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Session 5b: Monstrosities of War and Genocide
Chair: Ilana Shiloh

Mordant Vision: Monstrous Terrorism or Terroristic Monsters? Examining the Creation of a Millennial War on Terror
Frank Faulkner
University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom

No abstract is presently available

Strange Hells: The British Soldier and ‘the Monster’ on The Western Front
Ross Wilson
York, United Kingdom

No abstract is presently available

Monstrous Maxim: A Defense of Kant’s Concept of Radical Evil in Understanding Genocide and Atrocity
Rachel Waterstradt
Department of Philosophy Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, California, USA

Movies are an easy place to look for “monstrous” behavior, but reality is where we truly face monsters: persons who commit such acts that we not only recoil from it, but also, from a motive other than morbid curiosity, wish to understand the behavior to insure it never happens again.  In understanding the root of these actions, Kant’s notion of radical evil is particularly illuminating.  Kant’s concept of evil and radical evil as discussed in his ethical works has been criticized by many as placing ordinary actions under the same heading as these atrocities.  In this paper I intend to defend just that position because at root – in Kant’s terminology, at the level of the maxim – there is a semblance between the rapist, genocidaire and bystander (near or far), and it is this semblance that helps us to understand how ordinary men and women can become “monsters” and also how we, in our safe living rooms, far from death and violence, can be “monsters” too.
First, I intend to present a concise account of evil and radical evil for Kant from the ethical works.  Second, I will briefly lay out the main criticism of Kant’s position, showing that the dismissal of his argument based on such a critique fails precisely because it fails to understand the standpoint from which Kant begins his entire discussion of good and evil in ethics.  Last, I intend to show the importance of including Kant’s position in any consideration of addressing the “monstrous” because to fail to do so would ultimately make these actions other than human actions and the perpetrator(s) not culpable.  Ultimately, it must be human willing, and more specifically the actions undertaken by individuals, that results in these radically evil actions; if it were something else, then why would it be evil?

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