Attention Evil!!
Philosophy is very close to my heart and especially ethical reflections. As a child i was always very sensitive about rigth and wrong or good and evil. Many times growing up i felt that bourgouise society and mainstream culture is anything but right and good.
Maybe the term evil is obsolete in modern society. Peresonally i don't think so. I think we need a concept of evil to able to describe certain events of human history and experience. This begs the question of what is evil? Is 9/11 the most evil act that has ever transpired? Auschwitz? Rwanda? Maybe the category is empty, maybe there are no acts that truly deserves to be called truly evil?
Personally i think the number of truly evil acts in human experience is very low. We must be careful about politicizing the word "evil". Some of the more horrible deeds in world history has been commited by "good" people trying to punish or fight "evil" people. But even if the category, for now, is empty I still feel a need for a philosophical/ethical concept of evil acts.
Or perhaps it's just people we should avoid calling evil. I mean that's were the issue with politics enters in full force. If we say that someone is evil we can use that as an excuse to do whatever we like to that individual. Imagine then a test who would reveal evil in a person about one month after birth. If we knew a one month old baby would grow up to be an evil person wouldn't it be tempting to avoid later problems by not allowing that baby to grow up?
These thoughts are rather incoherent and the question of evil is still open in my mind. To close i just want to mention:
Susan Neiman has written a great book called "Evil in Modern Thought". She writes about how philosophy has related to the concept of evil through the ages. The book is an attempt to place the concept of evil back into the philosophical debate where it should be. I have used it in a philosophy class this spring and i recomend it to anyone interessted in the concept of evil in philosophy.
Maybe the term evil is obsolete in modern society. Peresonally i don't think so. I think we need a concept of evil to able to describe certain events of human history and experience. This begs the question of what is evil? Is 9/11 the most evil act that has ever transpired? Auschwitz? Rwanda? Maybe the category is empty, maybe there are no acts that truly deserves to be called truly evil?
Personally i think the number of truly evil acts in human experience is very low. We must be careful about politicizing the word "evil". Some of the more horrible deeds in world history has been commited by "good" people trying to punish or fight "evil" people. But even if the category, for now, is empty I still feel a need for a philosophical/ethical concept of evil acts.
Or perhaps it's just people we should avoid calling evil. I mean that's were the issue with politics enters in full force. If we say that someone is evil we can use that as an excuse to do whatever we like to that individual. Imagine then a test who would reveal evil in a person about one month after birth. If we knew a one month old baby would grow up to be an evil person wouldn't it be tempting to avoid later problems by not allowing that baby to grow up?
These thoughts are rather incoherent and the question of evil is still open in my mind. To close i just want to mention:
Susan Neiman has written a great book called "Evil in Modern Thought". She writes about how philosophy has related to the concept of evil through the ages. The book is an attempt to place the concept of evil back into the philosophical debate where it should be. I have used it in a philosophy class this spring and i recomend it to anyone interessted in the concept of evil in philosophy.
posted by Crisippo at 4:04 PM
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