Fifth Global Conference

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Session 4a: Inscrutable Evils, Naivete and Harm
Chair: Stephen Morris

Understanding the Inscrutable Nature of Evil
Petruschka Schaafsma
Department of Philosophy of Religion, University of Leiden, The Netherlands

In many discussions of evil the point of the inscrutable nature of evil has been raised. This point concerns topics as different as the problem how to approach the theme of evil, the question whether we can understand evil, and the opinion that it may be more appropriate to be silent before the horrors of evil instead of aiming at full comprehension. In this paper we discuss this problem of inscrutability on the basis of Kant's notion of radical evil and Karl Jaspers' interpretation of it. In the first chapter of his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone Kant concludes that the ground and origin of radical evil in human beings remain inscrutable. Jaspers highlights this point in his article “On Radical Evil in Kant” and, thus, tries to bridge the gap between Kant's formal ethics and his own existentialist position. It is questionable whether this interpretation does justice to Kant's text. Contrary to Jaspers, we do not see this inscrutability regarding the ground and origin of evil as the main characteristic of Kant's position. Insofar as there is something inscrutable about evil as presented by Kant, this is much more a result of an ambiguity caused by two contradictory claims: evil is both something we are fully responsible for, and something which is an ineradicable part of our nature from birth. In line with Ricœur's suggestions in Symbolism of Evil , we interpret this ambiguity as characteristic of expressions of evil in general. The problem of understanding evil is thus largely a problem of being able to account for this ambiguity.

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Theorizing Evil against Socratic Naiveté
Keith Doubt
Professor and Chair, Sociology Department, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, USA

Evil is difficult to comprehend theoretically. Socrates avoided the task; no one knowingly does wrong, he asserted. When someone knows an act is wrong (truly knows an act is wrong), someone will not willing commit the act.
Socrates' refusal to theorize evil in itself exasperated his interlocutors. "Don't they kill whoever they want to, and expropriate and expel from the cities whoever they think fit?," Polus asked. Socrates replied that, while such tyrants do terrible things, they have "the least power in the cities; for they do practically nothing that they want to, but do whatever they think best."
Aristotle identifies the axiology that supports Socrates' refusal to account for evil in its own right: "Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has been rightly declared to be that at which all things aim." If evil is an action, toward what end does evil aim? Given the structure of action, according to the ancient philosophers, action must aim toward good. If evil is evil, it cannot aim toward good. If evil were to aim toward good, it would also cease to be evil. For Socrates, this paradox exonerates him from the necessity to theorize evil.
If we could report to Socrates the crimes against humanity inflicted upon people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, would Socrates continue to argue that tyrants such as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic had the least power in the cities? Would he say that Karadzic and Mladic "do practically nothing that they want to"? How would Socrates maintain his position with these examples?
This paper examines Socrates' refusal to theorize evil in the context of war crimes against Bosnia-Herzegovina. The works of Bataille, Levinas, Zizek, and Arendt are selectively juxtaposed with the Socratic position.

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Intention and Legitimacy in the Commission of Collective Evil
Brian Fogarty
Professor of Sociology, The College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN USA

Evil actions can be located on a two-dimensional continuum ranging from small-scale personal violence to large-scale impersonal structures like environmental destruction. At the “middle-range” we find a sort of evil in which individual intention is harnessed by the group or the state for nefarious ends, including such events as war, massacre, and genocide. It is at this intersection of high personal involvement and large scale that we continue to ask how so many ordinary people can inflict such suffering on others.
Recent work on human involvement in atrocity has correctly criticized popular thinking that views individual perpetrators of atrocity as either coerced by force or “brainwashed” into “blind obedience” to orders. While it seems clear that in war or massacre most perpetrators are, in Daniel Goldhagen's phrase, “willing executioners,” this should not imply that the perpetrators' intentions are “evil.” The conduct of atrocity may feel, from the point of view of its perpetrators, very much like the conduct of warfare: an odious task that must in any case be done for the good of the group, nation, or Volk . The rich social-psychological research on human involvement in such deeds offers deep insights into the ways that decent people can, without evil intent, commit the most heinous acts.
The proposed paper clarifies the misinterpretations of this research tradition, concluding that it is often the impulse to goodness that creates the greatest human evil. The larger issue raised is that the evil of an act is determined not by the intentions of its perpetrators but by the legitimacy ascribed it by the community. Cold-blooded killing is transformed from crime to heroism by the state engaged in war. Similarly, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter; the designation depending on collective definition.