But since the reason she performs morally right actions is self-love and not because these actions are morally right, her actions have no moral worth and, according to Kant, her will manifests the worst form of evil possible for a human being. Kant considers someone with a perverse will an evil person Kant , Bk I, Whether, and to what extent, a person, or her will, is evil seems to depend on details about her motives and the harms she brings about and not just on whether she prioritizes self-interest over the moral law.
For instance, it seems far worse to torture someone for sadistic pleasure than to tell the truth to gain a good reputation. In fact, it seems reasonable to suppose that the first act sadistic torture indicates an evil will while the second act telling the truth for self-interest indicates a will that is merely lacking in moral goodness. But for Kant, both acts indicate wills that are equally evil for attempts to address this criticism see Garcia , Goldberg , and Timmons Kant makes several other controversial claims about the nature of evil in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone.
One of these claims is that there is a radical evil in human nature. By this he means that all human beings have a propensity to subordinate the moral law to self-interest and that this propensity is radical, or rooted, in human nature in the sense that it is inextirpable.
Kant also believes that we are imputable for this propensity to evil Kant , Bk I. Richard Bernstein argues that Kant cannot coherently hold both of these theses since we could not be responsible for a propensity that is in us originally and that we cannot be rid of Bernstein , 11— See also, Bernstein and Goldberg In his Confessions , Saint Augustine tells us that one day he stole some pears for the sole sake of doing something wrong Augustine, Confessions , II, v-x.
Kant rejects the idea that human beings can be motivated in this way Kant , Bk I, sect. For Kant, human beings always have either the moral law or self-love as their incentive for acting.
Only a devil could do what is wrong just because it is wrong. For more about Kant and diabolical evil see Bernstein , 36—42; Card and , 36—61; Allison , 86—; and Timmons , — Secular analyses of the concept of evil in the narrow sense began in the twentieth century with the work of Hanna Arendt. Instead, Arendt uses the term to denote a new form of wrongdoing which cannot be captured by other moral concepts.
For Arendt, radical evil involves making human beings as human beings superfluous. This is accomplished when human beings are made into living corpses who lack any spontaneity or freedom. Her analysis does not address the character and culpability of individuals who take part in the perpetration of evil.
In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil , Arendt turns her attention to individual culpability for evil through her analysis of the Nazi functionary Adolf Eichmann who was tried in Jerusalem for organizing the deportation and transportation of Jews to the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. For a discussion of the controversy see Young-Bruehl For instance, social psychologists Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo have attempted to explain how social conditions can lead ordinary people to perform evil actions.
Some theorists focus on evil character, or evil personhood, as the root concept of evil See, e. These theorists consider the concept of evil action to be a derivative concept, i. But just as many theorists, or more, believe that the concept of evil action is the root concept of evil See, e.
These theorists consider the concept of evil personhood to be a derivative concept, i. Some theorists who believe that evil action is the root concept believe that only one or two component properties are essential for evil action, while others believe that evil action has a multitude of essential components.
This section discusses different views about the essential components of evil action Zachary Goldberg has recently argued that there is more to understanding the nature of evil actions than knowing their essential components [See Goldberg forthcoming].
This position will not be discussed in this entry. Most philosophers, and laypeople, assume that wrongfulness is an essential component of evil action See e. It seems that, to be evil, an action must, at least, be wrong. However, this claim is not universally accepted Calder The central question for most theorists is: what more is required for evil than mere wrongdoing?
One controversial answer to this question is that nothing more is required: an evil action is just a very wrongful action Russell and This position is resisted by most evil-revivalists who claim instead that evil is qualitatively, rather than merely quantitatively, distinct from mere wrongdoing See, e.
To determine whether evil is qualitatively distinct from mere wrongdoing we must first understand what it is for two concepts to be qualitatively distinct. According to some theorists two concepts are qualitatively distinct if, and only if, all instantiations of the first concept share a property which no instantiation of the second concept shares Steiner ; Garrard , ; Russell, Todd Calder disputes this understanding of what it is for two concepts to be qualitatively distinct, arguing instead that two concepts are qualitatively distinct provided they do not share all of their essential properties.
