Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide

Description

In this contribution to philosophical ethics, Claudia Card revisits the theory of evil developed in her earlier book The Atrocity Paradigm (2002), and expands it to consider collectively perpetrated and collectively suffered atrocities. Redefining evil as a secular concept and focusing on the inexcusability - rather than the culpability - of atrocities, Card examines the tension between responding to evils and preserving humanitarian values. This stimulating and often provocative book contends that understanding the evils in terrorism, torture and genocide enables us to recognise similar evils in everyday life: daily life under oppressive regimes and in racist environments; violence against women, including in the home; violence and executions in prisons; hate crimes; and violence against animals. Card analyses torture, terrorism and genocide in the light of recent atrocities, considering whether there can be moral justifications for terrorism and torture, and providing conceptual tools to distinguish genocide from non-genocidal mass slaughter.

Claudia Card is Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (2002), The Unnatural Lottery (1996), Lesbian Choices (1995), and more than 100 articles and reviews. She has edited several books, including The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir (Cambridge, 2003).

'With this book, written with her characteristic clarity, precision, and thoroughness, Claudia Card strengthens and extends her important philosophical investigation of evil. Her analysis of the distinction between evil and lesser injustices, and the distinctions between evil, radical evil, and diabolical evil are of enduring significance for philosophy. So is her calm, unblinking confrontation with a wide range of the horrific evils of our age.' Lawrence C. Becker, Hollins University 'The question of how to respond to evils has received insufficient attention in both the literature on evil and in philosophical discussions of terrorism, torture, and genocide ... Card's book is a very valuable addition to philosophical discourse on evil.' Jessica Wolfendale, Social Theory and Practice