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9th Global Conference
Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
Monday 10th March - Thursday 13th March
2008
Salzburg, Austria
Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 3: Philosophy in the Shadows
Chair: Pawel Stachura
Kant’s Concept of Radical Evil
Hsuan Huang
Kant dedicated a significant part of his Religion within the Limits of Reason to the discussion of radical evil. The German word “radikal” derives from the Latin word “rādīx,” which means “root” (“Wurzel”), “origin” (“Ursprung”), and “source” (“Quelle”) (Kluge 664). Therefore, it is no accident that Kant enquired into the origin of evil in this part of the book.
The root of evil, for Kant, lies in “the supreme maxim of the free will relating to the law” (Kant 34). In other words, “the source of evil . . . can lie only in a rule made by the will for the use of its freedom, that is, in a maxim” (17). This supreme maxim is “the ground of all maxims,” and radical evil is called radical because it corrupts “the ultimate subjective ground of all maxims” (32).
The “radical innate evil in human nature” is also called the “natural propensity to evil” by Kant (38). It is the human “propensity to adopt evil maxims, that is, the wickedness of human nature” (24), “the corruption” or “perversity . . . of the human heart” (25).
Radical evil is perverse because it “reverses the ethical order [of priority] among the incentives of a free will” (25). When a person subordinates the moral law to the law of self love, the moral order is reversed, and this man is evil (31). Therefore, self-love “is the very source of evil,” when it is “taken as the principle of all our maxims” (41).
However, Kant admits that “the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of moral maxims is inscrutable” (17). In other words, we do not know what the ultimate ground is for a person to adopt the reversed moral order. The question is, if we can never reach the ultimate ground of radical evil, can we ever become morally good? How should we cope with evil, if we cannot eradicate it? How is possible that we are naturally evil and, at the same time, choose to be so? Kant asks, “how can a bad tree bring forth good fruit” (40)? Attempting to answer this question, my
paper will examine the relationship between the “seed of goodness” (41) and the radical evil “rooted in man” (28).
Download Draft Conference Paper - 
Spinoza on Evil and Punishment
Julio César Díaz
Department of English and Literature, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
For Spinoza, the notions of good and evil are related to those of pleasure and pain: our “knowledge of good and evil is nothing else but the emotions of pleasure or pain in so far as we are conscious thereof.” Thus, we call “a thing good or evil, when it is of service or the reverse of preserving our being, when increases or diminishes, helps or hiders, our power or activity.” Spinoza defines evil as “a hindrance to us in the attainment of any good.” Evil should not only be avoided but also “vanquished,” or “conquered.”
In the state of nature, the natural right of individuals is “determined not by sound reason, but by desire and power.” When human beings join a commonwealth, they don’t entirely give up their natural rights (e.g. self-preservation, freedom of thought and feeling). They only cede “their right of acting entirely on their own judgment.”
Spinoza contends in his Ethics that, given the choice between two actions, human beings will choose the one that leads to a greater good or avoids a greater evil according to their judgment. In the commonwealth, obedience is ensured by offering choices implying a greater good or a greater evil. Confronted to a greater evil, an evil-doer may “abstain from inflicting [any] injury.”
A society can be formed and “the covenant can be strictly kept,” if legislators “promise to the observers of the law that which the masses chiefly desire, and threaten violators with that which they chiefly fear;” and if judges punish not with “a hatred to ruin a criminal, [but with] a sense of duty.” Yet, as Spinoza observes, “a man who renders everyone their due because he fears the gallows… cannot be called just,” and “he who is led by fear, and does good in order to escape evil, is not lead by reason.”
In the light of Spinoza’s reflections, my paper addresses the following questions: [1] Can evil be truly vanquished or eradicated from the commonwealth by the threat of a greater evil?; [2] If –as Spinoza argues- human beings are chiefly led by their passions and desires, can we be reasonable against evil?
Download Draft Conference Paper -
Evil to Prevent Evil: The Ethics of Torture
Donal P. O’Mathuna
Department of Health Care Ethics,
Dublin City University,
Dublin, Ireland
The Geneva Convention on prisoners of war forbids “any form of torture” carried out “at any time” or “in any place”. Such all-encompassing language situates torture as a practice widely viewed as absolutely evil. The ‘war on terrorism’ raises fundamental ethical questions about torture. A BBC poll found that, worldwide, almost one-third viewed some torture as ethical if it saved innocent lives. Can that perspective be justified ethically? Is it ever ethical to use evil to prevent evil?
Torture has been viewed as unethical because it violates basic human rights. Media representations have usually portrayed torture negatively. More recently, torture has sometimes been presented as necessary in the fight against certain evils (e.g. Dirty Harry, 24). Some portrayals continue to view torture as ethically questionable (e.g. V for Vendetta, Rendition). This paper will critically analyse the ethical arguments about torture and how they are played out in popular media.
Absolute prohibitions on torture arise within ethical frameworks that develop universal ethical propositions. Legitimising any torture is criticised as heading down a slippery slope. Absolutist approaches to ethics have received sustained criticism from post-modernists and relativists. Consequentialist arguments appear to justify torture when many people’s safety outweigh the rights of a few. A little evil must sometimes be used to prevent major evil, the argument goes.
Torture is viewed by critics as an affront to human dignity. Virtue ethics holds that torture denigrates the dignity of the one tortured, but also the torturers and their society. It undermines trust and resulting information is of questionable trustworthiness. This paper will explore these issues in depth and conclude that evil is not justified, even to prevent evil.
© Wickedness.Net 2008