Extraordinary Evil

Author : Fred Emil Katz
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2010-03-31
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781438408491

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Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil by Fred Emil Katz Pdf

What is it in the behavioral makeup of ordinary people, operating in the course of ordinary daily living, that lends itself to participating in horrendous activities — and doing so at times with zeal, at times with joy, at times without duress? Katz demonstrates that we do not need any special behavioral equipment for doing evil. The very same behaviors can take us in both directions for either living humanely and decently or for doing evil. This book demonstrates how some of these processes work, and sensitizes us to the potential for evil in our ongoing daily activities. This knowledge about ordinary behavior can empower us to take charge of our own direction, and help us turn away from beguilings of evil when they come our way.

Author : Fred E. Katz
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1993-07-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0791414426

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Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil by Fred E. Katz Pdf

Posits that our most ordinary behavior can lead us to participate in the most horrendous acts, perhaps even with zeal and joy, but certainly without remorse. Using the Holocaust as the pivotal example, examines the lives of the head of Auschwitz and a physician there, then the life of an exemplary physician to show the similarity; an American officer in Vietnam is also examined. Paper edition (unseen), $12.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author : Barbara Coloroso
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Genocide
ISBN : 0670066044

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Extraordinary Evil by Barbara Coloroso Pdf

Author : Barbara Coloroso
Publisher : Nation Books
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2007-08-24
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015070708899

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Extraordinary Evil by Barbara Coloroso Pdf

From best-selling author Barbara Coloroso comes a timely and essential book about genocide. Through an examination of three clearly defined genocides — the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, and the European Holocaust — Coloroso deconstructs the causes and consequences, both to its immediate victims and to the fabric of the world at large, and proposes the conditions that must exist in order to eradicate this evil from the world. Coloroso is well known for her best-selling books that explore why children bully. In Extraordinary Evil she builds upon that research to explain why the impulse to bully is mirrored by the act of genocide. By linking the psychology of the bully to the motivation that leads a community to murder, Coloroso provides devastating and vital insight into why people kill their neighbors. Based on the author's 15 years of research and extensive travel, Extraordinary Evil is an urgently needed work in an age when acts of genocide seem to occur more frequently and are in the public's consciousness more than ever before.

Author : James Waller
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2002-06-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780190287528

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Becoming Evil by James Waller Pdf

Political or social groups wanting to commit mass murder on the basis of racial, ethnic or religious differences are never hindered by a lack of willing executioners. In Becoming Evil, social psychologist James Waller uncovers the internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of evil. Waller debunks the common explanations for genocide- group think, psychopathology, unique cultures- and offers a more sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view of how anyone can potentially participate in heinous crimes against humanity. He outlines the evolutionary forces that shape human nature, the individual dispositions that are more likely to engage in acts of evil, and the context of cruelty in which these extraordinary acts can emerge. Illustrative eyewitness accounts are presented at the end of each chapter. An important new look at how evil develops, Becoming Evil will help us understand such tragedies as the Holocaust and recent terrorist events. Waller argues that by becoming more aware of the things that lead to extraordinary evil, we will be less likely to be surprised by it and less likely to be unwitting accomplices through our passivity.

Author : James E. Waller
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2007-03-22
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780199774852

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Becoming Evil by James E. Waller Pdf

Social psychologist James Waller uncovers the internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of evil. Waller offers a sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view of how anyone can potentially participate in heinous crimes against humanity. He outlines the evolutionary forces that shape human nature, the individual dispositions that are more likely to engage in acts of evil, and the context of cruelty in which these extraordinary acts can emerge. Eyewitness accounts are presented at the end of each chapter. In this second edition, Waller has revised and updated eyewitness accounts and substantially reworked Part II of the book, removing the chapter about human nature and evolutionary adaptations, and instead using this evolutionary perspective as a base for his entire model of human evil.

Author : Arthur L. Herman
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 8120807537

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The Problem of Evil and Indian Thought by Arthur L. Herman Pdf

Beginning with the problem of evil in the west professor A.L. Herman traces the history of one of the most fascinating of all perennial philosophical puzzles. The author identifies some twenty one historical solutions to the problem which are then reduced to eight quite distinct solutions. Prof. Herman then turns in the second part of the book to the history of the problem of evil in Indian thought.The author then joins the analysis of the problem of evil (taken from the first part of the book) to the Indian doctrine of rebirth in order to attempt a solution to the problem. By careful analysis the author shows that the doctrine of rebirth can satisfy the conditions already set forth as adequate for a solution to the problem of evil.1

Author : Michael Hardiman
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2022-07-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000604115

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The Path to Mass Evil by Michael Hardiman Pdf

On the Southern border of the United States in 2018, the decision was made to implement a separation policy among refugees and migrant families arriving at the border – and so a group of government employees left their homes, bidding farewell to their families as they went to work, and began to separate hundreds of children from their families, forcefully taking them to holding centres. Developing Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the banality of evil, The Path to Mass Evil demonstrates how the most educated, sophisticated and advanced societies in human history have the potential to descend into profound inhumanity and in the extreme can turn into enormous killing machines, implementing mass murder on a vast scale. Suitable for undergraduates and graduates in philosophy, sociology, psychology and religion, Michael Hardiman reveals how traditional understandings of morality fail to grasp how ordinary citizens become collaborators and engage in a range of levels of evildoing. He also highlights the necessity of confronting this evil in the increasingly divided and antagonistic world in which we find ourselves today.

