Democracy faces threats from an emerging right-wing movement in democratic governments around the world. This may be even more prevalent in the United States because there is an evil that uses rhetorical tropes to undermine the anchor institutions of democracy: press, courts, universities, and Congress. This evil has a personification--former President Donald Trump. All the rhetorical critiques of Trump, that he is a demagogue, an authoritarian, a serial liar, a populist on steroids, fail to take into account the (...) evil that is fomented by his angry and vengeful rhetoric. Pictures of evil in Scripture, philosophy, and rhetoric bear a striking resemblance to Trump. It is not enough to say that he is dangerous to democracy. Kennedy claims that he is the evil seed in democracy that is even now sprouting new versions of the Trump rhetoric as each acolyte attempts to outrage the next. Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy screams at the evil, fights against the evil, and then attempts to sing the songs of goodness and democracy from poets, prophets, and rhapsodes. For the health of democracy these words have been written. (shrink)

Talk about evil resonates in ways that are culturally inherited. Historical and religious dimensions of “evil” often seem to be front and center. Nevertheless, we argue that it would be too quick to dismiss the study of evil within secular ethics. We defend an outlook that is inspired by ancient ethics—also called virtue ethics—which accepts the so-called Guise of the Good account of motivation. For an agent to be motivated to perform an action, something about the (...) action must look good to her. We argue that evil actions do not constitute exceptions to the Guise of the Good. To preserve this framework, we entertain a privative account of evil, according to which evil is the absence of the good, and yet appears in a positive light to the agent who performs an evil action. We reject the view that evil is quantitatively extreme badness. An account of evil should permit that some instances of evil are from a third person perspective not extremely bad. On this picture, evil is agent-relative; something can be evil relative to one person without being evil relative to another person. Accordingly, several qualities—rather than only one distinctive quality—can make an action evil. (shrink)

Focusing on narratives with supernatural components, Karen J. Renner argues that the recent proliferation of stories about evil children demonstrates not a declining faith in the innocence of childhood but a desire to preserve its purity. From novels to music videos, photography to video games, the evil child haunts a range of texts and comes in a variety of forms, including changelings, ferals, and monstrous newborns. In this book, Renner illustrates how each subtype offers a different explanation for (...) the problem of the “evil” child and adapts to changing historical circumstances and ideologies. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

"Nietzsche is infuriatingly difficult to comprehend as he sets to tearing down every scaffold left from the old world. Beyond Good and Evil represents Nietzsche in his maturity, being written later in life. It is also some of his clearest writing since it is intentionally polemical. None of his writing is known particularly for its moderation, but Beyond Good and Evil is written as an assault on half-hearted philosophers who are still playing about with the old (...) world. But he is a particularly infuriating read for those who see the world as made and ruled by God. He is difficult to understand since he seeks to remove everything that makes such a world comprehensible. But to say this is simply to describe our age, and for this reason Nietzsche is valuable. But be warned, he will not be trifled with. Sit with him and listen as he seeks to remove every vestige of God from the world." The Worldview Guides from the Canon Classics Literature Series provide an aesthetic and thematic Christian perspective on the most definitive and daunting works of Western Literature. Each Worldview Guide presents the big picture (both the good and the bad) without neglecting the details. Each Worldview Guide is a friendly literary coach--and a treasure map, and a compass, and a key--to help teachers, parents, and students appreciate, critique, and begin to master the classics. The bite-size WGs are divided into these ten sections (with some variation due to genre): Introduction, The World Around, About the Author, What Other Notables Said, Structure and Audience, Worldview Analysis, Quotables, 21 Significant Questions & Answers, and Further Discussion & Review. (shrink)