Thus, evil actions are qualitatively distinct from merely wrongful actions provided the essential properties of evil actions are not also the essential properties of merely wrongful actions but had to a greater degree. Calder argues that on plausible theories of evil and wrongdoing, evil and wrongdoing do not share all of their essential properties, and thus, evil and wrongdoing are qualitatively distinct. For instance, Calder argues that it is an essential property of evil actions that the evildoer intends that his victim suffer significant harm while it is not an essential property of wrongful actions that the wrongdoer intend to cause harm.
For instance, cheating, lying, and risky behaviour can be wrongful even if the wrongdoer does not intend to cause harm Calder Hallie Liberto and Fred Harrington go even further than Calder in arguing that two concepts can be non-quantitatively distinct even though instantiations of the two concepts share properties Liberto and Harrington According to Liberto and Harrington, two concepts are non-quantitatively distinct provided one of the concepts has a property which determines the degree to which that concept is instantiated that does not determine the degree to which the second concept is instantiated.
For instance, Liberto and Harrington suggest that both altruistic and heroic actions have the following essential properties: 1 they are performed for the sake of others, and 2 they are performed at some cost or risk to the agent. However, the degree to which an action is altruistic is determined by the degree to which it is performed for the sake of others and not by the degree to which it is performed at some cost or risk to the agent while the degree to which an action is heroic is determined by the degree to which it is performed at some cost or risk to the agent and not by the degree to which it is performed for the sake of others.
Importantly, if Liberto and Harrington are right that two concepts can be non-quantitatively distinct by being quality of emphasis distinct, then Calder is wrong to think that two concepts can be non-quantitatively distinct only if they do not share all of their essential properties. Liberto and Harrington argue further that evil and wrongdoing are non-quantitatively distinct in the sense of being quality of emphasis distinct.
Liberto and Harrington argue that using this theory we could say that degrees of evil are determined by degrees of harm, while degrees of wrongdoing are not. If so, evil and wrongdoing are non-quantitatively distinct by being quality of emphasis distinct. Most theorists writing about the concept of evil believe that evil actions must cause or allow significant harm to at least one victim see, e.
However, three sorts of arguments have been used to contest this claim. First, some theorists argue that evil actions need not cause or allow significant harm because we can perform evil actions by attempting or seriously risking to cause harm, even if we fail.
For example, on this view, it would be evil to attempt to detonate a bomb in a room full of innocent people, even if the attempt is thwarted by the police See Kramer , —; Russell 52— Some people would call this act of sadistic voyeurism evil even though it causes no additional harm to the victim we can imagine that Carol is not aware that Alex takes pleasure in her suffering so that the witnessing of her suffering does not aggravate the harm.
Paul Formosa suggests that sadistic voyeurism is only evil because the voyeur allows the harm to occur and thus is partly responsible for the suffering Formosa , If so, evil actions need not cause or allow harm. However, others dispute this contention. These cases constitute the third sort of argument against the claim that evil actions must cause or allow significant harm. For example Eve Garrard has suggested that schoolyard bullies perform evil actions even though they do not cause very much harm Garrard , 45 , while Stephen de Wijze has argued that torturing and killing what you know to be a lifelike robot would be evil even if the robot has no conscious life De Wijze , Two sorts of responses can be given to these sorts of cases.
First, we can argue that, while the action in question is evil, it does, in fact, involve significant harm.
This sort of response seems appropriate for the bullying case See Kramer , This sort of response seems appropriate for the robot case. Furthermore, in response to all three arguments for the claim that evil actions need not cause or allow significant harm i. For example, we can argue that failed attempts seem evil because attempting to perform an evil action is an indication that the agent performing the action has an evil character and not because the action itself is evil See Calder a, Similarly, we can argue that given their intentions, motives, and feelings, sadistic voyeurs and robot torturers are evil persons even though they do not perform evil actions for more about evil character see Section 4.
