the nature of evil

the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and killing sprees by serial killers such as Jeffery Dahmer

- we cannot capture the moral significance of these actions and their perpetrators by calling them: ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or even ‘very, very wrong’ or ‘very, very bad.’

- we need the concept of evil.

Religious: Original sin: human’s turning away from God and rejection of his will and love;

Philosophical: grappling with the meaning and forms of evil acts, their causes and effects;

Psychological: use of defense mechanisms – evil as a projection of one’s “shadow” onto others;

Are we “Fallen Angels” striving for redemption and salvation?

Or, are we intelligent beasts striving to pull ourselves out of the muck of creation?

Children usually see evil in one dimensional terms – evil is supranational or demonical;

 Vampires, witches, and werewolves

Evil comes in the form of warped and satirical individuals bent on attacking God, people, the flag, superman, batman.

Kant's concern is to make sense of three apparently conflicting truths about human nature:

(1) we are radically free, (2) we are by nature inclined toward

goodness, (3) we are by nature inclined toward evil.

The worst forms of evil involves prioritizing self-interest over the moral law.

• Evil - not the opposite of good;

• Working towards the good: the moral path;

• People fall into evil through an absence of attention;

• One must work to be good, but one happens to be evil.

A Report on the Banality of EvilOn trial of Nazi supporter Adolf

Eichmann;

Motives and character of evil people are banal rather than monstrous;

She states: there is "a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil."

Monsters and demons do not engineer the murders of millions in any supernatural sense.

Human beings who choose to do evil resemble living corpses who lack any spontaneity or freedom.

Doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on "normalization."

This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as "the way things are done."

Dehumanization was made routine through:- Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on

hate radios;

- Use of words like: cockroaches, animals, vermin, and diseases.

- Calling it “ethnic cleansing,” or “purification.” Such euphemisms hide the horror of mass murder.

-

Human slavery was firmly institutionalized and routinized and still is…

- racism was so routine that it took years of incidents, movement actions, reading, and real-world traumas to overturn the deeply imbedded bias. Is racism still present?

money, status, promotions,power, and jobs are at stake.

There is usually a division of labor. People get paid for what they do.

Each individual’s sin in some way affects others;

There are sins located in social structures, situations and groups;

Situations and actions which promote or facilitate greed and human selfishness.

Structures which systematically :

oppress human dignity,

violate human rights,

stifle human freedom, and

impose gross inequality between the rich and the poor.

Over-identification with a cause (isms): nationalism, liberalism, conservativism

The retreat to ignorance: real, cultivated, or manufactured.

Elevating personal goals over concern for human consequences of decisions

Lack of empathy and compassion for others.

The complicity of persons who do not take responsibility for evil being done or who silently allow injustice or oppression to happen

politics without principleswealth without workpleasure without conscienceknowledge without charactercommerce without moralityscience without humanityworship without sacrifice

Cruel but true, speak out and help to win back what they should have: human rights.