Ce dictionnaire propose de réunir des portraits de brutes et de mégères dans le but de s'interroger sur les causes et les raisons de cette perception négative. Pourquoi certaines figures évoquent-elles la méchanceté? Que peut nous dire cette méchanceté dénoncée de nous-mêmes et de l'époque qui l'a engendrée? Il s'agira de retracer les portraits de ceux et celles ayant marqué l'Histoire et la fiction par leur cruauté, leur perfidie, leur machiavélisme, leur art de la dissimulation ou de la manipulation. S'attarder (...) sur la méchanceté et ses possibles, décliner les façons de la penser et de la vivre, de la subir ou de l'exercer, c'est s'intéresser à une facette peu valorisée de la sensibilité d'autant plus importante que chaque individu, de près ou de loin, est amené, un jour, à se montrer méchant. La méchanceté et ses manifestations, qu'elles soient conceptuelles ou biographiques, nous invitent donc à une introspection globale, à une immersion dans les affres de la noirceur des âmes dont la bouche n'est autre que celle de la méchanceté Le champ de cette entreprise est vaste et recouvre notamment : La Malice, le Machiavélisme, Orangina Rouge, Barbe Bleue, le cinéma d'Alfred Hitchcock, Marie-Antoinette, la Mauvaise conscience, Gilles de Rais, Harry Powell (La nuit du chasseur) Salomé-Hérodiade, Dracula, Tatie Danielle, Marie Tudor, la Perversité, la Mégère Grecque, Dark Vador, Mildred Ratched (Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou)... (shrink)

Philosophische Reflexion allein kann das Böse nicht (be-)greifen. Es sind oft Geschichten, die helfen, sich dem Phänomen anzunähern. Der Band hat sich das Ziel gesetzt, ein tieferes Verständnis des Bösen zu erreichen, indem neben philosophischen auch literarische und filmische Zugänge daraufhin befragt werden, was sie uns über das Böse zu erzählen haben, und sie mit philosophischen Theorien in ein produktives Gespräch gebracht werden. Dabei wird sich herausstellen, dass die Philosophie selbst durchaus narrativ und die Narration durchaus reflexiv sein kann. (Quelle: (...) Homepage des Verlags). (shrink)

A COMPANION TO MOTION PICTURES AND PUBLIC VALUE A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value brings together original essays by world-renowned scholars investigating the varied intersections of the moving image and the public good. Covering a wide range of types and genres of cinema, this unprecedented volume explores the past, present, and possible future contributions of motion pictures to public value. With a cross-disciplinary approach, the text presents original conceptual work, global perspectives, philosophical arguments, historical (...) discussion, empirical research, and specific case studies of the direct and indirect public value developed through motion pictures. Organized into seven thematic sections, this Companion identifies and discusses the various kinds of values that motion pictures can deliver, including artistic and aesthetic, ethical and moral, spiritual and religious, cultural, environmental, political, and cognitive. Throughout the text, readers are provided with deep insight into the issue of public value as it relates to cinema and its positive impact on human life and society. A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, and is a valuable resource for scholars across a variety of disciplines. (shrink)

The Philosopher at the End of the Universe demonstrates how anyone can grasp the basic concepts of philosophy while still holding a bucket of popcorn. Mark Rowlands makes philosophy utterly relevant to our everyday lives and reveals its most potent messages using nothing more than a little humor and the plotlines of some of the most spectacular, expensive, high-octane films on the planet. Learn about: The Nature of Reality from The Matrix, Good and Evil from Star Wars, Morality (...) from Aliens, Personal Identity from Total Recall, The Mind-Body dilemma from Terminator, Free Will from Minority Report, Death and the Meaning of Life from Blade Runner, and much more. A search for knowledge about ourselves and the world around us with a star-studded cast that includes: Tom Cruise, Plato, Harrison Ford, Immanuel Kant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigourney Weaver, René Descartes, and Keanu Reeves. Rowlands anchors his discussions in easily understood everyday terms and relates them in a manner easy to identify with. Interspersed with a ready joke or two, he wonderfully explains why those SciFi movies we love so much are much deeper than they appear to be on the surface. Mark Rowlands's entertaining and stimulating guide is perfect for anyone searching for knowledge of the world around us. If Keanu can understand Descartes surely everyone can. (shrink)

Law and Evil presents an alternative evolutionary picture of man, focusing on the origins and nature of human evil, and demonstrating its useful application in legal-philosophical analyses. Using this representation of human nature, Wojciech Załuski analyses the development of law, which he interprets as moving from evolutionary ethics to genuine ethics, as well as arguing in favour of metaethical realism and ius naturale.

