchange begins with an extract from a newspaper article written by Coghlan on the tsunami, followed by three rounds of replies and counter-replies, and ending with some final comments from Trakakis. While critical of any attempt to show that human life is good overall despite its natural evils, Coghlan argues that instances of natural evil, even (...) horrific ones, can be justified as the unavoidable by-product of a natural system on which human life and culture depends. Trakakis, however, rejects this view, counselling instead a degree of skepticism about our ability to construct a plausible theodicy for horrific evil. (shrink)

The proposed public burial of anatomical specimens derived from victims of the Nazis provides an occasion for the medical community worldwide to confront this legacy and the profession's ongoing potential for evil.

The way in which mainstream human rights discourse speaks of such evils as the Holocaust, slavery, or apartheid puts them solidly in the past. Its elaborate techniques of "transitional" justice encourage future generations to move forward by creating a false assumption of closure, enabling those who are guilty to elude responsibility. This approach to history, common to late-twentieth-century humanitarianism, doesn't presuppose that evil ends when justice begins. Rather, it assumes that a time _before_ justice is the moment to put (...) evil in the past. Merging examples from literature and history, Robert Meister confronts the problem of closure and the resolution of historical injustice. He boldly challenges the empty moral logic of "never again" or the theoretical reduction of evil to a cycle of violence and counterviolence, broken only once evil is remembered for what it _was_. Meister criticizes such methods for their deferral of justice and susceptibility to exploitation and elaborates the flawed moral logic of "never again" in relation to Auschwitz and its evolution into a twenty-first-century doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect. (shrink)

The way in which mainstream human rights discourse speaks of such evils as the Holocaust, slavery, or apartheid puts them solidly in the past. Its elaborate techniques of "transitional" justice encourage future generations to move forward by creating a false assumption of closure, enabling those who are guilty to elude responsibility. This approach to history, common to late-twentieth-century humanitarianism, doesn't presuppose that evil ends when justice begins. Rather, it assumes that a time _before_ justice is the moment to put (...) evil in the past. Merging examples from literature and history, Robert Meister confronts the problem of closure and the resolution of historical injustice. He boldly challenges the empty moral logic of "never again" or the theoretical reduction of evil to a cycle of violence and counterviolence, broken only once evil is remembered for what it _was_. Meister criticizes such methods for their deferral of justice and susceptibility to exploitation and elaborates the flawed moral logic of "never again" in relation to Auschwitz and its evolution into a twenty-first-century doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect. (shrink)

The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theists. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) Successful human beings (i.e., those meeting their basic prudential interests) are committed to a good-enough world; (2) the actual world is not a good-enough world (i.e., sufficient evil exists). It follows that human beings must either (3a) maintain a (...) state of epistemic ignorance regarding the nature of the actual world or (3b) abandon their basic prudential interests. Theists resolve this problem by rejecting (2), only to confront the problem of evil as it is traditionally understood. Successful atheists also reject (2), but without adequate grounds for doing so. (shrink)

A compelling look at the problem of evil in modern thought, from the Inquisition to global terrorism Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense. For eighteenth-century Europeans, the Lisbon earthquake was manifest evil. Today we view evil as a matter of human cruelty, and Auschwitz as its extreme incarnation. Examining our understanding of evil from the Inquisition to contemporary terrorism, Susan Neiman explores who we have become in the three centuries that separate us (...) from the early Enlightenment. In the process, she rewrites the history of modern thought and points philosophy back to the questions that originally animated it. Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts—combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade—eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't. Beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, this book tells the history of modern philosophy as an attempt to come to terms with evil. It reintroduces philosophy to anyone interested in questions of life and death, good and evil, suffering and sense. Featuring a substantial new afterword by Neiman that raises provocative questions about Hannah Arendt's take on Adolf Eichmann and the rationale behind the Hiroshima bombing, this Princeton Classics edition introduces a new generation of readers to this eloquent and thought-provoking meditation on good and evil, life and death, and suffering and sense. (shrink)

