Once Paulhus had begun to open a window on these dark minds, others soon wanted to delve in to answer some basic questions about the human condition.
Are people born nasty, for instance? Studies comparing identical and non-identical twins suggest a relatively large genetic component for both narcissism and psychopathy , though Machiavellianism seems to be more due to the environment — you may learn to manipulate from others. You only need to look at the anti-heroes of popular culture — James Bond, Don Draper or Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street — to realise that dark personalities have sex appeal, a finding supported by more scientific studies.
Further clues to the benefits might come from another basic human characteristic — whether you are a morning or evening person.
They are often risk-takers — one of the characteristics of psychopathy; they are more manipulative — a Machiavellian trait — and as narcissists, they tend to be exploitative of other people. That might make sense if you consider our evolution: perhaps dark personalities have more chance to steal, manipulate, and have illicit sexual liaisons late while everyone else is sleeping, so they evolved to be creatures of the night. Whatever the truth of that theory, Paulhus agrees there will always be niches for these people to exploit.
Recently, he has started probing even further into the darkest shadows of the psyche. Unknown to the participants, the coffee grinder had been adapted to give insects an escape route — but the machine still produced a devastating crushing sound to mimic their shells hitting the cogs. Some were so squeamish they refused to take part, while others took active enjoyment in the task. Science Photo Library.
He thinks this is directly relevant to internet trolls. Indeed, the bug-crushing experiment suggested that everyday sadists may have more muted emotional responses to all kinds of pleasurable activities — so perhaps their random acts of cruelty are attempts to break through the emotional numbness.
This provides a partial explanation for why the action was performed. Some evil-skeptics believe that we should abandon the concept of evil because it is too harmful or dangerous to use See e. Bush made it more likely that suspected terrorists would be mistreated and less likely that there would be peaceful relations between the peoples and governments of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea and the peoples and government of the United States. But should we abandon the concept of evil because it leads to harm when it is misapplied or abused?
So why do they believe that we should abandon the concept of evil? An evil-skeptic might reply that we should abandon only the concept of evil, and not other normative concepts, because the concept of evil is particularly dangerous or susceptible to abuse. We can discern several reasons why ascriptions of evil might be thought to be more harmful or dangerous than ascriptions of other normative concepts such as badness or wrongdoing.
Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that evildoers not only deserve the greatest form of moral condemnation but also the greatest form of punishment. Thus, not only are wrongfully accused evildoers subjected to harsh judgments undeservedly, they may be subjected to harsh punishments undeservedly as well. For instance, some people believe that to say that someone performed an evil action implies that that person acted out of malevolence see e.
Given this ambiguity, it might be unclear whether an attribution of evil attributes despicable psychological attributes to an evildoer, and this ambiguity might result in an overly harsh judgment. For instance, on some conceptions of evil, evildoers are possessed, inhuman, incorrigible, or have fixed character traits See Cole , 1—21; Russell , , and ; Haybron a and b. These metaphysical and psychological theses about evildoers are controversial. But others do. If evildoers have these traits, and thus will continue to perform evil actions no matter what we do, the only appropriate response might be to isolate them from society or to have them executed.
But if evildoers do not have these fixed dispositions and they are treated as if they do, they will likely be mistreated. Thus, while most theorists agree that the concept of evil can be harmful or dangerous there is considerable disagreement about what conclusion should be drawn from this fact.
Evil-skeptics believe that because the concept of evil is harmful or dangerous we should abandon it in favour of less dangerous concepts such as badness and wrongdoing. Evil-revivalists believe that because the concept of evil is harmful or dangerous more philosophical work needs to be done on it to clear up ambiguities and reduce the likelihood of abuse or misuse. Card and Kekes argue that it is more dangerous to ignore evil than to try to understand it Card and ; Kekes For if we do not understand evil we will be ill-equipped to root out its sources, and thus, we will be unable to prevent evils from occurring in the future.
The most celebrated evil-skeptic, nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, also argues that the concept of evil should be abandoned because it is dangerous. But his reasons for thinking that the concept of evil is dangerous are different from those discussed above. Nietzsche believes that the concept of evil is dangerous because it has a negative effect on human potential and vitality by promoting the weak in spirit and suppressing the strong.
In On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic , Nietzsche argues that the concept of evil arose from the negative emotions of envy, hatred, and resentment he uses the French term ressentiment to capture an attitude that combines these elements.
He contends that the powerless and weak created the concept of evil to take revenge against their oppressors. Nietzsche believes that the concepts of good and evil contribute to an unhealthy view of life which judges relief from suffering as more valuable than creative self-expression and accomplishment. For this reason Nietzsche believes that we should seek to move beyond judgements of good and evil Nietzsche and Instead, she argues that judgments of evil often indicate a healthy recognition that one has been treated unjustly.
Card also argues that we have just as much reason to question the motives of people who believe we should abandon the concept of evil as we do to question the motives of people who use the concept. She suggests that people who want to abandon the concept of evil may be overwhelmed by the task of understanding and preventing evil and would rather focus on the less daunting task of questioning the motives of people who use the term Card , Some people believe that we should not abandon the concept of evil because only the concept of evil can capture the moral significance of acts, characters, and events such as sadistic torture, serial killers, Hitler, and the Holocaust.