Anthony Daniels tackles the complex relation between good and bad art on the one hand and good and bad ideas on the other. He contrasts authors or artists whom he considers good with those he considers bad, and tries to explain why his opinion is not merely a matter of individual taste but is based upon reason as well. He argues judgment and discrimination (between good and bad, beautiful and ugly) are intrinsic to any conceivable human (...) existence, indeed to thought itself, and that the pretense that they are avoidable, that one can indefinitely suspend judgment, are merely a means by which bad or false judgments are smuggled into public life. (shrink)

György Alajos Szerdahely, the first professor of aesthetics in Pest, publishes his Aesthetica in 1778, a work, written in Latin, that not only engages with the eclectic university aesthetics of late-18th-century Germany and Central Europe, but also marks the beginning of the Hungarian aesthetic tradition. Szerdahely proposes aesthetics as the doctrine of taste, a philosophical discipline that can polish our manners and social conduct through a sensual-affective Bildung offered by art experiences. Highlighting his sources in both British criticism and German (...) aesthetics, the paper traces the development of Szerdahely's concept of beauty from beauty as form (uniformity amidst variety) to beauty in motion (sensibility). Initially, Szerdahely argues for unity and variety as the two main constituents of a beautiful object, evoking disinterested contemplation, but he then turns to sensibility as the third necessary condition of beauty: an object becomes aesthetically beautiful only if it has the power to strike the senses (Lux) and stir the affections (Vivacitas), enlivening the whole embodied person. The paper argues that this third principle of sensibility proves to be more emphatic than the first two, leading to (1) the aesthetic conception of beauty as an experiential quality; but more interestingly to (2) the incorporation of the element of self-preservation and self-love into aesthetic experience. The reason for the latter development lies in Szerdahely’s anthropological argument, which traces back every affection to the instantaneous apprehension of good or evil concerning ourselves, implying desire (Adpetitus) or aversion (Auersi) in our reactions. (shrink)

The story of the show, The Good Place, begins with a common picture of what happens to us after we die. One of the key philosophical issues in the story involves how to assess correctly the moral goodness or badness of a person's life on Earth, since this is the basis of the judgment concerning their eternal destiny. Thomas Nagel claims that there are four kinds of “moral luck”: luck in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, luck with (...) respect to our constitution or character, luck with respect to the results of our actions, and luck with respect to having free choices at all. Perhaps one moral of the story of The Good Place is that life is really complicated, morally speaking—people are not simply good or evil, and cannot be judged easily. (shrink)

This discussion of Jewish philosophy, covers the complex issue of good and evil in the context of classical Jewish thought.

This paper develops a critical account of evil. By referring to Kant’s moral philosophy, I argue that evil actions have reasons and cannot be explained in terms of a lack of reason. However, these reasons of evil are not obvious but rather forms of rational self-deception. I therefore argue that the phenomenon of evil is complex and involves three dimensions: activity, reasons, and deception.