Assuming that harm is an essential component of evil, the question then becomes how much harm is required for evil? In the Roots of Evil John Kekes argues that the harm of evil must be serious and excessive Kekes , 1—3. Claudia Card describes the harm of evil as an intolerable harm. By an intolerable harm, Card means a harm that makes life not worth living from the point of view of the person whose life it is. Examples of intolerable harms include severe physical or mental suffering as well as the deprivation of basics such as food, clean drinking water, and social contact Card , For further discussion of the harm component see Russell , 64— Most theorists writing about evil believe that evil action requires a certain sort of motivation.
Once again, this claim is somewhat controversial. In the Atrocity Paradigm , Claudia Card makes a point of defining evil without reference to perpetrator motives.
She does this because she wants her theory to focus on alleviating the suffering of victims rather than on understanding the motives of perpetrators Card , 9.
However, while Card claims that the atrocity paradigm does not have a motivation component, part of the plausibility of her theory comes from that fact that it restricts the class of evil actions to those that follow from certain sorts of motives.
While this account of evil allows for a wide range of motivations, it does specify that evildoers must foresee the harm they produce and lack a moral justification for producing the harm. In other words, for Card, evildoers are motivated by a desire for some object or state of affairs which does not justify the harm they foreseeably inflict. Other philosophers have suggested that evildoers desire to cause harm, or to do wrong, for more specific reasons such as pleasure Steiner , the desire to do what is wrong Perrett , the desire to annihilate all being Eagleton , or the destruction of others for its own sake Cole When evil is restricted to actions that follow from these sorts of motivations, theorists sometimes say that their subject is pure, radical, diabolical, or monstrous evil.
This suggests that their discussion is restricted to a type, or form, of evil and not to evil per se. While some philosophers argue that certain motives, such as malevolence or malice, are necessary for evil, others focus instead on motives or desires that evildoers lack. For instance, Adam Morton contends that evildoers are crucially uninhibited by barriers against considering harming or humiliating others that ought to be there Morton , A metaphysical silencer is a reason which is so weighty that, objectively speaking, it takes away the reason-giving force of some other consideration.
When this happens we say that the less weighty consideration has been metaphysically silenced. By contrast, a psychological silencer is a reason which is so weighty for an individual that, subjectively, it takes away the reason-giving force of some other consideration. When this happens we say that the consideration has been psychologically silenced for the individual.
If we came across a child drowning in a shallow pond, the need to rescue the child would be so morally important that it would metaphysically silence the desire to keep our clothes clean as a reason for acting or not acting.
That is, when a child is in urgent need of rescue, considerations about keeping our clothes clean lose all of their reason-giving force. They cease to be reasons for acting or not acting. For many people, especially for virtuous people, considerations about keeping their clothes clean are also psychologically silenced by the urgent need to rescue a child drowning in a shallow pond. In other words, virtuous people are completely unmoved by considerations about keeping their clothes clean when presented with children in urgent need of rescue.
According to Garrard, the evildoer has a particularly despicable motivational structure. She psychologically silences considerations that are so morally weighty that they metaphysically silence the very considerations which move her to act Garrard , For instance, it would be evil to psychologically silence the urgent need to rescue a drowning child as a reason for acting because we desire to keep our clothes clean. Yet it seems that John would do evil by allowing a child to drown for those reasons.
Some theorists believe that to do evil we must feel a certain way or have certain emotions at the time of acting. For example, Laurence Thomas believes that evildoers take delight in causing harm or feel hatred toward their victims Thomas , 76— Hillel Steiner goes even further by contending that there are just two components of evil: pleasure and wrongdoing.
