European University Institute Library

Evil and human agency, understanding collective evildoing, Arne Johan Vetlesen

eng

index present

non fiction

Evil and human agency

electronic resource

dictionaries

67765460

Arne Johan Vetlesen

Cambridge cultural social studiesCambridge Social Sciences eBooks

understanding collective evildoing

Evil is a poorly understood phenomenon. In this provocative 2005 book, Professor Vetlesen argues that to do evil is to intentionally inflict pain on another human being, against his or her will, and causing serious and foreseeable harm. Vetlesen investigates why and in what sort of circumstances such a desire arises, and how it is channeled, or exploited, into collective evildoing. He argues that such evildoing, pitting whole groups against each other, springs from a combination of character, situation, and social structure. By combining a philosophical approach inspired by Hannah Arendt, a psychological approach inspired by C. Fred Alford and a sociological approach inspired by Zygmunt Bauman, and bringing these to bear on the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, Vetlesen shows how closely perpetrators, victims, and bystanders interact, and how aspects of human agency are recognized, denied, and projected by different agents.--, Provided by publisher

The ordinariness of modern evildoers : a critique of Zygmut Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust -- Hannah Arendt on conscience and the "banality" of evil -- The psycho-logic of wanting to hurt others : an assessment of C. Fred Alford's work on evil -- The logic and practice of collective evil : "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia -- Responses to collective evil -- A political postscript : globalization and the discontents of the self

Evil & Human Agency