In the eighteenth-century England, the aesthetic vision of most contemporary writers of the time was closely related to the social, political and religious system of belief. Augustan writers, satirists particularly, sought to reclaim for literature the morally privileged status, they thought, it supposedly held in the context of the Latitudinarian system of thought; the very rationale behind the ethic of good nature that distinguishes major writings of the time, namely the dramatic, journalistic and fictional works of the major eighteenth (...) century novelist and satirist Henry Fielding. His major dramatic works not only display the influence of the Latitudinarian philosophy but mainly Shaftesbury’s moral theory of innate goodness, which Fielding revokes, offering then a representation of a more universal moral frame which rather reflects and criticizes the society of the author’s time. The providential pattern that Fielding creates in his plays valorizes indeed the principle of good-nature and the triumph of virtue against all apparent social evils. Most significantly, it has positioned Henry Fielding himself in a “comedic” tradition in which characters are not ultimately responsible for themselves. In the present paper, and with reference to Earl of Shaftesbury’s assumptions about the ideal good-natured man, I intend to evince that Fielding uses the value of good-nature and virtue not as pure moral abstractions, but rather as nodal points around which he organizes, and through which he presents a broad cultural and historical vision. With reference to his major regular comedies, and a through a close study of his most representative characters, I will attempt to evince that this underlying moral vision is more than an abstract rumination of the relative power of good and evil. When we view and consider such concepts as virtue, good-nature and ill-nature in the immediate contexts of his plays, we conceive a picture of a broad cultural landscape in which ethical values become nodal points of meaning, in which Fielding represents both the most basic, traditional values and the most sordid everyday events and attitudes of his society. (shrink)

Children usually use the external and physical features of characters in movies or stories as a means of categorizing them quickly as being either good or bad/evil. This categorization is probably done by means of heuristics and previous experience. However, the study of this fast processing is difficult in children. In this paper, we propose a new experimental paradigm to determine how these decisions are made. We used illustrations of characters in folk tales, whose visual representations contained features (...) that were compatible or incompatible with the moral identity of the characters. Sixteen children between 8 and 10 years old participated in the experiment. We measured their electrodermal activity when they were listening to the story and looking at pictures of the characters. Results revealed a higher increase in skin conductance when the illustrations showed a moral condition that was incompatible with the actions of a character than when they showed one that was compatible. These results suggest that children make fast decisions about the moral identity of characters based on their physical features. They open up new possibilities in the study of the processing of moral decisions in children. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether the concept of evil is philosophically adequate. It sets out a secular conception of evil that is sufficiently clear to be used in philosophical theorising. Evil, so conceived, is not merely a fiction or an illusion, but is a moral property possessed by some actions and some persons in the real world. While several philosophers have claimed that it is inescapably dangerous to use the concept of evil, the reality (...) is that the concept of evil, when used carefully, is not prohibitively dangerous. Evil actions are not merely the opposite of good actions. Rather evil actions are are a small subset of extreme moral wrongs. (shrink)

This paper focuses on whether static images can depict motion. It is natural to say that pictures depicting objects caught in the middle of a dynamic action—such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s (1932) Behind the Gare St. Lazare—are pictures of movement, but, given that pictures themselves do not move, can we make sense of such an idea? Drawing on results from experimental psychology and cognitive sciences, I show that we can. Psychological studies on implicit motion and representational momentum indicate that (...) motion is really perceived in some static images: our visual system is built in order to detect motion, even where it is only implied, and to anticipate the probable outcomes of others’ actions—even when the ‘others’ are only the subject matters of pictures’. I argue that, consequently, a range of popular depiction theories—perceptualist theories of depiction—can accommodate depicted motion. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita's Good and Evil is one of the most important, original and provocative books on the nature of morality to have been published in recent years. It is essential reading for anyone interested in what it means to talk about good and evil. Gaita argues that questions about morality are inseparable from the preciousness of each human being, an issue we can only address if we place the idea of remorse at the centre of moral (...) life. Drawing on an astonishing range of thinkers and writers, including Plato, Wittgenstein, George Orwell and Primo Levi, Gaita also reflects on the place of reason and truth in morality and ultimately how questions about good and evil are connected to the meaning of our lives. This revised edition of Good and Evil includes a substantial new preface and afterword by the author. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita's _Good and Evil_ is one of the most important, original and provocative books on the nature of morality to have been published in recent years. It is essential reading for anyone interested in what it means to talk about good and evil. Gaita argues that questions about morality are inseparable from the preciousness of each human being, an issue we can only address if we place the idea of remorse at the centre of moral life. Drawing (...) on an astonishing range of thinkers and writers, including Plato, Wittgenstein, George Orwell and Primo Levi, Gaita also reflects on the place of reason and truth in morality and ultimately how questions about good and evil are connected to the meaning of our lives. This revised edition of _Good and Evil_ includes a substantial new preface and afterword by the author. (shrink)