Author : R. Jeffery
Publisher : Springer
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2008-05-26
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780230612532

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Confronting Evil in International Relations by R. Jeffery Pdf

This book offers original essays on the subject of evil in international relations. It considers questions of moral agency associated with the perpetration of evil acts by individuals and groups in the international sphere, and the range of ethical responses the international community has available to it in the aftermath of large-scale evils.

Author : Alan Wolfe
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2012-09-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780307473011

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Political Evil by Alan Wolfe Pdf

A timely, eye-opening examination of political evil, a concept widely misunderstood and desperately in need of clarification in our ever more chaotic world. In an age of genocide, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and torture, evil threatens us in ways radically different from tsunamis and financial panics. Nature unleashes its wrath and people rush to help the victims. Evil shows its face and we are paralyzed over how to respond. It was not always this way. During the twentieth century, thinkers as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Koestler, and George Orwell made evil central to everything they wrote. Acclaimed political scientist Alan Wolfe argues that in an age of partisan blame-assigning, therapeutic excuse-making, and theological question-dodging, we need to get serious about the problem of evil once again. While there will always be something incomprehensible about evil, we are very much capable of understanding and combating the use of evil means to obtain political ends. Looking at examples of political evil around the globe—in the Middle East, Darfur, the Balkans, and at home in the West—Wolfe shows us how seemingly small distinctions can make an immense difference in international response. And he makes clear that much-needed change can be initiated with a shift in how we talk and think about political evil. At once impassioned and pragmatic, Political Evil sheds essential light on the creation of policy and on a concrete path to a more practicable and just future.

Author : James Dawes
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674073999

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Evil Men by James Dawes Pdf

Presented with accounts of genocide and torture, we ask how people could bring themselves to commit such horrendous acts. A searching meditation on our all-too-human capacity for inhumanity, Evil Men confronts atrocity head-on—how it looks and feels, what motivates it, how it can be stopped. Drawing on firsthand interviews with convicted war criminals from the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), James Dawes leads us into the frightening territory where soldiers perpetrated some of the worst crimes imaginable: murder, torture, rape, medical experimentation on living subjects. Transcending conventional reporting and commentary, Dawes’s narrative weaves together unforgettable segments from the interviews with consideration of the troubling issues they raise. Telling the personal story of his journey to Japan, Dawes also lays bare the cultural misunderstandings and ethical compromises that at times called the legitimacy of his entire project into question. For this book is not just about the things war criminals do. It is about what it is like, and what it means, to befriend them. Do our stories of evil deeds make a difference? Can we depict atrocity without sensational curiosity? Anguished and unflinchingly honest, as eloquent as it is raw and painful, Evil Men asks hard questions about the most disturbing capabilities human beings possess, and acknowledges that these questions may have no comforting answers.

Author : Susan Neiman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2015-08-25
Category : Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691168500

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Evil in Modern Thought by Susan Neiman Pdf

Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.

Author : Peter Brian Barry
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2016-10-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781317594772

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The Fiction of Evil by Peter Brian Barry Pdf

What makes someone an evil person? How are evil people different from merely bad people? Do evil people really exist? Can we make sense of evil people if we mythologize them? Do evil people take pleasure in the suffering of others? Can evil people be redeemed? Peter Brian Barry answers these questions by examining a wide range of works from renowned authors, including works of literature by Kazuo Ishiguro, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Oscar Wilde alongside classic works of philosophy by Nietzsche and Aristotle. By considering great texts from literature and philosophy, Barry examines whether evil is merely a fiction. The Fiction of Evil explores how the study of literature can contribute to the study of metaphysics and ethics and it is essential reading for those studying the concept of evil or philosophy of literature at undergraduate level.

Author : Zachary J. Goldberg
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2021-08-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000422986

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Evil Matters by Zachary J. Goldberg Pdf

This book is an inquiry into particular matters concerning the nature, normativity, and aftermath of evil action. It combines philosophical conceptual analysis with empirical studies in psychology and discussions of historical events to provide an innovative analysis of evil action. The book considers unresolved questions belonging to metaethical, normative, and practical characteristics of evil action. It begins by asking whether Kant’s historical account of evil is still relevant for contemporary thinkers. Then it addresses features of evil action that distinguish it from mundane wrongdoing, thereby placing it as a proper category of philosophical inquiry. Next, the author inquires into how evil acts affect moral relationships and challenge Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility. He then draws conceptual and empirical connections between evil acts such as genocide, torture, and slavery and collective agency, and asks why evil acts are often collective acts. Finally, the author questions both the possibility and propriety of forgiveness and vengeance in the aftermath of evil and discusses how individuals ought to cope with the pervasiveness of evil in human interaction. Evil Matters: A Philosophical Inquiry will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in philosophy working on the concept of evil, moral responsibility, collective agency, vengeance, and forgiveness.

Author : O. Jensen,C. Szejnmann
Publisher : Springer
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2008-11-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780230583566

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Ordinary People as Mass Murderers by O. Jensen,C. Szejnmann Pdf

Since the 1990s scholars have focused heavily on the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and have presented a complex and diverse picture of perpetrators. This book provides a unique overview of the current state of research on perpetrators. The overall focus is on the key question that it still disputed: How do ordinary people become mass murderers?