Evil: A HistoryAndrew P. Chignell The code of conduct for a leading tech company famously says "Don't Be Evil." But what exactly is evil? Is it just badness by another name--the shadow side of good? Or is it something more substantive--a malevolent force or power at work in the universe? These are some of the ontological questions that philosophers have grappled with for centuries. But evil also raises perplexing epistemic and psychological questions. Can we really know evil? Does a victim know evil differently than a perpetrator or witness? What motivates evil-doers? Satan's rebellion, Iago's machinations, and Stalin's genocides may be hard to understand in terms of ordinary reasons, intentions, beliefs, and desires. But what about the more "banal" evils performed by technocrats in a collective: how do we make sense of Adolf Eichmann's self-conception as just an effective bureaucrat deserving of a promotion? Evil: A History collects thirteen essays that tell the story of evil in western thought, starting with its origins in ancient Hebrew wisdom literature and classical Greek drama all the way to Darwinism and Holocaust theory. Thirteen interspersed reflections contextualize philosophical developments by looking at evil through the eyes of animals, poets, mystics, witches, librettists, film directors, and even a tech product manager. Evil: A History will enlighten readers about one of the most alluring and difficult topics in philosophy and intellectual life, and will challenge their assumptions about the very nature of evil. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Footnotes to a Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers | 18 |
A Study of Some Evil Words | 43 |
The Case of the Wisdom Literature | 60 |
The Early History of Satan Before the satan was Evil | 82 |
Meat and Evil | 88 |
4 Explaining Evil in Plato Euripides and Seneca | 97 |
Plotinus and His Critics | 129 |
9 Evils Privations and the Early Moderns | 273 |
Is Don Giovanni Evil? | 306 |
Kants Journey on Evil | 315 |
Selfhood Deception and Despair | 322 |
Leopardi Everything Is Evil | 350 |
11 What Happened to Evil? | 358 |
12 Evil Natural Science and Animal Suffering | 383 |
Cinematic Evil | 414 |
6 Augustine on Evil | 155 |
Hell as a Problem of Evil in Medieval Women Mystics | 194 |
Evil in Early Islamic Thought | 198 |
8 Evil and Late Medieval Thought | 225 |
Dante on the Evil of Treachery Narrative and Philosophy | 252 |
Calvinism and the Demonic in the Divine | 258 |
Feminine Evil and Witchcraft | 264 |
The Banality of Evil | 423 |
13 Evil After the Holocaust | 429 |
Satanically Great Instigators and Banal Compliers | 444 |
On Google and Not Being Evil | 450 |
457 | |
483 | |
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Common terms and phrases
according account of evil action Adolf Eichmann agent al-Ghazālī animal suffering Aquinas Arendt argues argument aspects Augustine Augustine’s banal causal cause century choice Christian claim compliers concept of evil created creation creatures Dante Descartes despair discussion divine Don Giovanni early modern edited Eichmann Ennead Ethics Euripides example existence explain Fichte free will defense Giacomo Leopardi God's God’s Google harm hence Iblīs idea involved Islamic Jaspersian concerns Kant Kant's Kant’s Kierkegaard killing kind lack laws of nature Leibniz Leopardi malum Manichaean matter means Medea medieval metaphysical moral evil Mu'tazilite natural evil original original sin perpetrators philosophers physical evil Plotinus Plotinus's privation theory problem of evil Proclus punishment Qohelet question Qurʾān radical evil rational reality reason rejection relation Religion responsibility satan sense shared humanity soul Summa Theologiae theodicy theological things thought tion traditional trans understand volitions words