This ambitious book is part of the series, At the Interface:  Probing the Boundaries, and consists of the papers
given at the Third Annual Conference on Evil and Wickedness, which took place
last year in Prague.  Contributions come
primarily from the fields of law, philosophy and comparative literature, with
additional contributions from theology and theodicy.  The book explores the topic of evil in general and highly
specific ways.  It is divided into three
parts:  grappling with evil; justice,
responsibility, and war; and blame, murder and retributivism.  Contributors range from very junior and very
senior academicians to practicing attorneys.

The first chapter, by Forsyth, demonstrates
transformations in the concept of evil initiated in literature by Shakespeare,
especially in Macbeth.  Shakespeare moves from the view that evil is
a religious construct and phenomenon to one in which evil resides in the
secular world.  In Forsyth’s view, evil
is nothing, or may be viewed as Nothing. 
"The sense that bureaucracy is the rule of nobody, that it makes us
all faceless, removes our ability to intervene in the world, and therefore our
responsibility, is a modern form of an ancient idea, that evil is simply the
absence of something, the failure to act or to understand… a failure of
imagination."  In the next chapter,
Seto, an attorney, uses moral theory, evolutionary theory, and game theory to
discuss evil, defining it as "a serious intentional maladaptive breach of
the principal of reciprocity". 
Fisher, coming from the fields of philosophy and thoedicy contributes an
extremely thought-provoking paper with the marvelous title of "the
catheter of bilious hatred".  His
focus is on the brutal deaths of two children in the United Kingdom in
2001.  Fisher develops a four-component
definition of evil:  in this definition,
evil is peculiar to us as a species, artistic and intelligent, creative, and
personally satisfying.  Breen herself
contributes the last chapter in this first part of the book, primarily
considering Kafka’s Metamorphosis.  In this construction, the drive to label
others as evil is viewed as widespread and fostering cultural hegemony.

In the second part of the book, which considers
justice, responsibility and war, Day begins with a very-well researched
discussion of the views of the pre-Nicene church fathers on warfare.  Early Christianity apparently was pacifist,
while post-Nicene theologians and clerics developed the concept of the
"just war".  Wringe, a
philosopher, examines current and older views of international justice,
prevention and intervention, drawing on the ideas of John Stuart Mill and John
Rawls, and concludes that a defensible case can be made for intervention.  Lowe, another philosopher, examines
terrorism and "just war" theory and concludes that most acts of
political terrorism do not meet criteria for a "just" war.  Parry, another attorney, examines individual
and collective responsibility for terroristic acts and uses the events of 9/11
as examples.  He concludes that
conventional criminal law should be used to determine personal responsibility
for such acts and that they should not be viewed using "broader and more
dangerous ideas of collective responsibility and guilt."  As part of this chapter, he provides an
interesting discussion of Jaspers’ view that all Germans were politically
guilty for the Nazi regime.

The final part of the book, on murder, blame and
retributivism, begins with a fascinating chapter by Margano.  The author considers the moral
responsibility of an English father who assisted in the suicide of his mentally
ill daughter (and actually killed her), with a consideration of diminished
responsibility, which is not viewed as evil, versus a person’s conscious understanding of the effects of
his or her actions with the use and objectifying of others, which is viewed as
evil.  Humbach contributes another paper
based on evolutionary theory with an examination of the ways that the pursuit
of justice can lead to innocent suffering. 
Nasser provides an excellent commentary on Kant’s view of retributivism,
where punishment is necessary but must be in proportion to the crime.  Kant insists on punishment not from
vengeance or prejudice, but as a necessity that is inherent in respecting human
beings and providing justice.  Murley
then provides an exposition of murder as treated by two authors, Charles
Brockden Brown and Edgar Allen Poe.  The
author discusses a perceived transition from evil as an external force that
takes over lapsed people to an intrinsic component of a person’s psychological
makeup.  In Poe, insanity is a
replacement or even synonym for evil. 
In his world, reason replaces religion but cannot understand the
irrational, as religion could, however falsely.  Simonsen follows with a very interesting paper on evil in
Heinrich Von Kleist’s story, "Michael Kohlhaas".  "Evilness is what emerges when a set of
concurring factors that in themselves seem insignificant, or even good, work
together in an unhappy way to produce it."  In this situation, carelessness, good intentions and idealism
lead to evil.  Simonsen cites a letter
by Von Kleist:  "Let it not be said
that an inner voice secretly and clearly confides to us what is right.  The same voice that urges the Christian to
forgive his enemy urges the islander to roast him, and with reverence he
gobbles him up."

I enjoyed this book and found parts of it
fascinating.  I recommend it for anyone
interested in the subject.

That said, no one will be very pleased with the book
because it comes from so many points of view and is so self-contradictory.  If Shakespeare placed evil in the human
psychological realm, then Poe did not do so — and one could make a good case
for Sophocles having done so!  The
volume reminds me of an issue of the journal, Daedalus, which attempts to provide the input of several
disciplines on a single topic — but generally with more thought and more
editorial transition.  While this volume
has authors from many disciplines, physicians, including psychiatrists, and
psychologists and social workers are excluded — they see many cases of
"evil" in a clinical context and might have had much to add.  I evaluated a six-year-old boy this week who
meets many of the criteria for "evil" proposed in this book.  For those who would prefer a longer and more
detailed discussion of evil, I would recommend Alford, C. F., What Evil Means To Us, (Ithaca,
Cornell University Press, 1997).

One can quibble with several points of logic and
rhetoric.  One can begin by asking
whether the concept of "evil" is heuristic and whether different
words might lead to more realistic arguments. 
Seto states that "the principle of reciprocity is not just the
golden rule.  It also requires
punishment and forgiveness." 
Why?  Who says?  He adds that it requires marital fidelity
and one again asks on what grounds, logically. 
He adds that original sin can be viewed as the difficulty of being
good.  Perhaps, but there are many other
views.  Fisher states that evil occurs
because there is an "active interest".  How so?  Seto’s definition
of evil as maladaptive is often but certainly not always the case.  Great evil often seems to me to prove to be
adaptive.  While evil may demonstrate
creativity, intelligence and personal satisfaction, as Fisher proposes, it may
also be (and often is) banal beyond measure (and why are Hannah Arendt’s
important views on evil not explored more in this book?)  Margano’s contribution is similarly flawed
by the relative lack of exploration of the prognosis of the mentally-ill young
woman who had an assisted suicide/mercy killing by her father:  in fact, the prognosis, with good treatment,
would have been quite good, which provides quite a different perspective on
this discussion.

The lack of an index is unfortunate.

This is a flawed book, but there are so many
memorable statements, comments and arguments that I recommend it with the caveat, to quote Murley in the
book, "There has never been a ‘need’ for evil; there has always been a
need to account for it."

©
2003 Lloyd A. Wells

Lloyd A. Wells, Ph.D., M.D., Mayo Clinic, Rochester,
MN

Categories: Ethics, Philosophical