"I am delighted to offer my highest praise to Dean Cocking and Jeroen van den Hoven's brilliant new book, Evil Online. The confrontation between good and evil occupies a central place in the challenges facing our human nature, and this creative investigation into the spread of evil by means of all-powerful new technologies raises fundamental questions about our morality and values. Cocking and Van den Hoven's account of the moral fog of evil forces us to face both the demons within (...) each of us as well as the demons all around us. In the end, we are all enriched by their perceptive analyses." —Phil Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University Principal Investigator, Stanford Prison Experiment "The internet offers new and deeply concerning opportunities for immorality, much of it shocking and extreme. This volume explains with great insight and clarity the corrupting nature of the internet and the moral confusion it has produced. It will play a vital role in the growing debate about how to balance the benefits of the internet against the risks it poses to all of us. Evil Online is an excellent book." —Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford We now live in an era defined by the ubiquity of the internet. From our everyday engagement with social media to trolls on forums and the emergence of the dark web, the internet is a space characterized by unreality, isolation, anonymity, objectification, and rampant self-obsession—the perfect breeding ground for new, unprecedented manifestations of evil. Evil Online is the first comprehensive analysis of evil and moral character in relation to our increasingly online lives. Chapters consider traditional ideas around the phenomenon of evil in moral philosophy and explore how the dawn of the internet has presented unprecedented challenges to older theoretical approaches. Cocking and Van den Hoven propose that a growing sense of moral confusion—moral fog—pushes otherwise ordinary, normal people toward evildoing, and that values basic to moral life such as autonomy, intimacy, trust, and privacy are put at risk by online platforms and new technologies. This new theory of evildoing offers fresh insight into the moral character of the individual, and opens the way for a burgeoning new area of social thought. A comprehensive analysis of an emerging and disturbing social phenomenon, Evil Online examines the morally troubling aspects of the internet in our society. Written not only for academics in the fields of philosophy, psychology, information science, and social science, Evil Online is accessible and compelling reading for anyone interested in understanding the emergence of evil in our digitally-dominated world. (shrink)

What is death? Do people survive death? What do we mean when we say that someone is "dying"? Presenting a clear and engaging discussion of the classic philosophical questions surrounding death, this book studies the great metaphysical and moral problems of death. In the first part, Feldman shows that a definition of life is necessary before death can be defined. After exploring several of the most plausible accounts of the nature of life and demonstrating their failure, he goes on to (...) propose his own conceptual scheme for death and related concepts. In the second part, Feldman turns to ethical and value-theoretical questions about death. Addressing the ancient Epicurean ethical problem about the evil of death, he argues that death can be a great evil for those who die, even if they do not exist after death, because it may deprive them of the goods they would have enjoyed if they had continued to live. Confrontations with the Reaper concludes with a novel consequentialist theory about the morality of killing, applying it to such thorny practical issues as abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. (shrink)

William C. Olsen, Walter E. A. van Beek, and the contributors to this volume seek to understand how Africans have confronted evil around them. Grouped around notions of evil as a cognitive or experiential problem, evil as malevolent process, and evil as an inversion of justice, these essays investigate what can be accepted and what must be condemned in order to evaluate being and morality in African cultural and social contexts. These studies of evil entanglements take local and national histories (...) and identities into account, including state politics and civil war, religious practices, Islam, gender, and modernity. (shrink)

The historian and philosopher of science Hélène Metzger (1889–1944) delivered “Le rôle des précurseurs dans l’évolution de la science” in 1939 as a lecture of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques of the University of Paris, later published in their journal Thalès. In this talk, Metzger not only attacks the notion of “precursor” and a history of science focused on “great men” and their discoveries, but also makes a strong case for the philosophical value of the history of science. (...) We here offer a translation of this witty and subtle essay in the historiography of science, followed by our commentary. (shrink)

For Kant, we cannot understand how to approach moral education without confronting the radical evil of humanity. But if we start out, as Kant thinks we do, from a morally corrupt state, how...