pThis article seeks to demonstrate how a dialogue between literary theorist and psychoanalyst François Flahault and Kyoto School philosopher Nishida Kitarō can be mutually beneficial in the service of building an account of good and evil that contributes to discourses in ethics. Although Flahault and Nishida share a similar commitment to disrupt the dichotomy between good and evil in the effort to liberate subjectivity, they diverge in terms of how their accounts relate subjectivity to the processes (...) of social history. As this article will discuss, the significance of their divergence, however, elucidates the strengths and limits of their approaches to the victim-victimizer duality that is implied within the problem of good and evil. Such a divergence also points to a potential space of synthesis and mutual enrichment as well: namely, on the side of championing Nishida’s contradictory logic and Flahault’s emphasis on the contextual demands and problems of social history. That is to say, within the dialogical encounter between Flahault and Nishida, as the present article suggests, is the potentiality to develop a universal conception of the common good that is contradictorily linked to the subjective interior where such provides a critical resource for a deeper engagement with the victim-victimizer duality./p. (shrink)

Humans must take moral and criminal responsibility for making a free choice between good and evil, according to Chŏng Yakyong, and this view was influenced by Matteo Ricci. Choosing to commit an evil action means committing a willful crime, so one must take responsibility for this action in the form of punishment. However, unintentional wrongdoings can be forgiven. For example, a man stealing to survive or killing a robber in order to live should not be punished, because (...) these individuals have no choice but to do so. Those claims of Chŏng are his own creation, not influenced by Ricci or Confucianism. By contrast, the idea that a child’s intentional hiding of his father’s crime should not be punished because of the child’s duty of filial piety was influenced by Confucianism. However, a large crime committed by a child on the basis of filial piety, such as committing murder to rescue one’s mother, only lends cause for commutation. Unlike Chŏng, Ricci regarded a child’s act of stealing bread to feed his family as an action of evil rather than an act of filial piety, since theft is an evil action. (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil was one of the last books German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, and has fast become one of the best-known works on moral and ethical philosophy. A collection of aphorisms and commentary largely make up one of his most celebrated works on his mature philosophy of the free spirit, and continues to be one of the most widely read and studied works of philosophy today. To be published as part of the first batch. Along with (...) Thus Spake Zaruthustra, this is Nietzsche's most popular work, in which he dismisses the a slave morality of Western civilization in favour of the a will to power. There are many editions, but they tend to be cheap paperback versions, or academic-style editions. This will be a nice looking collectable hard-back edition. (shrink)

The story of the show, The Good Place, begins with a common picture of what happens to us after we die. One of the key philosophical issues in the story involves how to assess correctly the moral goodness or badness of a person's life on Earth, since this is the basis of the judgment concerning their eternal destiny. Thomas Nagel claims that there are four kinds of “moral luck”: luck in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, luck with (...) respect to our constitution or character, luck with respect to the results of our actions, and luck with respect to having free choices at all. Perhaps one moral of the story of The Good Place is that life is really complicated, morally speaking—people are not simply good or evil, and cannot be judged easily. (shrink)

