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Notes
In this discussion, “evil” is understood as secular moral evil and correspondingly as a product of human agency alone. Neither the religious “problem of evil” nor natural evil are of concern.
Paul Formosa labels these the victim approach and the perpetrator approach respectively. See Formosa 2008.
That is not to say that fictional and religious contexts exclude grievous suffering from their respective uses of the term “evil”. However, these contexts often make reference to other features that within each context could sufficiently explain what makes an act evil. For example, in some religious contexts, defiance of God is sufficient for evil, and in some fictional contexts, monstrous, non-human physical or mental features could define an evil act or agent.
It is irrelevant whether a doctor would actually proceed in this way. The example is a conceptual possibility.
It must be noted that evil action could consist of someone preforming some act that she thinks will benefit another, but in fact does not and causes the other immense suffering as a result. However, any act done to truly benefit another does not qualify as evil, although it could still be wrong.
See also Russell 2014, 69-111.
See Goldberg 2017b for a discussion of Schafer’s actions in relation to theories of motivation judgment externalism and internalism.
For a classical analysis, see Adorno et al, 1951/1993.
Additionally, Garrard’s theory seems to describe a psychological disorder rather than moral evil. She compares two individuals—one who considers and rejects moral reasons and one who is immune to the persuasive force of moral reasons. The first individual shows that she understands moral reasons, that she understands that another’s suffering may provide good reason not to act in a certain way. Despite this acknowledgment, this person overrides these moral considerations and performs an action that gravely harms others. In this case, it is not that the screams of her victims hold no importance of her. Rather, she acknowledges the importance of her victims’ suffering, yet explicitly rejects it as motivating. Regardless of Garrard’s claims to the contrary, this description strikes me as a reasonable contender for a description of evil. The second individual, the one that Garrard calls evil, is somehow completely unaffected by moral reasons. Garrard tells us that the evildoer “silences” such reasons. However, this description seems to characterize psychopathy or some other moral-psychological defect. If Garrard’s proposed evildoer were indeed psychologically ill, then this individual would not fulfill the necessary conditions for moral responsibility since individuals who have entrenched moral-psychological defects cannot be held morally responsible for their acts. Any theory of evil that results in morally exculpating the perpetrator of the evil act must be rejected. Since “evil” is a moral term it must refer to morally appraisable action. As a result, Garrard’s conception is less a theory of evil than a theory of psychopathy and potential moral exemption.
See Goldberg 2017 for an analysis of this definition as it relates to the notion of a worthwhile life.
Luke Russell categorizes Kekes’s view as psychologically thick. However, Kekes holds that evil may be brought about by multiple psychological states, which means his theory falls under the category of psychologically thin.
Note the connection to French’s contention that evil jeopardizes aspirations to live a worthwhile life.
Calder admits that “significant” is vague but contends that it is “easy enough to get the general idea” [Calder 2013, 188].
Card also admits of some of these difficulties [Card 2002, 16].
Perhaps it is the vagueness and potential subjectivity found in these theories that prompts Susan Neiman to avoid any attempt at defining evil. In answer to the question of whether we ought to pursue a definition of evil, she writes, “General definitions of evil are either so broad as to be almost meaningless, or so narrow as to exclude everything but the evil you currently have in view” [Neiman 2009, 350]. Moreover, a focus on evil’s essential properties and its necessary and sufficient conditions can make us lose sight of the significance of evil, which is that it “threatens the trust in the world that we need to orient ourselves in it….Since I do not think an intrinsic property of evil can be defined, I am, rather, concerned with tracing what evil does to us ” [Neiman 2002, 8-9].
Although there are different kinds of definitions, I am working under the broad Aristotelian formula that a definition gives the essence of a thing.
For ease of expression I will usually refer to victims and perpetrators, and by this I include individual victims and perpetrators as well as victim and perpetrator group agents.
Relationships exemplified in these ways are distinguished from relations or the simple relatedness of arbitrary connections such as hair color or belonging to the same nationality. Some have argued that relationships must “involve a real ‘something between’ an agent and patient which links them together. This ‘something between’ is a kind of contact or presence of the relata to each other” [Reader 2007, 72]. When this “something” is absent then there is no relationship although there may still exist some relation. To illustrate, imagine a person and her aunt who have not seen or spoken with each other in over 20 years. The two are literally related, but they do not have a relationship in any meaningful sense. A few philosophers have sought to distinguish relationships from relations by limiting the former to “socially salient connections among people” [Scheffler 1997, 198], while others seem to take it for granted that personal relationships are loving relationships [Friedman 1991]. In this essay, I focus on the metaphysics of the relation that obtains between victims and perpetrators of evil. This relation explains an ensuing bad relationship, but it also accounts for evil action that occurs without any substantive relationship. Remote war crime bombings or terrorist attacks may not involve a substantive relationship between perpetrator and victim, but they still exhibit the properties of the relation I am describing. I am grateful to Monika Betzler and an anonymous reviewer for helping me clarify this distinction.
The remainder of the article will focus on the vulnerability aspect of the victim/perpetrator relation. A full analysis of the exploitation aspect, which is constituted by the power and powers that the perpetrator has over the victim, requires a separate discussion.