What is death? Do people survive death? What do we mean when we say that someone is "dying"? Presenting a clear and engaging discussion of the classic philosophical questions surrounding death, this book studies the great metaphysical and moral problems of death. In the first part, Feldman shows that a definition of life is necessary before death can be defined. After exploring several of the most plausible accounts of the nature of life and demonstrating their failure, he goes on to (...) propose his own conceptual scheme for death and related concepts. In the second part, Feldman turns to ethical and value-theoretical questions about death. Addressing the ancient Epicurean ethical problem about the evil of death, he argues that death can be a great evil for those who die, even if they do not exist after death, because it may deprive them of the goods they would have enjoyed if they had continued to live. Confrontations with the Reaper concludes with a novel consequentialist theory about the morality of killing, applying it to such thorny practical issues as abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. (shrink)

Thomas Merton is one of the most important spiritual voices of the last century. He has never been more relevant as new generations look to him for guidance in addressing some of life's biggest questions: how can we find God, how should we engage with other faiths, and how can we oppose violence and injustice? Looking carefully, one can find, tucked away in Merton's prodigious writings, his response to another timeless question: Why do we suffer? Why does an all-powerful and (...) all loving God permit evil and suffering? By carefully examining all of Merton's work, we find that he repeatedly confronted this question throughout most of his adult life. Intriguingly, Merton's approach to this question changed dramatically a few years before he died in 1968. An examination of all aspects of his life yields evidence that Merton’s immersion in Zen during this time contributed most to that change. (shrink)

Evil remains a primary source of inquiry in contemporary literature of French expression, even among its most secular writers. In considering French-speaking authors from France, Belgium, the United States, the Maghreb, and Sub-Saharan Africa, this collection delineates a rich international perspective on some of the most disturbing events of our time. Each essay testifies to the urgency expressed in works of fiction to give an account of human catastrophes, from the Shoah and the Rwandan genocide to the terrorist attacks of (...) September 11, and the ongoing oppression of women in Islamic nations. Themes underlying this volume include an investigation into the origins of evil, its representations in writing, and the ethical responsibilities of authors who write on human suffering. Contemporary fiction on evil confronts us with fundamental questions: Can evil be attributed to intentionality, is evil "subconscious," or is it the result of impersonal forces? Which styles of writing are ethically appropriate or effective for depicting evil? Can we speak of a veritable "poetics of evil" shared by contemporary authors? When does a literary text on evil become "evil"? In providing informed and nuanced answers to these important questions, the scholars engage in crucial theories of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and post-modernism, address a number of issues raised by trauma and genocide studies, and draw from critical frameworks in literary theory on testimony, the limits of representing the extreme, and "transgressive" writing. (shrink)

This article argues that the concept of evil is needed in normative ethics in general as well as in the professional ethics of social work. Attention is drawn to certain shortcomings in the classical theories of normative ethics when it comes to recognizing the profound destructiveness of certain types of acts that exceed the mere ?bad? or ?wrong? applied in the most common theories of moral philosophy. Having established the category of morally evil acts in general, the author turns to (...) the field of social work and applies it to some paradigm cases of evil that many social workers are likely to be confronted with during the course of their service. In the final part of the article, the concept of moral evil is discussed in relation to the professional ethics of social work in general, with reference to certain value assumptions that are found to be inherent to social work. (shrink)

This essay examines Jean-Luc Nancy's re-posing of the question of freedom in The Experience of Freedom in relation to three issues—what he calls the “thought of freedom,” the reality of evil, and the closure of metaphysics. All three elements that he discusses point directly to Heidegger's engagement with Friedrich Schelling's attempt to establish a system of freedom. My intervention into the discussion between these three thinkers will address several issues. The first part draws out the implications of Nancy's argument that (...) the thought of freedom, not the question of being as Heidegger would have it, is the ultimate matter for thinking that arises at the end of metaphysics. This in turn has important implications for Nancy's understanding of evil. The next part confronts and criticizes Nancy's contention that there is an “ontodicy” in Heidegger's thought that lends a certain justification to evil. The final part aims to show how Heidegger's engagement with Schelling and the reality of evil has to be understood within the context of the question concerning technology. This leads to a second confrontation with Nancy, who proposes a quite different interpretation of technology according to his own ontology, which he calls “being singular plural,” which amounts in effect to a liberation of technology from the being-question. (shrink)

