Components of Evil: An Analysis of Secular Moral Evil and its Normative and Social Implications

邪恶的世俗道德概念声称具有本体论和规范性的优先权;它描述了一个现存的代理行为类别，并为属于这一类别的行为提供了恰当的规范性判断。这个项目旨在分析和重新定义邪恶的本体论和规范性特征。第一节将确定邪恶行为的基本特征。我首先要问的是，康德的极端邪恶理论是否可以从现有的批评中拯救出来。这种分析揭示了康德关于邪恶本质的见解，这些见解以前在哲学文献中被驳回，并为我们留下了对康德论点的更微妙的看法。随后，我提供了一个假设，关于哪些方面体现了一个邪恶的行为，在对比仅仅是错误的行为。虽然现存的理论声称，无论是犯罪者的心理特征或严重的伤害是独特的邪恶，我提供了一个关系理论，解释邪恶通过一个特定的受害者和犯罪者之间举行的伴随。严重伤害是邪恶的代表，因为邪恶的受害者处于极端脆弱的地位，而代理人处于独特的地位，可以利用这种地位。第二个主要部分是规范的重点，并探讨道德责任的邪恶行为。虽然我同意流行的观点，认为邪恶的肇事者往往不满足个人道德责任的必要认知和意志条件，我质疑许多当代哲学家的结论，这些肇事者实际上缺乏道德责任。相反，我认为，道德责任的个人主义理论不足以捕捉相关功能邪恶的行为和代理人。接下来，为了回答上一节提出的挑战，我证明了邪恶行为要么是内在的，要么是事实上的集体行为。当前的文学关注的是个人的道德责任和邪恶，我把注意力转移到集体对邪恶的责任上。邪恶的发生是由于不对称的权力关系，这为集体代理人提供了利用他人极端脆弱性的独特机会。第三部分是以实践为中心。首先，我研究了一些民主社会中保护言论和结社自由的义务与历史罪恶之后道德修复的义务之间的冲突。通过对欧盟禁止否认种族灭绝的分析，我研究了通过考虑极端脆弱性和集体机构和责任来平衡这两个政治/社会承诺的挑战。在最后一节中，我研究了一个人应该如何应对人类交往中邪恶的流行的问题。我认为，接受邪恶而不试图合理化本身就是一个规范的立场，准备个人以适当的方式回应邪恶。

The secular moral concept of evil purports to have ontological and normative priority; it describes an extant category of agential action and affords apt normative judgments of acts falling under that category. This project seeks to analyze and redefine the ontological and normative features of evil. The first section will identify the essential features of an evil act. I first ask whether the Kantian theory of radical evil can be saved from established criticisms. This analysis uncovers Kantian insights concerning the nature of evil that have been previously dismissed in the philosophical literature and leaves us with a more nuanced view of Kantian arguments. Subsequently, I offer a hypothesis regarding which aspects embody an evil act in contradistinction to a merely wrong act. While extant theories claim that either a psychological feature of the perpetrator or severe harm is distinctive of evil, I provide a relational theory that explains evil through a specific concomitance held between victims and perpetrators. Severe harm is representative of evil due to victims of evil inhabiting a status of extreme vulnerability in relation to agents who are in a unique position to exploit this status. The second main section is normative in focus and investigates moral responsibility for evil acts. While I concur with prevailing views that argue that perpetrators of evil often do not satisfy the necessary cognitive and volitional conditions of individual moral responsibility, I dispute the conclusion of many contemporary philosophers that these perpetrators in fact lack moral responsibility. In contrast, I suggest that individualistic theories of moral responsibility inadequately capture relevant features evil acts and agents. Next, in order to answer the challenge posed by the preceding section, I demonstrate that evil acts are either inherently or de facto collective. While the current literature focuses on individual moral responsibility and evil, I shift attention to collective responsibility for evil. Evil occurs due to asymmetrical power relations that provide unique opportunities for collective agents to exploit the extreme vulnerability of others. The third section is practical in focus. First, I examine the conflict in some democratic societies between the duty to protect the freedoms of expression and association and obligations of moral repair following historical evil. Through an analysis of the EU ban on genocide denial, I examine the challenge of balancing these two political/societal commitments through a consideration of extreme vulnerability and collective agency and responsibility. In the final subsection, I investigate the question of how one ought to react to the prevalence of evil in human interaction. I argue that accepting evil without attempts at its rationalization is itself a normative stance that prepares the individual to respond to evil in an appropriate way.