According to this line of argument, it is hard to deny that evil exists; and if evil exists, we need a concept to capture this immoral extreme. A second argument in favour of the concept of evil is that it is only by facing evil, i. A third reason to keep the concept of evil is that categorizing actions and practices as evil helps to focus our limited energy and resources.
If evils are the worst sorts of moral wrongs, we should prioritize the reduction of evil over the reduction of other wrongs such as unjust inequalities. For instance, Card believes that it is more important to prevent the evils of domestic violence than it is to ensure that women and men are paid equal wages for equal work Card , 96— A fourth reason not to abandon the concept of evil is that by categorizing actions and practices as evil we are better able to set limits to legitimate responses to evil.
By having a greater understanding of the nature of evil we are better able to guard against responding to evil with further evils Card , 7—8. Prior to World War II there was very little philosophical literature on the concept of evil in the narrow sense. However, philosophers have considered the nature and origins of evil in the broad sense since ancient times. Although this entry is primarily concerned with evil in the narrow sense, it is useful to survey the history of theories of evil in the broad sense since these theories provide the backdrop against which theories of evil in the narrow sense have been developed.
The history of theories of evil began with attempts to solve the problem of evil, i. Philosophers and theologians have recognized that to solve the problem of evil it is important to understand the nature of evil.
One theory of evil that provides a solution to the problem of evil is Manichaean dualism. According to Manichaean dualism, the universe is the product of an ongoing battle between two coequal and coeternal first principles: God and the Prince of Darkness.
From these first principles follow good and evil substances which are in a constant battle for supremacy. The material world constitutes a stage of this cosmic battle where the forces of evil have trapped the forces of goodness in matter. For example, the human body is evil while the human soul is good and must be freed from the body through strict adherence to Manichaean teaching.
The Manichaean solution to the problem of evil is that God is neither all-powerful nor the sole creator of the world. God is supremely good and creates only good things, but he or she is powerless to prevent the Prince of Darkness from creating evil. For more about Manichaeanism see Coyel and Lieu Since its inception, Manichaean dualism has been criticized for providing little empirical support for its extravagant cosmology.
A second problem is that, for a theist, it is hard to accept that God is not an all-powerful sole creator. For these reasons influential, early Christian philosophers such as Saint Augustine, who initially accepted the Manichaean theory of evil, eventually rejected it in favor of the Neoplatonist approach.
For instance, the evil of disease consists in a privation of health, and the evil of sin consist in a privation of virtue. The Neoplatonist theory of evil provides a solution to the problem of evil because if evil is a privation of substance, form, and goodness, then God creates no evil. For instance, it seems that we cannot equate the evil of pain with the privation of pleasure or some other feeling.
Pain is a distinct phenomenological experience which is positively bad and not merely not good. Similarly, a sadistic torturer is not just not as good as she could be. She is not simply lacking in kindness or compassion. These are qualities she has, not qualities she lacks, and they are positively bad and not merely lacking in goodness Calder a; Kane See Anglin and Goetz and Grant for replies to these objections.
Immanuel Kant, in his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone , was the first to offer a purely secular theory of evil, i.
See, e. Instead, Kant equates evil with having a will that is not fully good. According to Kant, we have a morally good will only if we choose to perform morally right actions because they are morally right Kant , 4: —; Kant , Bk I. There are three grades of evil which can be seen as increasingly more evil stages of corruption in the will. First there is frailty. A person with a frail will attempts to perform morally right actions because these actions are morally right, but she is too weak to follow through with her plans.
Instead, she ends up doing wrong due to a weakness of will Kant , Bk I, 24— The next stage of corruption is impurity. A person with an impure will does not attempt to perform morally right actions just because these actions are morally right. Instead, she performs morally right actions partly because these actions are morally right and partly because of some other incentive, e. Someone with an impure will performs morally right actions, but only partly for the right reason.
Kant believes that this form of defect in the will is worse than frailty even though the frail person does wrong while the impure person does right. Impurity is worse than frailty because an impure person has allowed an incentive other than the moral law to guide her actions while the frail person tries, but fails, to do the right thing for the right reason Kant , Bk I, 25— The final stage of corruption is perversity, or wickedness.
Someone with a perverse will inverts the proper order of the incentives. Instead of prioritizing the moral law over all other incentives, she prioritizes self-love over the moral law. Thus, her actions conform to the moral law only if they are in her self-interest.
Someone with a perverse will need not do anything wrong because actions which best promote her self-interest may conform to the moral law. 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.
Since there are many examples of inexcusable extreme wrongs, we ought to conclude there are many evil actions. In this sense, evil is real. The question of whether anyone counts as an evil person is more difficult to answer.
Consider an analogy: not everyone who performs an honest action counts as an honest person. If someone is an honest person, honesty is part of his or her character. He or she can be relied upon to be honest when it counts. Someone who tells the truth on some occasions might nonetheless be a characteristically dishonest person.
Similarly, not everyone who performs an evil action counts as an evil person. In judging that Hitler was not only an evildoer but an evil person, we assume that evil was part of his character.
Rather, it is to say he came to be strongly disposed to choose to perform evil actions. In calling Hitler an evil person, we suggest that he could not be fixed, or made into a good person. Once someone has become an evil person, he or she is a moral write-off. If everyone can be redeemed and made good, then no-one is evil.
Edition: Available editions United Kingdom.
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