What is it that permits us to see others as 'evil'? This book argues that it's our epistemological framework, which also resituates our own moral compass and reframes our moral world such that we can justify performing violent deeds, which we would readily demonize in others, as the heroics of eradicating evil. When conflict is understood positively as the confrontation of differences, an unavoidable and indeed desirable consequence of the rich tapestry of earthly life, then a discussion can open as (...) to how to navigate the countless confrontations of difference in the most skillful way. Through this lens, violence comes into view as the least skillful means of responding to, and working with, difference, since violence tends to 'rebound' and leaves both victims and perpetrators worse off—shameful and vengeful. Philosopher Wendy C. Hamblet argues that the radically polarized and oversimplified worldview that sorts the phenomena of the world into 'good guys' and 'evil others' is a framework as old as human community itself, and one that undermines people's own moral infrastructure, permitting them to take up the very acts that they would readily demonize as 'evil' in others. One's own violent responses to the human condition come to be reframed from unskillful and undesirable actions to valiant heroic reactions. In short, those who see 'evil' in others are far more likely to do 'evil,' resorting to the least skillful means for navigating difference—violence. In theory, violence is demonized as 'evil' in popular and criminological discourse and calls forth 'rebounding' like responses in the form of acts of vengeance in individuals and punitive responses in state institutions. However, punishment is itself defined as an 'evil' inflicted by a legitimate authority upon a wrongdoer in compensation for a wrong done. This leads to the conundrum that the state, as much as the vigilante, must necessarily undermine its own legitimacy by taking up the very acts that it deems as evil in its enemies and punishes in its deviant citizens. By reframing conflict positively, Hamblet introduces a new way of thinking about difference that allows the reader to appreciate (rather than tolerate) difference as a desirable feature of a multicultural, multi-religioned, multi-gendered world. This resituates the discussion of conflict such that conflict response styles can be viewed as more and less skillful means of navigating impasses in a world of differences. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's well-known examinations of the problem of evil are not contradictory and they are central to her corpus. Evil can be banal in some cases (Adolf Eichmann) and radical (the phenomenon of totalitarianism) in others. But behind all expressions of evil, in Arendt's formulations, is the imperative that it be confronted by thinking subjects and thoroughly historicized. This led her away from a view of evil as radical to one of evil as banal. Arendt's ruminations on evil are illuminated, (...) in part, by concerns that she shared with her fellow New York intellectuals about the withering effects of mass culture upon individual volition and understanding. In confronting the challenges of evil, Arendt functioned as a suggesting profitable ways that historians might look at history from a moral perspective. Indeed, her work may be viewed as anticipating a currently afoot in the historical profession. (shrink)

Since 9/11 politicians, preachers, conservatives and the media are all speaking about evil. In the past the dicourse about evil in our religious, philosophic and literary traditions has provoked thinking, questioning and inquiry. But today the appeal to evil is being used as a political tool to obscure compex issues, block serious thinking and stifle public discussion and debate. We are now confronting a clash of mentalities, not a clash of civilisations. One mentality is drawn to absolutes, moral certainties, (...) and simplistic dichotomies of good and evil. The other seriously questions an appeal to absolutes in politics and criticizes the simplistic division of the world into the forces of evil and the forces of good. In The Abuse of Evil Bernstein challenges the claim that without an appeal to absolutes, we lack the grounds for acting decisively in fighting our enemies. The post 9/11 abuse of evil corrupts both democratic politics and religion. The stakes are high in this clash of mentalities in shaping how we think and act in the world today - and in the future. (shrink)