This article discusses madness and saintliness in Dostoevsky’s novels and investigates how the madman and the saint discern between good and evil. I first explore the metaphysical, spiritual, and moral universe of Dostoevsky’s characters by drawing on William Desmond’s philosophy of the between. Second, I argue that the madman’s misconstrual of reality can be grasped as an idolatrous, divisive, and parodic imitation of the good. Third, I reflect on disembodied discernment. In some cases, due to the weakness (...) of the moral agent, the good cannot be properly embodied in space and time, even if a person exhibits ethically sound discernment. Fourth, I look at examples of holy discernment and examine how, through love, the genuinely good person is able to transform idolatry into a universal and cosmic sacramentalism. (shrink)

The discussion of good and evil must not be confined to the sterile lecture halls of academics but related instead to ordinary human feelings, needs, and desires, says noted philosopher Richard Taylor. Efforts to understand morality by exploring human reason will always fail because we are creatures of desire as well. All morality arises from our intense and inescapable longing. The distinction between good and evil is always clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of (...) ethics into complex philosophical puzzles. In the first part of Good and Evil, Taylor looks for a more meaningful conception by reexamining and rejecting the whole rationalistic tradition that dominates philosophical ethics. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules. Including important commentary on Joseph Fletcher's groundbreaking situation ethics, and Aristotle's virtues (e.g., magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration--personal worth as an ethical ideal--to replace the morality of duty. He offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face. (shrink)

Many contemporary scholars debate whether war should be conceived as a relative evil or a morally neutral act. The works of Augustine may offer new ways of thinking through the categories of this debate. In an early period, Augustine develops the distinction between evil done and evil suffered. Augustine's early treatments of war locate the saint as detached sage doing only good, and immune from evil suffered. In a middle period, he develops a richer picture (...) of the evil suffered on the occasion of the loss of historical goods but fails to develop the implications of this picture as concerns war. Finally, without abandoning emphasis on the avoidance of doing evil, Augustine comes to highlight how evil suffered in war prevents us from speaking simply of good wars. Augustine's ability to hold together senses of evil and their moral significance provides a useful avenue for new thought on this issue. (shrink)

The distinction between good and evil is clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of ethics into complex philosophical puzzles. Taylor develops a philosophy of aspiration -- personal worth as an ethical ideal -- to replace the morality of duty. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Socratic Turn addresses the question of whether we can acquire genuine knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong. Reputedly, Socrates was the first philosopher to make the attempt. But Socrates was a materialistic natural scientist in his youth, and it was only much later in life--after he had rejected materialistic natural science--that he finally turned, around the age of forty, to the examination of ordinary moral and political opinions, or to moral-political philosophy so understood. Through a (...) consideration of Plato's account of Socrates' intellectual development, and with a view to relevant works of the pre-Socratics, Xenophon, Aristotle, Hesiod, Homer, and Aristophanes, Dustin Sebell reproduces the course of thought that carried Socrates from materialistic natural science to moral-political philosophy. By doing so, he seeks to recover an all but forgotten approach to the question of justice, one still worthy of being called scientific.--Book jacket. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that Thomas Aquinas consider the problem of evil, not only as a question of evil in itself, but in the much broader context of God’s work of creation and providential government, and thus proves that the existence of evil in the world is not a viable argument against God’s existence. For Thomas Aquinas, evil is not something, some being with its essence and nature, but it is the lack of a (...) class='Hi'>good that should by nature be present in a being. Evil has good as its subject, object, and cause, and may ultimately have good as its effect. Such complete immersion and dependence of evil on good says that evil’s ontological status is real, but not absolute. Evil cannot exist from itself, by itself and for itself. It is in every way subordinated to the good. Such a status of evil becomes even more apparent in Aquinas’ view of the relation between evil and the absolute good that is God. God is the one who exists in the absolute sense, and evil exists only in relation to the good that is God’s creation. The decay of things is only a consequence of God creating a good world in which some beings may be deficient in good, which they sometimes are. This means that God does not want evil, but in a way allows it while providentially governing everything to the good that he is. God is so omnipotent that by allowing evil he can accomplish even greater and more numerous goods. In the work of God’s governing over the world, man occupies a special place because he is capable of a personal relationship with God. But man can also voluntarily deviate from the order and rules that lead him to union with his ultimate good which is God. Such an act is called the moral evil of guilt or sin. Thomas Aquinas finds the example and model of the victory of good over evil in the character of the righteous and innocent Job, who, thanks to the experience of a terrible evil, has realised that God infinitely transcends human cognition, being and power, and that any attribution of evil to God would be foolishness, that every denial of God’s existence because of the evil that befell him would be insane. Job realised that God’s righteousness and logos rule everything and that the ultimate victory of good is certain. (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, (...) Nietzsche embodies the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

