Conceiving Evil: A Phenomenology of Perpetration

By Wendy C Hamblet

Philosopher Wendy C. Hamblet argues that the radically polarized and oversimplified view that sorts the world into 'good guys' and 'evil others' is a framework as old as human community itself, and one that undermines people's own moral infrastructure, permitting them to take up the very acts that they would readily demonize in others. We reframe our own violent responses to the human condition from 'unskillful and undesirable actions' to 'valiant heroic reactions'. In short, those who see 'evil' in others are far more likely to do 'evil,' resorting to the least skillful means for navigating difference--violence. When conflict is understood positively as the confrontation of differences, an unavoidable and indeed desirable consequence of the rich tapestry of earthly life, then a discussion can open as to how to navigate the countless confrontations of difference in the most skillful way. In theory, violence is demonized as 'evil' in popular and criminological discourse and calls forth acts of vengeance in individuals and punitive responses in state institutions. However, punishment is itself defined as an 'evil' inflicted by a legitimate authority upon a wrongdoer in compensation for a wrong done. This leads to the conundrum that the state, as much as the vigilante, must necessarily undermine its own legitimacy by taking up the very acts that it deems as evil in its enemies and punishes in its deviant citizens. By reframing conflict positively, Hamblet introduces a new way of thinking about difference that allows the reader to appreciate (rather than tolerate) difference as a desirable feature of a multicultural, multi-religioned, multi-gendered world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 162894093X
• ISBN13: 9781628940930
• Release Date: August 2014
• Publisher: Algora Publishing
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.5"