In J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Waiting for the Barbarians, the main protagonist, the elderly Magistrate of a small frontier town of the Empire, is caught up in an impending war with the so-called barbarians. After witnessing the brutality of Colonel Joll, a member of the Bureau sent by the Civil Guard, the Magistrate puzzles over how Joll is able to torture his victims, yet show no signs of moral pollution. He wonders how Joll felt the very first time he administered (...) torture. Did he “shudder even a little knowing he was trespassing into the forbidden?” Does Joll have a “private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men?” Does he “wash his hands very carefully, perhaps, or change all his clothes; or has the Bureau created new men who can pass without disquiet between the unclean and the clean?” Later, after being tortured himself, the Magistrate confronts Joll’s sidekick Mandel. This time he demands an answer to his incomprehension. (shrink)

Since 9/11 politicians, preachers, conservatives and the media are all speaking about evil. In the past the dicourse about evil in our religious, philosophic and literary traditions has provoked thinking, questioning and inquiry. But today the appeal to evil is being used as a political tool to obscure compex issues, block serious thinking and stifle public discussion and debate. We are now confronting a clash of mentalities, not a clash of civilisations. One mentality is drawn to absolutes, moral certainties, (...) and simplistic dichotomies of good and evil. The other seriously questions an appeal to absolutes in politics and criticizes the simplistic division of the world into the forces of evil and the forces of good. In The Abuse of Evil Bernstein challenges the claim that without an appeal to absolutes, we lack the grounds for acting decisively in fighting our enemies. The post 9/11 abuse of evil corrupts both democratic politics and religion. The stakes are high in this clash of mentalities in shaping how we think and act in the world today - and in the future. (shrink)

The essay aims to focus on reception and interpretation of Dostoevsky in the thought of Luigi Pareyson and his heirs, who have developed a deep and original theoretical reading of Dostoevsky's work, able to bring out not only its ethical stance, but most of the essential aspects of his thought, and to investigate its current relevance. The reflection of Pareyson – who promoted the introduction of Dostoevsky's thought into the academic circles of Turin, being convinced that philosophy cannot avoid (...) class='Hi'>confronting the issues it explores – consists of three main moments: the experience of good and evil, the experience of freedom and the experience of God. Starting from consideration of Dostoevsky's characters as ideas, Pareyson proposes a new and coherent philosophical interpretation of his work, which can undoubtedly be compared to those of Ivanov, Berdjaev, Evdomikov, Šestov. His observations around the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor and the "refutation of Ivan" – which, according to him, constitute the most significant and theoretically prolific moments of Dostoevsky's production – seem unaffected by the flow of time and could still represent a valuable and indispensable contribution to the understanding not only of the great Russian author, but of human nature itself. (shrink)

Can sociology comprehend evil? The contemporary relevance of Kurt H. Wolff’s sociology is his lucid, critical vision of modernity which does not shy away from understanding what evil is. This is accompanied not by pessimism, but by trust in human beings and their positive ability to appeal to the moral conscience. Read today, Wolff’s pages must be placed in the category of a new understanding of the human subject and the diagnosis of our time, the request for which threads in (...) and out of contemporary social theory. Awareness of history, rejection of sociological nominalism, emphasis upon the role of the human subject in an unprecedented situation: in Wolff, these themes converge and invite us to open ourselves to the re-enchantment of the world. After describing with some detail the main concepts of Wolff’s sociological theory and phenomenological approach, the paper suggests a reading of the re-enchantment of the world in terms of a sociological confrontation with evil, which has all too often been bypassed by sociology. We cannot grasp the evildoer's motivations from the perspective of an autonomous, rationally disengaged and masterful subject which tends to eclipse emotive and embodied senses of selfhood. By suspending the taken-for-granted definitions which exist in mainstream literature, by making an excruciating effort in looking at or reading detailed descriptions of evildoing, by assuming the victim’s suffering as part of our sociological explanation, we can start understanding what evil is today and in what way it is connected to modernity. (shrink)

In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. Yet a violent response to violence arguably makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity and political judgement that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues that (...) we must not shrink from the use of violence. But its use - in a liberal democracy - must be measured. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda. (shrink)