A mime presented on videotape Adler’s six great ideas of truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, and justice; their opposites; and the transitions from the positive or “good” concepts to their opposites. Using Johansson’s (1973) technique, the performer’s 12 joints were marked with points of light. Overall, the viewers had marginal success in identifying the concepts, but females were much more successful than males in identifying the “bad” ones of evil, slavery, falsehood, and ugliness, averaging 62% correct to the (...) males’ 23%. The results agree with Hall’s (1984) discussion of sex differences in the interpretation of nonverbal behavior. (shrink)

“Supposing that truth is a women-what then?” This is the very first sentence in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil . Not very often are philosophers so disarmingly explicit in their intention to discomfort the reader. In fact, one might say that the natural state of Nietzsche’s reader is one of perplexity. Yet it is in the process of overcoming the perplexity that one realizes how rewarding to have one’s ideas challenged. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche (...) critiques the mediocre in modernity and challenges the reader to accept their state of becoming and accept improvisation and creativity of the process. Nietzsche’s book is carefully designed to disorient the reader, to systematically provoke and tease her to the point of stealing away her certainties. It is challenging yet rewarding to overcome the perplexities of Nietzsche’s teachings. (shrink)

Indian Buddhist sources speak of five sins of immediate retribution: murder of mother, father, an arhat, drawing the blood of a buddha, and creating a schism in the monastic community. This category provides the paradigm for sinfulness in Buddhism. Yet even these sins can and will, be expiated in the long run, demonstrating the overwhelmingly positive nature of Buddhist ethics.

