Abstract
In this journal, Luke Russell defends a sophisticated dispositional account of evil personhood according to which a person is evil just in case she is strongly and highly fixedly disposed to perform evil actions in conditions that favour her autonomy. While I am generally sympathetic with this account, I argue that Russell wrongly dismisses the mirror thesis—roughly, the thesis that evil people are the mirror images of the morally best sort of persons—which I have defended elsewhere. Russell’s rejection of the mirror thesis depends upon an independently implausible account of moral sainthood, one that is implausible for reasons that Russell himself suggests in another context. Indeed, an account of moral sainthood that parallels Russell’s account of evil personhood is plausible for the same reasons that his account of evil personhood is, and that suggests that Russell himself is actually committed to the mirror thesis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Badhwar, N. K. (1996). The limited unity of virtue. Noûs, 30, 306–329.
Barry, P. B. (2009). Moral saints, moral monsters, and the mirror thesis. American Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 163–176.
Barry, P. B. (2010). Extremity of vice and the character of evil. Journal of Philosophical Research, 35, 25–42.
Flanagan, O. (1991). Varieties of moral personality: Ethics and psychological realism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Foot, P. (1983). Moral reason and moral dilemma. Journal of Philosophy, 80, 379–398.
Garrard, E. (1998). The nature of evil. Philosophical Explorations, 1, 43–60.
Hamilton, C. (1999). The nature of evil: A reply to Garrard. Philosophical Explorations, 2, 122–138.
Haybron, D. (2002a). Consistency of character and the character of evil. In D. Haybron (Ed.), Earth’s abominations: Philosophical studies of evil (pp. 63–78). New York: Rodopi.
Haybron, D. (2002b). Moral monsters and saints. The Monist, 85, 260–284.
Hurka, T. (2001). Virtue, value, and vice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (1960). Religion within the limits of reason alone. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
McGinn, C. (1997). Evil, ethics, and fiction. New York: Oxford University Press.
McNaughton, D. (1988). Moral vision. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Milo, R. (1984). Immorality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Russell, L. (2010). Dispositional accounts of evil personhood. Philosophical Studies, 149, 231–250.
Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the limits of philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wolf, S. (1982). Moral saints. The Journal of Philosophy, 79, 419–439.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Barry, P.B. In defense of the mirror thesis. Philos Stud 155, 199–205 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9573-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9573-5