Confronted with Adolf Eichmann, evildoer par excellence, Hannah Arendt sought in vain for any 'depth' to the evil he had wrought. How is the philosopher to approach evil ? Is the celebrated criterion of impartiality ill-equipped to guide judgment when its object is evil - as exhibited, for instance, in the recent genocide in Bosnia? This essay questions the ability of the neutral 'third party' to respond adequately to evil from a standpoint of avowed impartiality. Discussing the different roles of (...) perpetrator and victim, I argue that in any knowledge about evil the victim is the supremely privileged source; this being so, the non-party to the occurrence of evil must privilege the testimony of the victimized - even at the cost of strict impartiality of moral judgment. Key Words: Arendt • evil • genocide • Goldhagen • impartiality • judgment • Kant • Levinas. (shrink)

In this important new book, David O'Connor discusses both logical and empirical forms of the problem of inscrutable evil, perennially the most difficult philosophical problem confronting theism. Arguing that both a version of theism and a version of atheism are justified on the evidence in the debate over God and evil, O'Connor concludes that a warranted outcome is a philosophical dètente between those two positions. On the way to that conclusion he develops two arguments from evil, a reformed version (...) of the logical argument and an indirect version of the empirical argument, and deploys both against a central formulation of theism that he describes as orthodox theism. God and Inscrutable Evil makes a valuable contribution to contemporary debates in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Ernest Becker’s work addresses the implications that arise from being aware of our own mortality. Like Sartre, Becker recognises that human beings have the potential to transcend and look beyond their immediate situation, but his work also confronts the darker aspects of human existence that arise from our self-awareness. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of Becker’s work and to show the potential of Becker’s theory of evil to inform a number of contemporary debates in the (...) social sciences. Although Becker’s work directly examines why human beings can act so inhumanly towards one another, his theory is not altogether pessimistic. The paper concludes by arguing that Becker’s theory intended to create new possibilities for living in more creative and humane world. (shrink)

In 2013, Benedict XVI became only the second pope in the history of the Catholic Church to resign from office. In this brief but illuminating study, Giorgio Agamben argues that Benedict's gesture, far from being solely a matter of internal ecclesiastical politics, is exemplary in an age when the question of legitimacy has been virtually left aside in favor of a narrow focus on legality. This reflection on the recent history of the Church opens out into an analysis of one (...) of the earliest documents of Christianity: the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, which stages a dramatic confrontation between the "man of lawlessness" and the enigmatic katechon, the power that holds back the end of days. In Agamben's hands, this infamously obscure passage reveals the theological dynamics of history that continue to inform Western culture to this day. (shrink)

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in today's developed world that is also increasingly picked out as a focal theme in fictional literature. In dealing with the subjectivity of human experience, such literature enhances the reader's empathy and is able to teach about moral, emotional and philosophical issues, offering the chance to see situations from a position otherwise possibly never taken by the reader. The understanding and insight so gained may well be unscientific, but the literary approach offers (...) an insight into the whole person's perspective and the particularity and uniqueness of a situation that includes ethical conflicts. A key motif of fictional literature centred around dementia remains the burden the adult-child carer is confronted with, considering the parent's remorseless decline and personality change, the sudden demand for devoted and continuous care, and the constantly changing relationship with the declining parent. In the context of an ever increasing demand for a constructive public discussion regarding end-of-life treatment of demented patients, Christine Devars (Le Piano Désaccordé) and Andrés Barba (Ahora Tocad Música de Baile) illustrate how powerful and burdensome the impact of Alzheimer's disease is on both patient and carer and what extremes may be reached under such truly exceptional circumstances. (shrink)

In eight short chapters, McGinn touches on Ethics, Evil, and Fiction from an analytical point of view. First, he approaches the nature of ethics. Here McGinn confronts the issue of moral psychologism and resists the temptation to reduce morality to something that it is not and to what cannot really account for it. His conclusion is that “goodness is a moral property... a separate type of property”. He cites G. E. Moore’s insight into the simplicity of goodness and defends “a (...) strong objectivist or cognitivist” position of moral truth. (shrink)

