Radical Evil (radikal Böse)

By “evil,” Kant does not designate any set of particularly pernicious acts, but the type of volition that underlies and makes possible immorality in all its forms. The evil person, Kant believes, “makes the incentives of self-love and their inclinations the condition of compliance with the moral law –whereas it is the latter that, as the supreme condition of the satisfaction of the former, should have been incorporated into the universal maxim of the power of choice as the sole incentive” (R 6:36). This inversion of the ethical order of priority does not entail the repudiation of “the moral law (…) in rebellious attitude (by revoking obedience to it)” (R 6:36), but its conditional respect. This fraudulent relation to morality is based on complex strategies of deception, self-deception, and rationalization. The “radical “nature of these tendencies has nothing to do with the intensity or magnitude of observable wrongdoing. Evil’s radicalism is a spatial metaphor intended to designate the locus of immorality (its “root”) in an agent’s “disposition (Gesinnung). What is most baffling the Kantian view is that evil so construed is perfectly compatible with good conduct. Indeed, under the conditions of civilization, Kant believes, it is impossible to distinguish a man of good conduct from a morally good man (RGV 6:30), for the dictates of self-love generally overlap with the prescriptions of duty. The persistence of war, poverty, oppression, and the infinity of vices which cast a dark shadow over the contemporary world speak of the prescience of the Kantian approach.

Metaphorical descriptions of wrongdoers

What is a metaphoric picture of an evil person made of? In a study devoted to the development of the ability to use metaphorical descriptions of humans, the semantic fields of four target metaphors - Human-Swamp, Human-Snake, Human-Knife, and Human-Nettle - were established and compared. Subjects (365 young adults) were asked to decipher the metaphors’ meanings. The results were obtained mainly by qualitative analysis, with frequency analysis of clusters containing synonymous meanings. The results indicate that when creating imaginary characteristics of evil people, young adults seem to be more concerned about the possibility of suffering verbal harassment (most commonly: vulgarity, mockery, gossip, jeering) than the threat of actual physical assault. The results may prove useful for developmental comparisons.

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment

Buddhists across Asia have often sought to die, as the Buddha himself is said to have done, with a clear and focused mind. This study explores the reception and development in early medieval Japan (roughly, tenth through fourteenth centuries) of the ideal of “dying with right mindfulness” (rinjū shōnen) and the discourses and practices in which it was embedded. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha at the moment of death, it was said, even the most evil person could escape the round of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in the Pure Land; conversely, even the slightest mental distraction at that juncture could send the most devout practitioner tumbling down into the evil realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could help the dying to negotiate this crucial juncture. Examination of hagiographies, ritual manuals, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, diaries, and historical records uncovers the multiple, sometimes contradictory logics by which medieval Japanese approached death. Deathbed practices also illuminate broader issues in medieval Japanese religion that crossed social levels and sectarian lines, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals.

The Concept of Evil

Though ‘evil’ is often used loosely as merely the generic opposite of ‘morally good’, used precisely it is the worst possible term of opprobrium available. In this essay it is taken as applying primarily to persons, secondarily to conduct; evil deeds must flow from the volition to do something evil. An evil action is one so horrendously bad that no ordinary decent human being can conceive of doing it, and an evil person is one who knowingly wills or orders such actions. Malignant evil—doing evil because it is evil—is not just possible but real, and is one of several kinds of evil delineated. There are incidental discussions of cruelty, Rosenbaum on Explaining Hitler, Baumeister on Evil, and Benn on wickedness.