Perspectives on Evil
Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness is a wide ranging project which seeks to explore issues connected with evil, suffering, pain and the consequences of human actions. It recognises that even the language of ‘evil’ is a problem, and attempts to find ways of beginning to make sense of human wickedness.
Key themes that are central to the project include;
- the language of evil
- the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
- moral intuitions about dreadful crimes
- psychopathic behaviour; is a person mad or bad?
- choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
- social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
- the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
- suffering in literature and film
- individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
- terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
- the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
- the nature and tasks of theodicy
- religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
- postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
- ecocriticism, evil and suffering
- evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
Related themes will also be identified for development and exploration. Out of our deliberations it is anticipated that a series of related cross context research projects will develop.
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