The examples I use are ones in which the perpetrator/victim relation maps onto systematic, established, widespread power relations between groups. The reason for this is that in such relations the positions of asymmetrical power, and the exploitation of vulnerabilities are conspicuous. However, it does not follow that all evil action must occur as a result of systematic power relations. Serial killers, even female or minority serial killers, exploit the vulnerability of their victims in the ways I describe below. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for asking for clarification here.
It is no coincidence that much of the torture centered on sexual humiliation and sexual oppression, which specifically target another’s vulnerability.
Among this single group of victims, we find multiple ways in which the victims were vulnerable: the men were vulnerable to being murdered while the women were vulnerable to being both raped and murdered.
Throughout the discussion I refer to vulnerability to harm, but by doing so in no way mean to exclude vulnerability to wrongs. For ease of expression I do not always write “harm and wrongdoing”, though my analysis includes the possibility of both.
Bagnoli refers to the same concept as “constitutive vulnerability” [2017, 15].
Both humans and non-human animals may be susceptible to these various kinds of vulnerability.
See Rachels 2004 for a detailed analysis of the ways in which these various capacities ground moral responsibilities.
The capacities mentioned here are not meant to be exhaustive, and they include those of non-human moral persons as well.
This example is borrowed from Raz 1986, 153.
See Rachels 2004, 166-167.
Bagnoli refers to the same concept as “circumstantial vulnerability” [2017, 15].
The same can be said of all of the different categories of vulnerability; ontological, personal, characteristic, as well as situational vulnerabilities can intermingle and exacerbate one another. A person’s situation may come to affect her ontological vulnerability and vice versa. For example, pregnancy temporarily increases a woman’s corporeal vulnerability since there are additional ways that a pregnant woman can be subject to ill health and dependency on others. But also a pregnant woman with insufficient economic means may lack access to health care that addresses certain health issues further entrenching her ontological vulnerability [Mackenzie 2014, 39].
Admittedly the remarks in the next few paragraphs are preliminary and call for further analysis. However what I say about them here is sufficient for the conclusion I want to draw concerning the roles of vulnerability, dependency, and need in evil action.
Some have argued that although they are not synonymous, dependency is a specific form of vulnerability [Dodds 2014, 182-184, 187-188; Fineman 2008, fn 25]. The suggestion is that vulnerability is a dispositional and enduring state of the human condition, whereas dependency is occurrent and episodic in character. These scholars note that we are always vulnerable to harm, injury, or failing to develop our capacities simply due to our corporeal nature. Sometimes and under certain circumstances coping with these vulnerabilities may require the direct support of others, and only if and when they do, then we become dependent on these relevant others [Dodds 2014, 183]. I believe my analysis shows the conceptual relationship to be bidirectional.
See also Gilson 2014 for the thesis that vulnerability is likewise not merely negative but is the basis of care and love.
Some philosophers have argued that vulnerability, fundamental needs, and direct dependency can ground particular moral obligations to others [Gilson 2014; Miller 2012; Reader 2007; Goodin 1987, 1985; P. Singer 1972]. A relation of asymmetrical strength imposes “upon the stronger party a heavy moral responsibility to protect the weaker” [Goodin 1987, 167]. The express violation of this responsibility is a “flagrant violation” of moral principles [Goodin 1987, 188]. These accounts explain why such violations are immoral but not necessarily evil.
It is possible to garner support for this argument from Kantian ethics as well. In its directive not to use others merely as means, the Humanity Formula of the Categorical Imperative clearly prohibits the mere use of any other person for the achievement of one’s own ends. In stating that we should never treat humanity whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself, the Humanity Formula emphasizes that it is humanity and not human beings per se that we must never treat merely as a means. This distinction is noteworthy when it comes to states of vulnerability. As discussed above, the various states of vulnerability arise directly from one’s human embodiment, capacities necessary for moral personhood in general, characteristics distinctive of one’s particular individuality, or situations in which all of these categories are intertwined. In targeting any of these states to achieve one’s own ends, one targets the biological or moral-personal humanity of others. Such action is paradigmatically immoral from a Kantian perspective. For more on the connection between vulnerability and Kantian ethics, see Formosa 2014.
I do not include situational vulnerability here because it is not alone sufficient to characterize evil action.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for asking for clarification on this point.
I hope it goes without saying that the argument showing that evil action is brought about by the victim’s vulnerability in no way implicates the victim as morally responsibility for the evil she suffers. The four categories of vulnerability are essential to who we are as humans, moral persons, and individuals and cannot satisfy the control condition for moral responsibility ascriptions.
The desire to exploit another’s vulnerability is not necessarily a desire to exploit vulnerability for its own sake. The exploitation of another’s vulnerability can be secondary to the stronger party’s primary intentions.
I am grateful to Andrea Esser for this example.
I admit that this is an interesting aspect of the victim/perpetrator relation of power that remains under developed here.
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Goldberg, Z.J. A Relational Approach to Evil Action: Vulnerability and its Exploitation. J Value Inquiry 53, 33–53 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-018-9637-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-018-9637-x