The nature of evil a reply to Garrard

Hamilton, Christopher

doi:10.1080/13869799908520972

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The problem with (MS) is that it is inconsistent with our actual intuitions about moral sainthood. While there might be disagreement about just who counts as the morally best sort of person, most if not all putative moral saints suffer from not insignificant moral failings and vices: Martin Luther King was a philanderer; Mother Teresa confessed that for some period of time she lost her faith and on occasion declared suspect motives for caring for the hungry; Oskar Schindler's motives may not have been entirely pure; Gandhi was estranged from his family and arguably engaged in exploitive sexual relations with women to test his ascetic resolve; Socrates neglected his family; Jimmy Carter, a deeply pious and religious man, admitted to having lust in his heart, and so forth (Flanagan 1991;Hamilton 1999). If (MS) is correct then none are moral saints.…”

Section: Russell On (Mt)mentioning

confidence: 98%

In defense of the mirror thesis

Barry

2010

Philos Stud

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Section: Russell On (Mt)mentioning

confidence: 98%

In defense of the mirror thesis

Barry

2010

Philos Stud

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“…and that is one problem for (CtS). For while there might be disagreement about just who counts as the morally best sort of person, most if not all putative moral saints suffer from not insignificant moral failings and corresponding vices: Martin luther King was a philanderer; Mother teresa confessed that for some period of time she lost her faith and on occasion declared suspect motives for caring for the hungry; Oskar Schindler's motives may not have been entirely pure; gandhi was estranged from his family and arguably engaged in exploitive sexual relations with women to test his ascetic resolve; Socrates neglected his family; Jimmy Carter, a deeply pious and religious man, admitted to having lust in his heart, and so forth (Flanagan, 1991;Hamilton 1999). it is likely the case that (CtS) reduces the moral saint to a mere conceptual possibility, just as (SCt) all but defines evil persons out of existence.…”

Section: The Mirror Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extremity of Vice and the Character of Evil

Barry¹

2010

Journal of Philosophical Research

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it is plausible that being an evil person is a matter of having a particularly morally depraved character. i argue that suffering from extreme moral vices-and not consistently lacking moral vices, for example-suffices for being evil. alternatively, i defend an extremity account concerning evil personhood against consistency accounts of evil personhood. after clarifying what it is for vices to be extreme, i note that the extremity thesis i defend allows that a person could suffer from both extremely vicious character traits while possessing some modest virtue as well. By contrast, consistency theses rule out this possibility by definition. this result does not suggest that extremity accounts are flawed, however, since, as i argue, the thesis that evil people must lack moral virtue altogether effectively defines evil people out of existence and prematurely privileges skepticism about evil personhood. Ultimately, i contend that an extremity account is most consistent with common intuitions about putative evil persons as well as plausible assumptions about aretaic evaluations of character quite generally. the main fallacy which prevents people from recognizing potential Hitlers before they have shown their true faces. .. lies in the belief that a thoroughly destructive and evil man must be a devil-and look his part; that he must be devoid of any positive quality; that he must bear the sign of Cain.. .. There is hardly a man who is utterly devoid of any kindness, of any good intentions.. .. Hence, as long as one believes that the evil man wears horns, one will not discover an evil man.-erich Fromm (1973, 432) i. intrODUCtiOn ny plausible account of evil personhood must take seriously the above observation that many evildoers, even the perpetrators of great atrocities, are in some

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“…21 21 See Garrard (1998, 2002). For a reply to Garrard, see Hamilton (1999). An alternative account of evil, offered by McGinn (1997), takes the evil person to be one who takes pleasure, non‐instrumentally, in the pain and suffering of others.…”

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confidence: 99%

Beauty, Mourning and the Commemoration of Evil

Vice¹

2012

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

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The nature of evil a reply to Garrard

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

In defense of the mirror thesis

In defense of the mirror thesis

Extremity of Vice and the Character of Evil

Beauty, Mourning and the Commemoration of Evil

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