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Author: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168504
Category : Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.
Author: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168504
Category : Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.
Author: Jeffrey Burton Russell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801497186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
Mephistopheles is the fourth and final volume of Jeffrey Burton Russell's critically acclaimed history of the concept of the Devil, continuing in this volume the story from the Reformation to the present.
Author: Laura Dryjanska
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030918882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
This interesting volume focuses on a set of phenomena which increasingly alarm the political world and public opinion: from the more obvious ones like torture, disease, human trafficking, abuse, genocide, displacement, to more subtle forms found in sports, technology and law. It looks at how and why these phenomena are universally condemned, and could be considered to threaten the very foundations of modern democracy; yet continue to be tolerated. The volume therefore goes beyond what Hannah Arendt has called the "banality of evil" and discusses the presence of condemned and heinous practices in society as fluid and chaotic but as non-trivial; capable of great transmutations through various epochs. Practices and actions considered as "evil" manifest in situations where individuals or groups hold power or seize power, and the contributions in this volume explore the close relation between power and evil. The volume draws upon sociology, psychology, cultural studies, political science, as well as philosophy, theology, anthropology, and neurology of the individual and of the group to provide a comprehensive understanding of the multiple facets of evil in the contemporary world.
Author: Malcolm Mcgrath
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615927239
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
...probably the first thorough review of modern demonology...superb. Recommended... - Library Journal...a terrifically contextualized debunking that is sure to generate debate among the faithful. - Publishers Weekly...a fascinating book on the psychology of modern Western culture. - Science & Spirit MagazineThis fascinating discussion of modern demonology focuses on our ability to differentiate the physical world, with its mechanical laws, from the inherently less predictable psychological realm of thoughts and beliefs. McGrath points out that this ability was a hard-won historical development, and today must be learned in childhood through education. Because of this historical background and our rich fantasy life in childhood, each of us unconsciously suspects, or fears, that supernatural forces may break through the borders of our everyday commonsense order at any time. Indeed, at times of personal stress or societal crisis, the modern boundaries between fantasy and reality begin to slip, and then a magical world of demons and other phantasms can come flooding back into our disenchanted reality.Through this innovative thesis McGrath goes a long way toward explaining both our fascination with fantasy entertainment, such as horror stories and films, and bizarre crazes such as witch-hunts, Satanism scares, and even claims of alien abduction. Despite our demystified culture the lure of childhood's magic kingdom with its monstrous shadow realm remains strong.Malcolm McGrath (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at Oxford University.
Author: Rodney Castleden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780708807453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
Provides descriptions of people throughout history who have--of their own choice--commited acts of evil.
Author: Gordon Lynch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199557012
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Re-interpreting Durkheim's theory of the sacred, this book sets out a theory of the sacred for use across a range of humanities and social science disciplines and draws on contemporary case study material to show how sacred forms - whether in 'religious' or 'secular' guise - continue to shape social life in the modern world.
Author: Hans Schwarz
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506469272
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
Over a career spanning more than fifty years, Hans Schwarz has grappled with nearly all of Christianity's major theological questions. In this latest volume, Schwarz tackles the perennial problem of evil. How is it possible to reconcile the manifest evil and pain in the world with the biblical promise of hope and redemption? Are we, in fact, "lonely wanderers in the immensity of the universe about whom nobody cares," or is there something above and beyond us in which we can trust? To this perennial question Schwarz brings his signature blend of pastoral sensitivity and scholarly acumen. Informed by decades in the classroom, Schwarz offers a sweeping survey of views of the problem of evil, beginning with the world's major religious traditions before focusing on the major views across the broad span of Christian history. The book aims to help readers interested in the problem of evil understand the broad sweep of human thought about the problem, and make informed assessments of the issue for themselves.
Author: Michael H. Stone
Publisher:
ISBN: 1633885321
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 618
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Book Description
This follow-up volume to Dr. Stone's The Anatomy of Evil presents compelling evidence that, since a cultural tipping-point in the 1960s, certain types of violent crime have emerged that in earlier decades never or very rarely occurred. The authors examine the biological and psychiatric factors behind serial killing, serial rape, torture, mass and spree murders, and other severe forms of violence. In addition, they persuasively argue that, in at least some cases, a collapse of moral faculties contributes to the commission of such heinous crimes, such that "evil" should be considered not only a valid area of inquiry, but sometimes an imperative one. Returning to his groundbreaking scale for the ranking of degrees of evil, Dr. Stone and Dr. Brucato, a fellow violence and serious psychopathology expert, provide more detail than ever before, using dozens of cases associated with the twenty-two categories along the continuum. They also consider the effects of new technologies, as well as sociological, cultural, and historical factors since the 1960s that may have set the stage for new forms of violence. Further, they explain how personality, psychosis, and other qualities can meaningfully contribute to particular crimes, making for many different motives. Relying on their extensive clinical experience, and examination of writings and artwork by infamous serial killers, these experts offer many insights into the logic that drives horrible criminal behavior, and they discuss the hope that in the future such violence may be prevented.
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509508155
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
There is nothing new about evil; it has been with us since time immemorial. But there is something new about the kind of evil that characterizes our contemporary liquid-modern world. The evil that characterized earlier forms of solid modernity was concentrated in the hands of states claiming monopolies on the means of coercion and using the means at their disposal to pursue their ends ends that were at times horrifically brutal and barbaric. In our contemporary liquid-modern societies, by contrast, evil has become altogether more pervasive and at the same time less visible. Liquid evil hides in the seams of the canvass woven daily by the liquid-modern mode of human interaction and commerce, conceals itself in the very tissue of human cohabitation and in the course of its routine and day-to-day reproduction. Evil lurks in the countless black holes of a thoroughly deregulated and privatized social space in which cutthroat competition and mutual estrangement have replaced cooperation and solidarity, while forceful individualization erodes the adhesive power of inter-human bonds. In its present form evil is hard to spot, unmask and resist. It seduces us by its ordinariness and then jumps out without warning, striking seemingly at random. The result is a social world that is comparable to a minefield: we know it is full of explosives and that explosions will happen sooner or later but we have no idea when and where they will occur. In this new book, the sequel to their acclaimed work Moral Blindness Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis guide the reader through this new terrain in which evil has become both more ordinary and more insidious, threatening to strip humanity of its dreams, alternative projects and powers of dissent at the very time when they are needed most.
Author: Marilyn McCord Adams
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253024382
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
Provocative essays that seek “to turn the attention of analytic philosophy of religion on the problem of evil . . . towards advances in ethical theory” (Reading Religion). The contributors to this book—Marilyn McCord Adams, John Hare, Linda Zagzebski, Laura Garcia, Bruce Russell, Stephen Wykstra, and Stephen Maitzen—attended two University of Notre Dame conferences in which they addressed the thesis that there are yet untapped resources in ethical theory for affecting a more adequate solution to the problem of evil. The problem of evil has been an extremely active area of study in the philosophy of religion for many years. Until now, most sources have focused on logical, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, leaving moral questions as open territory. With the resources of ethical theory firmly in hand, this volume provides lively insight into this ageless philosophical issue. “These essays—and others—will be of primary interest to scholars working in analytic philosophy of religion from a self-consciously Christian standpoint, but its audience is not limited to such persons. The book offers illustrative examples of how scholars in philosophy of religion understand their aims and how they go about making their arguments . . . hopefully more work will follow this volume’s lead.”—Reading Religion “Recommended.”—Choice
