Idea of Evil

Peter Dews is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex. He has published widely on 19th and 20th century European thought, with a focus on German Idealism, the Frankfurt School, and recent French philosophy. He is the author of Logics of Disintegration (1987, reissued 2006), and The Limits of Disenchantment (1995). He has also edited and introduced two books on the work of Jürgen Habermas: Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jürgen Habermas (1986) and Habermas: A Critical Reader (Blackwell, 1999).

This timely book by philosopher Peter Dews explores the idea of
evil, one of the most problematic terms in the contemporary moral
vocabulary.

• Surveys the intellectual debate on the nature of evil over the
  past two hundred years

• Engages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from
  Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to
  Levinas and Adorno

• Suggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic
  point in western culture

• Argues that, despite the widespread abuse and political
  manipulation of the term 'evil', we cannot do without
  it

• Concludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must
  acknowledge its religious dimension

Résumé
This timely book by philosopher Peter Dews explores the idea of evil, one of the most problematic terms in the contemporary moral vocabulary.

• Surveys the intellectual debate on the nature of evil over the past two hundred years
• Engages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Levinas and Adorno
• Suggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic point in western culture
• Argues that, despite the widespread abuse and political manipulation of the term 'evil', we cannot do without it
• Concludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must acknowledge its religious dimension

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1

Kant: The Perversion of Freedom

Towards the end of his lecture course on the history of philosophy, delivered in Berlin during the 1820s, the dominant thinker of the age paid homage to the achievement of a great predecessor. It was Immanuel Kant's decisive insight, Hegel declared, that

for the will ... there is no other aim than that derived from itself, the aim of its freedom. It is a great advance when the principle is established that freedom is the last hinge on which man turns, a highest possible pinnacle, which allows nothing further to be imposed upon it; thus man bows to no authority, and acknowledges no obligations, where his freedom is not respected. 1

Hegel's encomium still succeeds in conveying the original impact of Kant's thought, the sense of a new philosophical dawn which the Critical Philosophy aroused amongst contemporaries. From the first, Kant's philosophy was recognized as revolutionary - and in a more than merely metaphorical sense. For as Hegel, with thirty years' hindsight, insisted in his lectures, the principle that inspired the storming of the Bastille, the principle of rational self-determination, was also the essential principle of Kant's thinking. The contrast between Hegel's homeland and France consisted only in the fact that the principle had been developed by philosophers in Germany, whereas across the Rhine a precipitate attempt had been made to bring political reality into line with it: 'The fanaticism which characterized the freedom which was put into the hands of the people was frightful. In Germany the same principle asserted the rights of consciousness on its own account, but it has been worked out in a merely theoretic way.' 2 Hegel is critical of the extent to which Kant's thought still embodies what he sees as the shallow rationalism of the Enlightenment. But he deeply respects Kant's insight into the status of autonomy, as an aspiration intrinsic to human self-consciousness in its capacity to rise above all natural determinations: 'there is an infinite disclosed within the human breast. The satisfying part in Kant's philosophy is that the truth is at least set within the heart; and hence I acknowledge that, and that alone, which is in conformity with my determined nature.' 3

For Hegel and his contemporaries, what Kant had demonstrated was that human beings do not possess freedom as a particular capacity (the power to choose a course of action - or to refrain from action - spontaneously, without any prior determination). Freedom must be construed as autonomy, as the capacity to think and act in accordance with principles whose validity we establish for ourselves through insight. And freedom in this sense is the rational core of human subjectivity as such. For Kant, however, there are different ways of acting in accordance with a self-determined principle; not just any action is free in the full meaning of the word. If the principle we accept tells us how we should act in order best to fulfil a specific need or desire, then the motive for our adherence to the principle stems from the need or desire which we happen to have. In this case we follow what Kant terms a 'hypothetical imperative': a command which tells us that if we want to achieve b , then we should do a . But Kant also thinks we are capable of acting in accordance with a categorical imperative - an unconditional command always to conform to a specific principle of action. We experience imperatives as categorical, however, only when they do not enjoin us to achieve any particular end. For questions can always be raised about the desirability of an end, however intuitively appealing it may be. To regard an imperative as unconditionally binding because of its particular content would be irrational, for this would amount to saying that I should do whatever I am ordered to do, simply because/sp

Contenu

List of Abbreviations vi

Preface viii

Introduction 1

1 Kant: The Perversion of Freedom 17

2 Fichte and Schelling: Entangled in Nature 46

3 Hegel: A Wry Theodicy 81

4 Schopenhauer and Nietzsche: Suffering from Meaninglessness 118

5 Levinas: Ethics à l'Outrance 158

6 Adorno: Radical Evil as a Category of the Social 187

Conclusion 212

Bibliography 235

Index 246