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil is the first, full-length contemporary defence, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, of the Scholastic theory of good and evil - the theory of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and most medieval and Thomistic philosophers. Goodness is analysed as obedience to nature. Evil is analysed as the privation of goodness. Goodness, surprisingly, is found in the non-living world, but in the living world it takes on a special character. The book analyses (...) various kinds of goodness, showing how they fit into the Scholastic theory. The privation theory of evil is given its most comprehensive contemporary defence, including an account of truthmakers for truths of privation and an analysis of how causation by privation should be understood. In the end, all evil is deviance - a departure from the goodness prescribed by a thing's essential nature. Key Features: Offers a comprehensive defence of a venerable metaphysical theory, conducted using the concepts and methods of analytic philosophy. Revives a much neglected approach to the question of good and evil in their most general nature. Shows how Aristotelian-Thomistic theory has more than historical relevance to a fundamental philosophical issue, but can be applied in a way that is both defensible and yet accessible to the modern philosopher. Provides what, for the Scholastic philosopher, is arguably the only solid metaphysical foundation for a separate treatment of the origins of morality. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to outline a new paradigm of thinking, contained in the dialogical “you are.” Józef Tischner creatively developed ideas of Buber and Levinas. He claimed that in the face of “death of a man” there is a need to search for new ways of rescuing our humanity. The philosophy of drama starts from a question, which is a “cry of pain” in the presence of evil. A man — according to Nietzsche’s discovery — looks for (...) power, understood by Tischner as a “grace,” which is a specific good. Forces of good and evil influence a man both in a constructive and destructive way. A desire for unlimited power inevitably appears in the depth of a human heart. Evil, as a false power, reveals itself both in the individual and social aspect. Dehumanized global structures grow today as “systems of evil.” The agathological drama is being realized also in the dimension of faith and unbelief, in the sphere of the division between faith and mind. The “resurrection” of man is possible owing to meeting with another person whose dignity and beauty one may discover no matter how different he is. In the civilization of work the man is often treated as a tool, an instrument for egoistic benefit. The agathological philosophy aims to be a way of thinking attached to a specific man, while it looks for a key and a solution to a drama of a man, entangled in the system of work, consumption, empty hopes and pseudo-values. This philosophical thought has great potential to diagnose our times, which is the first step on the way to the “transformation of all values.” Key words GOOD, EVIL, AGATHOLOGY, REASON, FAITH. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Good and Evil: Interpreting a Human Condition. By EDWARD FARLEY. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1990. Pp. xxi + 295. The Evils of Theodicy. By TERRENCE W. TILLEY. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 277. The Co-Existence of God and Evil. By JANE MARY TRAU. New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 109. Evil is deeply and endlessly fascinating to the (...) religious mind. On the one hand, it challenges religion. The existence of the evils within our ken poses a threat to the rationality of central tenets of theism; the presence of overwhelming evils within our lives can threaten the viabil· ity of our religious attitudes and practices. On the other hand, religions typically offer strategies for coping with evil. They propose explanations of its origins that may aid us in understanding it, and they con· tain salvific practices that are meant to lead to redemption from sin or the cessation of suffering. So religious responses to evil are bound to be complex, and this complexity will inevitably be reflected in the treatment of evil in academic discourses. In addition, the present academic division of labor results in religion being studied in many disciplines. Each of them has its own traditions and agendas, and this often leads to a diversity of approaches that gives interdisciplinary dis· cussion of religious responses to evil something of the air of conversa· tion after Babel. The three books under review here, which represent the disciplines of philosophy, religious studies, and theology, illustrate nicely both the complexity and the diversity. Jane Mary Trau, who is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Barry University, has written a short essay in analytic philosophy of religion proposing a solution to the logical problem of evil. The problem arises from the fact that there are arguments purporting to show that the proposition that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is inconsistent with the proposition that evil exists. One way to solve the problem would be to find a possibly true proposition such that it is consistent with the proposition ·that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent and together with that proposition entails that evil exists. Alvin Plantinga's celebrated free-will defense offers a solution of this sort. Trau's alternative solution is a version of the familiar greater-goods defense. Trau's main claim is that it is possible that evil has positive value. An evil has positive value if it is logically necessary for some greater 525 526 BOOK REVIEWS good, and it certainly seems to he possible that some evils have positive value. Thus, for example, suppose God creates nothing other than two angels, A and B. Nothing interrupts the felicity of either hut a mild pang of sorrow felt by A, to which B responds with compassion. A's sorrow is logically necessary for the greater good of B's compassionate response to A's sorrow. Hence A's sorrow is an evil that has positive value. Moreover, the proposition that evils with positive value exist is consistent with the proposition that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnihenevolent. So the existence of evil is consistent with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnihenevolent deity. In other words, Trau's version of the greater-goods defense does seem to provide a solution to the logical problem of evil. But that is not to say that all the evils there actually are or even all those we know about do or could have positive value. Thus it does not follow, without further assumptions, that the existence of all the evils there actually are is consistent with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnihenevolent deity. In a discussion of natural evil near the end of her hook, Trau acknowledges the need for such additional assumptions. She says: "Four assumptions underlie the claim that natural evils have positive value: (1) The material universe has positive value. (2) The material universe must function in a way that requires the occurrence of natural evils as secondary effects. (3) The material universe is either the best or the only possible universe. (4) If the universe as we know it did not function the way it does... (shrink)

Uses cinema both to depict a variety of situations in which questions of media ethics arise, and to illustrate classic and contemporary ethical theories.