A Philosophy of Evil by Lars Fredrik Händler Svendsen

I also found Svendsen’s footnotes extremely informative and helpful.

By seeking to understand how ordinary people could do things that they later acknowledge as evil, he reminds us that each one of us has a duty to think (for ourselves!) critically about events happening around us and to judge them before we act. Sadly, he has plenty of real world examples of atrocities committed, not by monsters, but he insists, by people just like him, you, and me.

The main part of his thesis has to do with these three categories. When he comes to “instrumental evil,” “idealistic evil,” and “stupid evil,” you can feel his interest piqued, and his engagement with the material deepen. That being said, his heart doesn’t seem to be in the first half of the book, covering theological responses to evil, as well as the category of “demonic evil” (evil done for its own sake), which he basically dismisses as irrelevant for the real world. Svendsen, strange for a philosopher, has little patience for philosophies that have no traction in the real world, and perhaps that’s why I found him so engaging. Since I spent a large part of my only college philosophy class fighting to stay awake, that's no small compliment. Lars Svendsen has written a very readable, at times fascinating, summary of the philosophical discussions surrounding the concept of evil. it is encouraging that there are some soldiers who refused to torture ‘enemy combatants’ in the ‘war on terror’ and growing awareness that torture does not work.Īt the end this sums up his philosophy of philosophy evil: it is not to study what it is or from where or when it came, these are abstract questions, such studies are not relevant in practical ways, for evil is not to be studied, evil is to be fought.

So, why do i rank this highly, when i have had limited experience, when i do not protest actively, the evils of our world? well, for me, actually this is a rare philosophy text, ‘political philosophy’, as i read much continental philosophy, mostly about philosophy rather more abstract, more contemplative than inspiring acts, but in my way try to be good rather than evil, choosing perhaps more negative refusal of evil, refusal, denial, rather positive goods of recognition, freedom, history, which can become dogmatic or culture-centric or intolerant. i write from the comfort of modern north american life, i write without active persecution or immediate and enforced evil, i am fortunate that most what evil people we have are not in government. 310518: i do not suffer evil, i have suffered evil on a personal level, i do suffer ‘natural evil’- considering my injury as affecting my entire physical life, but not the blame of anyone: simply, something that happened.

A Philosophy of Evil by Lars Fredrik Händler Svendsen