Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing

ISBN-13: 9780521673570 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 328 str.

Arne Johan Vetlesen

Opis

Arne Johan Vetlesen argues that to do evil is to intentionally inflict pain on another human being, against his or her will, and cause serious and foreseeable harm. Vetlesen investigates why and in what sort of circumstances such a desire arises, and how it is channeled, or exploited, into collective evildoing. He argues that such evildoing, pitting whole groups against each other, springs from a combination of character, situation, and social structure. Vetlesen shows how closely perpetrators, victims, and bystanders interact, and how aspects of human agency are recognized, denied, and projected by different agents.

Recenzje

'Vetlesen brings to light the paradox of moral responsibility in Arendt's analysis of Eichmann's actions. … Evil and Human Agency is both timely and deserving of wide readership, not only by sociologists, philosophers, and psychologists, but also by politicians and political scientists. Vetlesen stresses the moral failure of bystanders who, in wishing to remain neutral and impartial, did nothing to stop atrocities from occurring. … Vetlesen's thoughtful approach in Evil and Human Agency challenges both the Aristotelian and the Kantian view that egoism is at the root of evildoing …Vetlesen's approach to evildoing, then, is useful to show how we might avoid such atrocities in the future.' The Journal of Value Inquiry

Spis treści

1. The ordinariness of modern evildoers: a critique of Zygmunt Bauman's The Modernity and the Holocaust; 2. Hannah Arendt on conscience and the banality of evil; 3. The psycho-logic of wanting to hurt others; 4. The logic and practice of collective evil: ethnic cleansing in Bosnia; 5. Responses to collective evil; 6. A political postscript: globalization and the discontents of the self.