Confronting Evils
Terrorism, Torture, Genocide

This philosophical study of collectively perpetrated and suffered atrocities examines the tension between responding to evils and preserving humanitarian values.

Claudia Card (Author)

9780521899611, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 July 2010

350 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.67 kg

'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

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.

Part I. The Concept of Evil: 1. Inexcusable wrongs
2. Between good and evil
3. Complicity in structural evils
4. To whom (or to what?) can evils be done?
Part II. Terrorism, Torture, Genocide: 5. Counterterrorism
6. Low-profile terrorism
7. Conscientious torture?
8. Ordinary torture
9. Genocide is social death
10. Genocide by forced impregnation
Bibliography
Filmography
Websites
Index.

Subject Areas: Terrorism, armed struggle [JPWL], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]