Strikingly different approaches to the question of whether God wills evil are evident when one compares Aquinas’s account of evil with theodicies developd by prominent contemporary philosophers of religion. Aquinas, along with most medieval philosophers, insists that God does not will moral evil. But a number of contemporary Christian philosophers seem to set aside this traditional understanding of God’s rectitude. Consider Alvin Plantinga’s justly celebrated free-will defense. Unlike many contemporary philosophers who focus almost exclusively on human and animal suffering, Plantinga (...) recognizes that the problem of moral evil must be confronted. Nevertheless, nothing in his defense makes it impermissible for God to will moral evil. And a patch on the defense which stipulates such action as impermissible will appear to be just what it is: ad hoc, and not of a piece with the original defense. For Plantinga’s sense that what counts in grading a world is the ratio of moral good to moral evil does not easily accommodate the imagined revision. Or consider Eleonore Stump’s position that when a person’s evil desires flag, from fatigue or even from the sudden appearance of a revulsion towards the evil, God may intervene to harden the person’s heart and strengthen his evil desires. On her account, it seems, God may directly will moral evil for the sake of some greater good. (shrink)

This paper contends that for Christian philosophy, the classical approaches to Problem of Evil, especially those that attempt to justify God‟s omnipotence, are not adequate answers to the pressing problems of suffering, and that the canonical Gospels offer more valid contentions for defending his benevolence in the face of gross evil. It is therefore attempting to contribute a voice to a long-running debate between classical theist approaches and postmodern arguments for God‟s validity in a world saturated with evil. Positioning itself (...) against the traditional Augustinian and Iranean schools of theodicy, the essay returns to the original ideas that answered the earliest Christians when they were confronted by adversity, the plight of the weak, the wrongdoings of the powerful, but also the death of their teacher and leader, Jesus. These are the ideas recorded in Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, in which contemporary philosophy of religion has found itself exploring new outposts to engage the Problem of Evil. It will also be argued that the nature of these Gospel defences is primarily eschatological, although they cannot be compartmentalized into any single category of religious philosophy. This paper is not intended to serve an expressly Christian purpose. Rather, its main objective is to give a greater exposure to less traditional defences of God in the strictly philosophical context of theodicy. (shrink)

The article discusses how the meaning of the principle of “non-resistance to evil by violence” was changing in L.N. Tolstoy's religious and philosophical teachings and how this principle was evaluated in Russian religious philosophy of the late XIX - early XX century. In the first version of Tolstoy’s teachings, set forth in the book “What is my faith?”, the principle of non-resistance was understood in a moral sense, as the norm for all people; its execution should lead to the perfection (...) of earthly life. This idea of L. Tolstoy was sharply criticised by his contemporaries, who noted that there was no truly religious content in Tolstoy’s teachings, it was turning into a utilitarian doctrine of the earthly progress of mankind. Given this criticism, Tolstoy in his later works changed his understanding of the principle of non-resistance. Drawing a distinction between two levels of human life - “animal” and divine, Tolstoy recognised the principle of non-resistance to the law as the divine life of a man. As a result, the principle of non-resistance has acquired a religious rather than moral meaning, since the transition of a man to a divine life means a mystical transformation of his being. He is aware of his super-spatial and super-temporary unity with all people and with all being, and therefore can evaluate the consequences of his actions not only in the limited sphere of his life, but also in all infinite being. In this regard, a person realizes the absolute superiority of good deeds over evil, even if the latter are committed to confront evil. It is shown that some critics of Tolstoy came to a similar understanding of the religious meaning of the principle of non-resistance at the end of their lives. (shrink)

