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Systemic Evil
Structural evil or systemic evil is evil which arises from structures within human society, rather than from individual wickedness or religious conceptions such as original sin. One example of Structural evil within a society would be slavery. Structural evil arises within human societies because of the way humans act. Multiple individuals have commented and theorized on the subject of structural evil. Among these early thinkers are Rousseau and Robespierre. However, more modern thinkers on this subject are Thomas Nagel, Claudia Card, Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, and John Langan. Early Thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau proposed that the structures of human society were the main source of evil in his works such as the Discourse on Inequality (''Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes''). He believed that humans are good by nature, but are rendered corrupt by society. Rousseau's reasoning is as follows: if society is supposedly composed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evil
Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is generally seen as taking multiple possible forms, such as the form of personal moral evil commonly associated with the word, or impersonal natural evil (as in the case of natural disasters or illnesses), and in religious thought, the form of the demonic or supernatural/eternal. While some religions, world views, and philosophies focus on "good versus evil", others deny evil's existence and usefulness in describing people. Evil can denote profound immorality, but typically not without some basis in the understanding of the human condition, where strife and suffering ( cf. Hinduism) are the true roots of evil. In certain religious contexts, evil has been described as a supernatural force. Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wickedness
Wickedness is generally considered a synonym for evil or sinfulness. Among theologians and philosophers, it has the more specific meaning of a profound evil committed consciously and of free will. It can also be considered the quality or state of being wicked. As characterized by Martin Buber Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ... in his 1952 work ''Bilder von Gut und Böse'' (translated as ''Good and Evil: Two Interpretations''), "The first stage of evil is ' sin,' occasional directionlessness. Endless possibility can be overwhelming, leading man to grasp at anything, distracting and busying himself, in order to not have to make a real, committed choice. The second stage of evil is 'wickedness,' when caprice is embraced as a deformed substitute for genuine will and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Sin
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), in a line in Psalm 51:5 ("I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me"), and in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21 ("Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned"). The belief began to emerge in the 3rd century, but only became fully formed with the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who was the first author to use the phrase "original sin" ( la, peccatum originale). Influenced by Augustine, the councils of Carthage (411–418 AD) and Orange (529 AD) brought theological speculation about original sin into the official lexicon of the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as Racism, race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be Manumission, granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntary slavery, voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. His '' Discourse on Inequality'' and ''The Social Contract'' are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. Rousseau's sentimental novel '' Julie, or the New Heloise'' (1761) was important to the development of preromanticism and romanticism in fiction. His ''Emile, or On Education'' (1762) is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society. Rousseau's autobiographical writings—the posthumously published '' Confessions'' (composed in 1769), which initiated the modern autobiography, and the unfinished ''Reveries of the Solitary Walker'' (composed 1776–1778)—exemplified the late 18th-century " Age of Sensibility", and featured ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly, and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage, the right to vote for people of color, Jews, actors, domestic staff and the abolition of both clerical celibacy and French involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1791, Robespierre was elected as " public accuser" and became an outspoken advocate for male citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and to the commissioned ranks of the army, for the right to petition and the right to bear arms in self defence. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the convocation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics. Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his essay " What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to liberal moral and political theory in ''The Possibility of Altruism'' (1970) and subsequent writings. He continued the critique of reductionism in '' Mind and Cosmos'' (2012), in which he argues against the neo-Darwinian view of the emergence of consciousness. Life and career Nagel was born on July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), to German Jewish refugees Carolyn (Baer) and Walter Nagel. He arrived in the US in 1939, and was raised in and around New York. He had no religious upbringing, but regards himself as a Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudia Card
Claudia Falconer Card (September 30, 1940 – September 12, 2015) was the Emma Goldman (WARF) Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with teaching affiliations in Women's Studies, Jewish Studies, Environmental Studies, and LGBT Studies. Education She earned her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1962) and her M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1969) from Harvard University, where she wrote her dissertation under the direction of John Rawls. At the University of Wisconsin, she was mentored by Marcus George Singer, who picked her out as an undergraduate to be his T.A. MGS encouraged her to pursue a PhD at Harvard, and fought for her tenure at UW Madison. (source, MG Singer & C. Card conversations and writings.) Career Card joined the faculty in the philosophy department at Wisconsin straight from her Harvard studies. She held visiting professorships at The Goethe Institute (Frankfurt, Germany), Dartmouth College (Hanover NH), and the Unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discourse On Inequality
''Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'' (french: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes), also commonly known as the "Second Discourse", is a 1755 work by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau first exposes in this work his conception of a human state of nature, broadly believed to be a hypothetical thought exercise and of human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He then explains the way in which, in his view, people may have established civil society, and this leads him to conclude that private property is the original source and basis of all inequality. Context The text was written in 1754 in response to a prize competition of the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: "What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by natural law?" Rousseau did not win with his treatise (as he had for the ''Discourse on the Arts and Sciences''); a canon of Besançon by the name of François Xavi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin suffix ("act of killing").. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly. The Political Instability Task Force estimated that 43 genocides occurred between 1956 and 2016, resulting in about 50 million deaths. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Evil
Structural evil or systemic evil is evil which arises from structures within human society, rather than from individual wickedness or religious conceptions such as original sin. One example of Structural evil within a society would be slavery. Structural evil arises within human societies because of the way humans act. Multiple individuals have commented and theorized on the subject of structural evil. Among these early thinkers are Rousseau and Robespierre. However, more modern thinkers on this subject are Thomas Nagel, Claudia Card, Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, and John Langan. Early Thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau proposed that the structures of human society were the main source of evil in his works such as the Discourse on Inequality (''Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes''). He believed that humans are good by nature, but are rendered corrupt by society. Rousseau's reasoning is as follows: if society is supposedly composed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
