The Meaning of Evil
In this book, James Sias investigates the psychologies of those who have acted in ways widely regarded as evil, and uses this psychological data as a basis for developing his own theory of evil. Sometimes, he claims, an action is so horrific and despicabl
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The Meaning of Evil
James Sias
The Meaning of Evil
James Sias Dickinson College Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-56821-2 ISBN 978-1-137-56822-9 DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56822-9
(eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942089 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc., US
For Molly— who almost certainly is not evil
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been thinking about the ideas contained in this book for many years, but I only began thinking about how they might come together like this in the Spring of 2014. And that was only because one of my colleagues, Chauncey Maher, told me, “You should write a book about that.” So I did. The first person to thank, then, is Chauncey. I really doubt this book would have been written if he hadn’t insisted that he was being serious when he told me to write it. Thanks also to Susan Feldman and Jeff Engelhardt for help and support throughout the entire process. During the Fall 2014 semester, while researching for the book, I taught an undergraduate seminar on the topic of evil. For better or worse, many of our discussions involved me thinking out loud for several minutes at a time, trying to work through some of my own thoughts. So I want to thank those students for their patience and understanding, and for letting me bounce ideas off of them. They are Zachary Brode, Harper Clark, Sarah Curt, Ashley Doyle, Katelyn Eby, Brittany Horgan, Catherine Munger, Duong Nguyen, Sam Portelance, Mia Scanlon, Meghan Shippe, Jake Silvaggio, Elizabeth Smith, and Rachel Stern. I also want to thank Adam Berman, Kirsten Dedrickson, and Paul Gaver for being helpful sounding boards along the way. Research for Part I of the book was especially difficult. It is one thing to investigate various philosophical theories of evil. It is q
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