_Do good and evil exist? Absolutely._ In this bracing book, the eminent Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging turns fashionable thinking on its head, revealing how good and evil are objective, universal, and unchanging—and how they must be rediscovered in our age. In mapping the geography of good and evil, Kinneging reclaims, and reintroduces us to, the great tradition of ancient and Christian thought. Traditional wisdom enables us to address the eternal questions of good and evil that confront us in both public (...) and private life. Though it is common to accept uncritically the blessings of modernity and its intellectual sources, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Kinneging shows that traditional thinking is richer and more realistic. Indeed, we see how, in more than a few respects, the Enlightenment and Romanticism brought not progress but deterioration. Kinneging skillfully reformulates and defends the insights of traditional thinking for today’s readers, demonstrating how an objective morality is to be understood and how we can know what morality demands of us. At a time when the traditional virtues have practically disappeared from our language, he lays out the foundations of virtue and vice. Ultimately, Kinneging reveals the lasting significance of these seemingly archaic notions—to our own lives, to our families, to our culture, and to civilization.__ This profound, award-winning work establishes Andreas Kinneging as one of our wisest moral philosophers. _“Shows with utmost clarity the virtue of intellectual courage... A brilliant model for sallies against our dark age.”_ _—_The Intercollegiate Review____ _“[Kinneging is] leader of a conservative intellectual revival in the Netherlands.”__ —_New York Times Magazine__. (shrink)

Abstract According to the Deprivation Approach, the evil of death is to be explained by the fact that death deprives us of the goods we would have enjoyed if we had lived longer. But the Deprivation Approach confronts a problem first discussed by Lucretius. Late birth seems to deprive us of the goods we would have enjoyed if we had been born earlier. Yet no one is troubled by late birth. So it’s hard to see why we should be troubled (...) by its temporal mirror image, early death. In a 1986 paper, Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer appealed to a version of Derek Parfit’s “Bias toward the Future”; they claimed that early death deprives us of future goods that we care about, while late birth deprives us of past goods that we don’t care about. In this paper I show that the Brueckner–Fischer principle is open to several possible interpretations, but that it does not solve the Lucretius problem no matter how we understand it. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-9 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9766-6 Authors Fred Feldman, Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

This article critically engages Paul Moser’s “Divine Hiddenness Response” to the problem of evil—an approach to have recently come out of traditional free-will theism. I begin with identifying the initial common ground between Mosers thought and process theology that arguably coincides with what can be called the "Four Noble Truths of Christianity. ” Howevery when confronted with the problem of evil that threatens the credibility of these truths. Moser offers an epistemic strategy to address this threat without modifying the classical (...) concept of omnipotence and without having a full-explanation theodicy. I will argue that, far from helping the situation, this approach exacerbates it and is therefore strongly undesirable. In addition, Moser’s assumption of the absence of an adequate theodicy is unjustified in light of the demonstrable merits of process theodicy in accomplishing what omnipotence-preserving approaches cannot do—defusing the defeaters to Christianity’s Four Noble Truths effectively. Thusy it is desirable andy in the absence of better optionsy epistemically obligatory that omnipotence be modified and replaced with a version of God’s perfect power that is more coherent and evidence-based, and is also in line with a significant strand within the Bible. (shrink)

Henri Bergson's work is often presented as an optimistic philosophy. This essay presents a counter-narrative to that reading by looking to the place of the problem of evil within his integral metaphysics. For, if Bergson’s philosophy is simply optimistic, or simply derives meaning from the wholeness of experience, then it risks a theodical structure which undercuts its ability to speak to contemporary social and political problems of suffering. A theodical structure is one that, at bottom, justifies the experience of suffering (...) by way of a concept of the whole or some concept that functions to subsume everything within it. Suffering is subsumed and given meaning by placing it within a relation, often with a telos that redeems or sublimates the experience of suffering. This takes such a singular experience such as suffering and renders it merely relative to the part it plays within the system of everything. On my reading, Bergson’s philosophy contains a supplement of what we might call pessimism or negativity inherent in his metaphysics as integral experience. This supplement undermines the theodical structure that may be assumed to undercut Bergson’s philosophy when confronted with evil or suffering and is seen most clearly in his critique of the notion of “everything.”. (shrink)