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Evil and Collective Moral Failures
Gideon Calder 
Moral Evil in Practical Ethics, Issue: 1, Pages: 129 - 144
Swansea University Author:
Gideon Calder
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DOI (Published version): 10.4324/9780429455926
Abstract
Most debates about evil centre on the applicability of the term to individuals’ actions, their motives and effects. Might collective moral failures – where the malignant intentions of specific individuals cannot by themselves account for the scale of the harms involved – be designated as ‘evil’? I f...
| Published in: | Moral Evil in Practical Ethics |
|---|---|
| ISBN: | 978-1138316041 |
| Published: |
Abingdon and New York
Routledge
2018
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| Online Access: |
https://www.routledge.com/Moral-Evil-in-Practical-Ethics/Harrosh-Crisp/p/book/9781138316041 |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa45231 |
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| Abstract: |
Most debates about evil centre on the applicability of the term to individuals’ actions, their motives and effects. Might collective moral failures – where the malignant intentions of specific individuals cannot by themselves account for the scale of the harms involved – be designated as ‘evil’? I first defend collective moral failure as a distinct category. I then argue that such phenomena cannot be sufficiently accounted for in terms of the malignant intentions of individuals. I then consider and reject three ways of claiming that evil must be individuated (and so inapplicable to collective moral failures). I then argue that for evil to be a predicate of such events, it must be locatable in social situations, relations or structures – but as something to be explained, rather than itself an explanation. Handled with due care, such a deflationary conception of evil may play a role in our understanding of, and response to, collective moral failures. |
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| Keywords: |
evil, social structures, agency |
| College: |
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
129 |
| End Page: |
144 |