Critics argue that it is not necessary to take pleasure in doing wrong to perform an evil action since it is sufficient to intentionally cause significant harm for an unworthy goal such as self-interest Calder Imagine that a serial killer tortures and kills his victims but that he does not take pleasure in torturing and killing. It seems that this serial killer is an evildoer even though he does not take pleasure in doing wrong.
It is universally accepted that to perform an evil action an agent must be morally responsible for what she does. Although hurricanes and rattle snakes can cause great harm, they cannot perform evil actions because they are not moral agents. Furthermore, moral agents only perform evil actions when they are morally responsible for what they do and their actions are morally inexcusable see e.
It is particularly controversial whether these conditions are met in three sorts of cases: 1 serious harms brought about by psychopaths; 2 serious harms brought about by individuals who have had bad upbringings; and 3 serious harms brought about through ignorance. Psychopathy is a syndrome that consists in lacking certain emotional, interpersonal, and behavioural traits and having others Hare Some of the defining characteristics of psychopathy include shallow emotions, egocentricity, deceitfulness, impulsivity, a lack of empathy, and a lack of guilt and remorse.
For instance, a delusional schizophrenic who believes that her neighbour is a demon is not responsible for harming her neighbour since she does not understand that she is harming an innocent person; she believes she is defending herself from an inhuman malicious agent. Motivational internalists believe that it is conceptually impossible to believe and thus to know that an action is morally wrong and yet be completely unmotivated to refrain from doing the action.
That is, for the internalist, there is a conceptual connection between believing that an action is wrong and having a con-attitude toward the action. The internalist believes that one may be able to knowingly do what is wrong because, all things considered, she cares more about something that is incompatible with refraining from wrongdoing, provided she is at least somewhat inclined to refrain from doing what she knows to be wrong.
Since psychopaths seem to be completely indifferent to whether their actions are right or wrong, motivational internalists believe that they do not truly believe, or understand, that what they do is morally wrong.
At most, they might believe that their harmful actions break societal conventions. But it may be one thing to believe that one has broken a societal convention and quite another to believe that one has broken a moral rule. Philosophers who reject the internalist thesis, i. According to motivational externalists, moral knowledge only requires an intellectual capacity to identify right and wrong, and not the ability to care about morality.
Since psychopaths are not intellectually deficient, motivational externalists do not think there is any reason to believe that psychopaths cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. But, and this is a very big but, it is not retributive punishment but what St Thomas Aquinas calls medicinal punishment: and to that extent it is mercy.
Indeed, there is nothing particularly unique about the latest mutation in human suffering: it takes its place among the ranks. All human suffering in this life is both penal and medicinal. It is penal to the extent that it flows from a primal sin and the disturbance that this introduced into the cosmic order Genesis But unlike Hell, this suffering is not the raw justice of retributive punishment, but a purgative force permitted by God to mend the fractures that sin both Original and personal has opened up in the human heart.
Everything has its own particular purpose, but under the regime of Providence, everything also serves this final purpose. In the current crisis, it can mean a rediscovery of the family as a haven, the awareness that material wellbeing is a relative good, bringing significant opportunities for solidarity, a deeper gratitude for what we can easily take for granted the NHS? For others, it will remain, at least for now, a mystery as to how God is bringing good out of this evil.
Good does not come from evil in the way that a cake comes from its ingredients. Rather, good comes from evil in the sense that evil can be the occasion for the rational creature to change his mind and his behaviour metanoia.
Standing in the place of so many moments of human hatred, God sees in Jesus a man completely turn towards Him in love. This is what mends the relationship; a choice for love amidst suffering. This page is available to subscribers.
Click here to sign in or get access. This stands in stark contrast to statements made by President George W. It's meant to keep us humble. Taken from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men is the morality tale of Stark and how he rose from backwoods nobody to be a southern governor Bush's quotes on "evil".
This means that even though humans were created to do good, they can also choose to do the opposite of good, what we have termed evil. We cannot blame God when humans choose to do the opposite of that which they were created to do. Therefore, why did God create humans with a free will?
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