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Title: Evil in Modern Thought : An Alternative History of Philosophy by Susan Neiman ISBN: 0-691-11792-6 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 June, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: brilliant evil
Comment: This is the kind of book you want to buy for all your friends so you can argue about it. It's the kind of book you want to get an extra copy of so your spouse can read it at the same time and you can talk your way through it. It's the kind of book that will be a required text of most philosophy 101 classes in ten years' time, and the one text you reread ten years after graduating. It is witty without being glib, accessible without being remotely condescending. It's both brilliant and brave because it dares to remind us why anyone was interested in philosophy in the first place and why we need it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Is Evil A Dead Issue?
Comment: The concept of evil has occupied a significant place in philosophy throughout the history of man's thinking. Dr. Neiman has written a very interesting book that explores the problem of evil as considered from early modern thinking to the present.
The question is, of course, how do you reconcile an omnipotent, benevolent Deity with the existence of evil. She starts the discussion with Leibnitz who felt that God considered all possible worlds, and decided that the one we have is the best one possible. Evil was divided into two types: natural evil that encompassed the cruelties of nature (floods, earthquakes, droughts, etc.) and moral evil i.e. those acts that we humans are responsible for. Pierre Bayle and Voltaire eagerly tore this idea to shreds. Rousseau came along and said that man, and not God was responsible for all evil, as man had become corrupted through the progress of civilization.
Neiman goes on to discuss the thoughts of Hume, Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, Feud, and even the Marquis de Sade. Then she delves into the topic of the Holocaust, and September 11. Of particular interest here is the thoughts of Hannah Arendt on the Holocaust, and her reflections during the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann. Arendt feels that the vast majority of those involved in the Holocaust, Eichmann included, had no malicious intent in what they did. They merely performed assigned tasks, and did not really have the evil impulses that might be found in one of de Sade's novels. Evil truly had become banal, a merely boring activity of a bureaucracy. September 11th did provide evidence of evil intent, however. Those involved were determined to destroy innocent human lives.
At this point one has to wonder whether Evil as a philosophical issue has become obsolete. Arendt's reaction to evil (and Freud's too) pointed out psychological issues, and my feeling is that our study of the topic should move on to the examination of the individual and social psychology, and the cultural factors that examine our species' seeming propensity to engage in acts of "moral" evil. Author Neiman also asks the question of whether Philosophy can go any further with this topic.
One outstanding book that covers this topic is "Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century" by Jonathan Glover. He explores how humans become desensitized to evil; how we are able to dispassionately "kill from a distance." A government can decided to drop bombs on people; missiles are fired that do the task. Yet no one involved actually is engaged in any close up killing of another human.
Other books to consider are "Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty" by Roy Baumeister; "The Roots of Evil", by Ervin Straub; "Why They Kill", by Richard Rhodes; and "Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People", by John Conroy. These books all explore the psychology of evil behavior.
A final comment. This book can be read and enjoyed by that ubiquitous "educated layman", but an interest in the topic of western philosophy would be helpful, as would some memory traces of what you learned in Philosophy 101.
Rating: 3
Summary: A good wick to start a fire
Comment: MORALITY -- without it the society wouldn't be that as much tolerable hardly than it was now painful enough already... furthermore the human race might've not even survived this long quite likely without morality (that is, barbarism would reign supreme with its (moralities) absence - meaning "only the 'strong' survive" would be the main dictum in the structure of our civilization, and the society would have its systems not that far from being different from the time of Adolf Hitler rule, circa WW2). EVIL is the act of getting something under the tyranny of unreasonable means - such as the violation of someone's personal rights. The essence of Grace, although not as outspokenly recognized, either extended to and/or recieved by an individual is an integral part for the continual survival of the human race (remember the theme from Disney's THE LION KING - the 'circle of life'?); and not one person is immune to its ingredient of being necessary w/ its presence to a particular person's life in this existence. I mean, with all the things that you get and have - do you deserve them all of the time? None of us did.
This book with it's different approach to the study of Philosophy may be innovative and seems good enough for a read on another kind of perspective on philosophy. One would only have to be keen and openminded about it though; and if one is being honest - a path to self discovery on facts over opinions would dawn upon the reader, like pouring oil into water, which give an apparent stuff of evidently separating the one from the other.
Ah, comon get real people! why would anyone would like to oppose the stuff of morality's reality? It's because of SELFISHNESS w/c is the source and cause of all the headaches, ails and problems in this world's social core of dilemma in general.
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Title: Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation by Richard J. Bernstein ISBN: 0745629547 Publisher: Polity Pr Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Rethinking Evil: Contemporary Perspectives by Maria Pia Lara, Maria Pia Lara ISBN: 0520226348 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: Evil: An Investigation by Lance Morrow ISBN: 0465047548 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Truth and Truthfulness : An Essay in Genealogy by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0691102767 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: The Many Faces of Evil: Historical Perspectives by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Amelia O. Rorty ISBN: 041524207X Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
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