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The debate of free will vs. determinism
The debate over free will
Good and evil in the history of literature
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Evil is mesmerizing. As a culture, we are fascinated not with the best of ourselves, but with the worst. Books about serial killers, real and imaginary sell in huge numbers. Movies are populated with villains so twisted and brilliant that only other brilliant psychopaths can catch them. The airwaves are flooded with documentaries and, even, entire networks covering nothing but crime and punishment. On those occasions when a real, flesh-and-blood monster is captured amongst us, each new piece of information is unleashed on the public by reporters breathless with anticipation. Horrors pile upon horrors and we drink it all in. None of this is new, of course. Hangings were public spectacles through the nineteenth century. The Lindbergh kidnapping entranced a nation in the middle of the Depression. The exploits of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger rivaled gangster movies for public attention. There is an irony in this, buried deep beneath the surface. The evil which attracts and repulses us simultaneously is all around us, in people so innocuous as to seem invisible, and we never recognize it. Perhaps it is time that we looked at both evil and ourselves more closely.
The debate over the existence of evil is as old as man and time. That discussion has twisted and bent in upon itself, woven through with questions of predestination and free will. Until now, it has largely been a question for theologians. Kevin Horrigan, a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, discussed evil in a 2005 column, writing that "classifying someone as evil involves a moral judgment, they say, not a scientific one" (B3). Psychiatrists, it seems, don't make moral judgments. They make diagnoses, and evil has never been a diagnosis.
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..., where does that leave us? Perhaps the best we can do is to recognize that evil is not a quaint notion. There are those among us for whom we are less than human, who don't recognize our right to exist, who prey upon us. By remaining willfully oblivious to this, we run the risk that Nietzsche articulated. While we are looking into the abyss, what dwells there is also looking into us.
Works Cited
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press, 1964.
Carrey, Benedict. "For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be Evil." New York Times 8 Feb. 2005: B1+.
Horrigan, Kevin. "The Measure of Evil." St. Louis Post Dispatch. 8 March 2005: B3.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. New York: Vantage Press, 1966.
Romano, Lois. "Accused Killer Is Described as 'Control Freak.'" Washington Post 5 March 2005: A1+.
Ramsland, Katherine M. The mind of a murderer: privileged access to the demons that drive extreme violence. Santa Barbara, California: Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, 2011.
Buckman, Adam. “Following Footsteps of a Killer.” New York Post (Nov. 2002): 124: Proquest. Web. 28 Feb. 2014
"Joe Ball | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers." Joe Ball | Murderpedia, the Encyclopedia of Murderers. Juan Ignacio Blanco, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Claudia Card sees evil as “foreseeable intolerable harms produced by culpable wrong doing”, thus she builds her theory and views around this definition (Card, pg.3). She distinguishes wrongdoing and evil acts by the consequences and results of those actions, and to what extent they harmed the victim. She sees evils as actions that ruin people’s lives that achieve significant harm that causes permanent or difficult to recover from damage (Card, pg.3). However, she does make a point of differentiating evildoers from evil people, as they do not always have the purposeful intention to do the evil that they cause (Card, pg.4).
Hannah Arendt discovered a concept known as “The banality of Evil” during the time of the Holocaust, she wanted to understand the nature of evil and explain how it can be different from the concept of radical evil. Her theory arose from the actions led by a man whose job was to organize the transportation of Jews to concentration camps in various cities. Adolf Eichman was a typical Bureaucrat. Arendt described him as an average joe whose sole purpose was to be successful and follow the orders lead by his superior, Hitler. The orders led by Hitler are portrayed as motives led by absolute evil or “radical evil”. Arendt noted in her philosophy paper that there is a significant difference of character in Hitler and Eichman such that Hitler was
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book about the Eichmann trials, written in Hannah Arendt's perspective. Hannah Arendt was a German-American political theorist, who was often labeled as a philosopher. During the trials she offered herself as a reporter for The New Yorker magazine. Arendt was a Jew, and an early refugee from Germany, making her uniquely qualified to cover the trial, but conversely created controversy among the Jewish community. Arendt received static from the public because she was a Jew defending the morals of a Nazi. Throughout the trial, Arendt composed her impressions of Eichmann and articulated her opinion of the defendant. Throughout the Report on the Banality of Evil, Arendt explores the allegations from a legal and moral perspective, claiming that Eichmann is not a monster or the radical evil, but rather, the "banal evil." Although Eichmann's actions were legally wrong, Arendt saw a moral indifference. She believed that the Eichmann's case posed a moral question, and the answer to it may not have been legally relevant
Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the Boston Strangler, Jeffrey Dahmer. Despite the years of history that separate these names, they remain indelibly preserved within our collective societal consciousness because of the massively violent and calculated nature of their crimes. Serial killers, both men and women, represent social monstrosities of the most terrifying variety. They are human predators, cannibals in a figurative and, often, literal sense, and are therefore uniquely subversive to society's carefully constructed behavioral tenets. They frighten because they are human in form but without the social conscience that, for many, defines humanity. They capture the public eye because they terrify, but also because they elicit a sort of gruesome curiosity about the human potential for evil; as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde alleges, wickedness lies within each heart, waiting only for the proper time and impetus to break free.
“Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other” (Eric Burdon). People do not think they are doing good or evil, they just think that they are doing the right thing. Evil comes from within each one of us. You just need to something to bring it out.
Simon, Robert I. "Serial Killers, Evil, And Us." National Forum 80.4 (2000): 23. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Berns, Walter. "Getting Away With Murder." Commentary 97.4 (1994): 25. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 14
Fox, J., & Levin, J. (2014). America’s 1 Fascination With Multiple Homicide. Extreme Killing Understanding Serial and Mass Murder Third Edition (pp. 4-7). Northeastern University: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Carrey, Benedict. “A Tense Compromise on Defining Disorders.” New York Times 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.
To many in the United States and Europe, World War II is an icon that represents unimaginable turmoil and tragedy. The hardships brought about by World War II raises the theodicy question of how a righteous God could allow the Nazi’s to reign. Elie Wiesel was one of the many Jews who were persecuted during this period of history. When he was fifteen years of age, Wiesel was a prisoner in the infamous Aushwitz concentration camp (Brown vii). In an introduction to the trial of god, writer Robert Brown takes note of what Wiesel witnessed.
By recognizing evil as banal, society is forced to face the reality that monstrous acts are not committed by those carrying an abnormal trait. It is the normality and mediocrity which terrified Arendt, along with others who study the Eichmann trial. It is the way in which evil became so average that makes Eichmann as dangerous as he was considered, not just the thoughtless acts he committed. By changing views on evil, however, society will be able to makes steps toward understand how events such as genocide can occur within the larger society.
Beasley, James. 2004. “Serial Murder in America: Case Studies of Seven Offenders.” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 22: 395-414