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The Roots of Evil / Edition 1

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ISBN-10:: 0801443687
ISBN-13:: 9780801443688
Pub. Date:: 06/15/2005
Publisher:: Cornell University Press

ISBN-10:: 0801443687
ISBN-13:: 9780801443688
Pub. Date:: 06/15/2005
Publisher:: Cornell University Press

The Roots of Evil / Edition 1

Hardcover

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Overview

"Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All over the world cruelty, greed, prejudice, and fanaticism ruin the lives of countless victims. Outrage provokes outrage. Millions nurture seething hatred of real or imagined enemies, revealing savage and destructive tendencies in human nature. Understanding this challenges our optimistic illusions about the effectiveness of reason and morality in bettering human lives. But abandoning these illusions is vitally important because they are obstacles to countering the threat of evil. The aim of this book is to explain why people act in these ways and what can be done about it."—John KekesThe first part of this book is a detailed discussion of six horrible cases of evil: the Albigensian Crusade of about 1210; Robespierre's Terror of 1793–94; Franz Stangl, who commanded a Nazi death camp in 1943–44; the 1969 murders committed by Charles Manson and his "family"; the "dirty war" conducted by the Argentinean military dictatorship of the late 1970s; and the activities of a psychopath named John Allen, who recorded reminiscences in 1975. John Kekes includes these examples not out of sensationalism, but rather to underline the need to hold vividly in our minds just what evil is. The second part shows why, in Kekes's view, explanations of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment fail to account for these cases and then provides an original explanation of evil in general and of these instances of it in particular.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801443688
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2005
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Kekes is the author of many books, most recently The Illusions of Egalitarianism and The Art of Life, both from Cornell.

Preface     xi
Introduction: The Problem and the Approach     1
What Is Evil?     1
Approaches to Explanation     3
Toward an Adequate Explanation     4
The Approach     7
Forms of Evil
The Sleep of Reason     10
Crusade against the Cathars     10
Possible Excuses     15
Appeal to Faith     18
The Permanent Threat of Faith     22
Faith and Evil     27
Perilous Dreams     29
Background     29
The Terror     31
The Ideologue     34
Justification by Ideology     39
Ideology and Evil     43
A Fatal Fusion     47
Inferno     47
The Man     51
His Responsibility and Choices     55
His Character     59
Ambition and Evil     63
The Revenge of Ruined Pride     65
The Crimes and the Criminal     65
The Vice     71
The Motive     75
The Judgment     78
Envy and Evil     81
Wickedness in High Places     83
What Was Done     83
Why It Was Done     86
Failed Justification     89
Condemnation     93
Honor and Evil     97
Disenchantment with Ordinary Life     101
The Psychopath     101
Boredom     105
Prevalence     107
The Thrill of Evil     113
Boredom and Evil     115
Taking Stock     118
Sources of Evil     118
Responsibility     121
Intention     125
Realism about Evil     128
The Approach     132
Explanations of Evil
External Explanations     135
Four Types of Explanation     135
Evil as Unavoidable     137
Reasons against Explaining Evil as Unavoidable     139
Evil as Corruption     143
Reasons against Explaining Evil as Corruption     146
A Biological Explanation     149
Natural Goodness and Defect     149
The Human Good     151
Practical Reason     156
What Reason Requires and Allows     158
Nature and Evil     160
Internal Explanations     164
Evil as Malfunction      164
Reasons against Explaining Evil as Malfunction     166
Evil as Natural     171
Reasons against Explaining Evil as Natural     173
Transition to Mixed Explanation     176
The Mixed Explanation     181
Preamble     181
The Conditions     182
The Internal Condition     185
The External Condition     189
Reason     194
Responsibility     199
The Approach     199
The Account     202
Excuses     206
Intention     211
Shibboleths     214
Toward Elementary Decency     219
The Secular Problem of Evil     219
Morality     220
Internal Reasons     225
External Reasons     231
The Permanent Threat of Evil     233
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?     235
Changing Internal Conditions     235
Changing External Conditions     239
Summary     242
Notes     245
Works Cited     253
Index     259

What People are Saying About This

Lawrence Becker

This is a wonderful book. The writing is beautifully clear, brisk, and memorable. The organization of the argument is excellent, and the surefootedness and balance throughout are admirable. Kekes provides a thoroughly secular account of the nature and sources of evil as opposed to ordinary wrongs.

Harvey C. Mansfield

Evil is here defined as harm in excess and examined with the lucidity and clarity that distinguish John Kekes's books. His focus is on the thrill of evil, and his examples are stunning. This is a work of philosophy for every serious reader.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

This is an interesting, systematic, nondogmatic, and informed attempt to make sense of evil on secular grounds.

Times Literary Supplement

The principal value of The Roots of Evil is that the author squarely faces the challenge of evil, a task of no small importance when Islamofascism and much else are testing the mettle of the West. While some obsess over the 'root causes' of the appalling things people do to one another, Kekes reminds us that evil actions find their origin in the individual. His book closes with some sensible if currently unfashionable recommendations for coping with evil: attending to its internal conditions by exposing people to the humanities and attending to its external conditions by a firm commitment to punishment. Indeed, the book contains much by way of sturdy good sense.

The New Criterion

Since it reflects aspects of human nature—envy, ambition, the need for belonging—evil is a permanent threat. We can best combat it, John Kekes believes, by cultivating 'moral imagination.'... An education in the litearary and philosophical classics helps nourish the moral imagination.... There is much to admire in this lucid and morally serious book. Its concreteness sets it apart from the arid abstraction of many works of analytic philosophy. Its insistence on the existence of evil is refreshing in an age of academic relativism. Its modest conclusions are wise and generally right.

First Things

Since it reflects aspects of human nature--envy, ambition, the need for belonging--evil is a permanent threat. We can best combat it, John Kekes believes, by cultivating 'moral imagination.'... An education in the litearary and philosophical classics helps nourish the moral imagination.... There is much to admire in this lucid and morally serious book. Its concreteness sets it apart from the arid abstraction of many works of analytic philosophy. Its insistence on the existence of evil is refreshing in an age of academic relativism. Its modest conclusions are wise and generally right.
-- "First Things"
The principal value of The Roots of Evil is that the author squarely faces the challenge of evil, a task of no small importance when Islamofascism and much else are testing the mettle of the West. While some obsess over the 'root causes' of the appalling things people do to one another, Kekes reminds us that evil actions find their origin in the individual. His book closes with some sensible if currently unfashionable recommendations for coping with evil: attending to its internal conditions by exposing people to the humanities and attending to its external conditions by a firm commitment to punishment. Indeed, the book contains much by way of sturdy good sense.
-- "The New Criterion"
This is an interesting, systematic, nondogmatic, and informed attempt to make sense of evil on secular grounds.
-- "Times Literary Supplement"

From the Publisher

The Roots of Evil / Edition 1

The Roots of Evil / Edition 1

Hardcover

Temporarily Out of Stock Online

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

What People are Saying About This

Customer Reviews

Temporarily Out of Stock Online

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

What People are Saying About This

Related Subjects

Customer Reviews