Title: Skepticism about Evil: Atrocity and the Limits of Responsibility
Abstract: Abstract This chapter contends that the concept of evil is of limited explanatory utility for moral psychology. If evil is understood as very serious wrongdoing resulting from the exercise of morally responsible agency, instances of evil are probably vanishingly rare. In service of this conclusion, it is suggested here that most wrongdoing extreme enough to be a potential instance of evil falls into two categories. The first category comprises acts performed by individuals who suffer psychological impairment that destabilizes morally responsible agency. The second category covers acts carried out by individuals constrained by circumstances in ways that destabilize morally responsible agency. Because most putative instances of evildoing fall into one of these two categories, genuine instances of evil will be rare, and evil will not be a generally useful explanatory construct. The chapter opens with some general discussion of the nature of evil in folk moral psychology, then illustrates both categories mentioned above with case studies, including psychopathic killing and violation of the laws of war. The chapter also discusses moral responsibility more generally, and considers what appropriate responses there might be to its central claims, such as embracing collective responsibility and strict liability.
Publication Year: 2022
Publication Date: 2022-02-14
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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