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Evils, Wrongs and Dignity: How to Test a Theory of Evil

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Notes

  1. See Paul Formosa, “A Conception of Evil,” The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2008): 217–239. For rival theories see Todd Calder, “Is Evil Just Very Wrong?”, Philosophical Studies, Vol. 143 (2013): 177–196; Claudia Card, The Atrocity Paradigm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Eve Garrard, “Evil as an Explanatory Concept,” The Monist, Vol. 85 (2002): 320–336; John Kekes, Facing Evil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); Adam Morton, On Evil (New York: Routledge, 2004); Marcus Singer, “The Concept of Evil,” Philosophy, Vol. 79 (2004): 185–214; Laurence Thomas, Vessels of Evil (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1993); Arne Johan Vetlesen, Evil and Human Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Stephen de Wijze, “Defining Evil,” The Monist, Vol. 85 (2002): 210–238.

  2. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).

  3. See Ibid., p. 18.

  4. See Luke Russell, “Is Evil Action Qualitatively Distinct from Ordinary Wrongdoing?”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 85 (2007): 659–677.

  5. de Wijze, op. cit., p. 231.

  6. See Eve Garrard, “The Nature of Evil,” Philosophical Explorations, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1998): 46–60.

  7. Geoffery Scarre, “Evil Collectives,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 36 (2012): 74–92, p. 75.

  8. Ibid.

  9. See Garrard, “Evil as an Explanatory Concept.”

  10. See Formosa, “A Conception of Evil.”

  11. This is modelled on the definition of right in Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1981), p. 411.

  12. This is modelled on the definition of right action in Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 28.

  13. Aristotle, “Ethica Nicomachea”, in The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Modern Library, 2001), p. 1106b.

  14. Aristotle, op. cit., p. 1135b.

  15. See Immanuel Kant, “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,” in Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 4:429, Calder, “Is Evil Just Very Wrong?”.

  16. See Paul Formosa, “Dignity and Respect: How to Apply Kant’s Formula of Humanity,” The Philosophical Forum (2013): forthcoming.

  17. See also Todd Calder, “Kant and Degrees of Wrongness,” The Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 39 (2005): 229–244.

  18. See Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 6:465–468.

  19. The previous version ran: “an evil act is an act of wrongdoing in which the perpetrator of the act is at least partly responsible for other individuals suffering what would at least normally be a life-wrecking or ending harm, and where in so acting we judge the perpetrator, in the light of all the relevant details, to be deserving of our very strongest moral condemnations” - Formosa, “A Conception of Evil,” p. 230.

  20. See Susan Wolf, Freedom within Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

  21. See L. A. Zaibert, “Intentionality and Wickedness,” in Daniel M. Haybron, ed., Earth's Abominations: Philosophical Studies of Evil (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002).

  22. See Paul Formosa, “A Life without Affects and Passions: Kant on the Duty of Apathy,” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, Vol. 13 (2011): 96–111.

  23. Aristotle, op. cit., p. 1135b.

  24. See John Kekes, The Roots of Evil (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 2.

  25. See Morton, op. cit.

  26. See Formosa, “A Conception of Evil.”

  27. See Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, eds., Relational Autonomy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  28. See Paul Formosa, “Kant's Conception of Personal Autonomy,” Journal of Social Philosophy (2013): forthcoming.

  29. See Patricia Frazier and Eugene Borgida, “Rape Trauma Syndrome: A Review of Case Law and Psychological Research,” Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1992): 293–311.

  30. See Edna Foa and Barbara Rothbaum, Treating the Trauma of Rape (New York: Guilford Press, 2001), p. 8.

  31. See UASA of Sonoma County, Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is a Form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that often affects Rape Survivors (2004 [cited 6th of November 2012]), available from http://uasasonoma.org/services/rts.html; Foa and Rothbaum, op. cit.; Frazier and Borgida, op. cit.; Judith Lewis Herman, “Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1992): 377–391; Gail Steketee and Edna Foa, “Rape Victims,” Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Vol. 1 (1987): 66–86.

  32. See Steketee and Foa, op. cit., p. 69.

  33. One Womans Experience of Rape (2008 [cited 6th of November 2012]), available from https://rapetrial.wordpress.com/.

  34. Herman, op. cit., p. 383.

  35. See Barbara Błaż-Kapusta, “Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS) – A Case Study,” Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vol. 2 (2008): 5–11; Herman, op. cit.

  36. Herman, op. cit., p. 383.

  37. See Ibid.

  38. Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).

  39. Thanks to Hugh Breakey, Eve Garrard, Luke Russell, Stephen de Wijze, all the participants at the 2012 Idea of Evil conference at the University of Manchester, and this journal’s anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions. Thanks to the Australian Research Council for supporting this work.

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    Paul Formosa

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Formosa, P. Evils, Wrongs and Dignity: How to Test a Theory of Evil. J Value Inquiry 47, 235–253 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-013-9380-2

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