Summary Of Doing Evil By Jack Katz

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In the book Seduction of Crime, Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil, Jack Katz tries to answer a simple question, “What are people trying to do when they commit crimes?” He answers this question by findings from his phenomenology studies covering a range from juvenile delinquency to the most cold-blooded murder. I am quite fascinated with the ideas of criminology, so I found this book's stories interesting. In my opinion, any type of murder is evil and a crime that must be punished. Society from the earliest of times has condemned murder by all means, and through history the punishment has varied. In recent times, majority of people and the law would argue that impassioned murder, often striking at close friends or loved ones, must …show more content…

From the class notes, phenomenology is a philosophical view that emphasizes the subjective and introspective nature of our experience. Phenomenologists seek to understand what a phenomenon is. They attempt to discover what deviance is by examining the way in which some acts and individuals come to be defined and labeled as deviant. A phenomenological approach involves conflict perspective, interpretivism and micro-sociology that sees deviancy as being relative and situational with no universal standard by which everyone can be measured. Also, a phenomenological approach believes what one society may be deemed as deviant behavior, the same act may not be seen as such by another social group in a different part of the world. It is society itself within a specific area that determines what is deviant behavior or …show more content…

If it was the other way around (the female shooting the male, it would probably be self defense). Katz explains this scenario not so much as murder but more like him sticking up for himself after years of abuse. A husband putting an end to the misery life with the wife could be seen as cowardly way of doing things, but if it was the woman committing the righteous crime however, would be more heroic and brave. Katz argues that in the husband’s mind, he was merely taking care of a problem that was haunting him and being self-righteous in order to protect his

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