Download or read book Retribution written by Marvin Henberg and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite our moral misgivings, retributive canons of justice-the return of evil to evildoers-remain entrenched in law, literature, and popular moral precept. In this wide-ranging examination of retribution, Marvin Henberg argues that the persistence and pervasiveness of this concept is best understood from a perspective of evolutionary naturalism. After tracing its origins in human biology and psychology, he shows how retribution has been treated historically in such diverse cultural expressions as law codes, scriptures, drama, poetry, philosophy, and novels. Henberg considers retributive thought in light of contemporary moral theory and current social and political concerns and advances his own theory of the morality of legal punishment."Retribution is no single doctrine or unified set of doctrines, but rather a sprawling variety of doctrines, many of them at odds with one another," observes Henberg. He suggests that understanding retributive thought as the quest for solace in the face of suffering helps to explain its variable nature. Since there is no single defensible moral criterion for identifying exact retaliation, culture is more important than nature in selecting among retributive practices. Typically, some forms of retribution are culturally approved, while others are disapproved. In place of the mistaken tendency to think of legal punishment as morally justified, Henberg maintains that legal punishment should be thought of as morally permitted. Author note: Marvin Henberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Idaho.
Download or read book Evil and the Retributive Hypothesis written by G. C. Nayak and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 1993 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book devotes itself mainly to critical examination of a system of belief, viz., the theistic belief. The problems of retributive justice, survival, personal identity, meaning of religious language, etc., come under the purview of discussion in course of this critical examination. The book, with its characteristically analytic and critical approach, raises certain interesting issues and tackles them with a freshness of insight, thus making significant contribution to the world of philosophy in general and to the area of philosophy of religion in particular.
Download or read book Evil and the Philosophy of Retribution written by Sanjay Palshikar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is ‘evil’? What are the ways of overcoming this destructive and morally recalcitrant phenomenon? To what extent is the use of punitive violence tenable? Evil and the Philosophy of Retribution compares the responses of three modern Indian commentators on the Bhagavad-Gita — Aurobindo Ghose, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi. The book reveals that some of the central themes in the Bhagavad-Gita were transformed by these intellectuals into categories of modern socio-political thought by reclaiming them from pre-modern debates on ritual and renunciation. Based on canonical texts, this work presents a fascinating account of how the relationship between ‘good’, ‘evil’ and retribution is construed against the backdrop of militant nationalism and the development of modern Hinduism. Amid competing constructions of Indian tradition as well as contemporary concerns, it traces the emerging representations of modern Hindu self-consciousness under colonialism, and its very understanding of evil surrounding a textual ethos. Replete with Sanskrit, English, Marathi, and Gujarati sources, this will especially interest scholars of modern Indian history, philosophy, political science, history of religion, and those interested in the Bhagavad-Gita.
Download or read book Retribution Reconsidered written by J.G. Murphy and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeffrie G. Murphy's second collection of essays further pursues the topics of punishment and retribution that were explored in his 1979 collection Retribution, Justice and Therapy. Murphy now explores these topics in the context of political philosophy as well as moral philosophy, and he now begins to develop some doubts about the version of the retributive theory with which his name has long been associated.
Download or read book Responsibility Character and the Emotions written by Ferdinand David Schoeman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the responsibility individuals have for their actions and characters.
Download or read book Understanding Evil written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written across the disciplines of law, literature, philosophy, and theology, Understanding Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach represents wide-ranging approaches to and understandings of “evil” and “wickedness.” Consisting of three sections – “Grappling with Evil”, “Justice, Responsibility, and War” and “Blame, Murder, and Retributivism” –, all the essays are inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary in focus. Common themes emerge around the dominant narrative movements of grieving, loss, powerlessness, and retribution that have shaped so many political and cultural issues around the world since the fall of 2001. At the same time, the interdisciplinary nature of this collection, together with the divergent views of its chapters, reminds one that, in the end, an inquiry into “evil” and “wickedness” is at its best when it promotes intelligence and compassion, creativity and cooperation. The thirteen essays are originally presented at and then developed in light of dialogues held at the Third Global Conference on Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness, held in March 2002 in Prague.
Download or read book Divine Penology written by Levi Balmer Hartman and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ethics of Capital Punishment written by Matthew H. Kramer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a fresh look at a central controversy in criminal law theory, The Ethics of Capital Punishment presents a rationale for the death penalty grounded in a theory of the nature of evil and the nature of defilement. Original, unsettling, and deeply controversial, it will be an essential reference point for future debates on the subject.
Download or read book Retribution written by Thom Brooks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retribution is perhaps the most popular contemporary theory about punishment and has enjoyed enduring appeal as the oldest, even most venerable, penal theory with its strong ancient roots. Retribution is understood in many different ways, but the standard view of retribution is that punishment is justified where it is deserved and an offender should be punished in proportion to his desert. In this volume, retributivism is examined from various critical perspectives, including its diversity, relation with desert, the link between desert and proportionality, retributivist emotions and the idea of mercy. The theory of retribution has been the subject of a revival of interest in recent years and the essays selected for this volume are the leading works on retribution from the dominant international figures in the field.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil written by Thomas Nys and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why ought we concern ourselves with understanding a concept of evil? It is an elusive and politically charged concept which critics argue has no explanatory power and is a relic of a superstitious and primitive religious past. Yet its widespread use persists today: we find it invoked by politicians, judges, journalists, and many others to express the view that certain actions, persons, institutions, or ideologies are not just morally problematic but require a special signifier to mark them out from the ordinary and commonplace. Therefore, the question of what a concept of evil could mean and how it fits into our moral vocabulary remains an important and pressing concern. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil provides an outstanding overview and exploration of these issues and more, bringing together an international team of scholars working on the concept of evil. Its 27 chapters cover the crucial discussions and arguments, both historical and contemporary, that are needed to properly understand the historical development and complexity of the concept of evil. The Handbook is divided into three parts: Historical explorations of evil Recent secular explorations of evil Evil and other issues. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evil is essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of ethics and philosophy of psychology. It also provides important insights and background for anyone exploring the concept of evil in related subjects such as literature, politics, and religion.
Download or read book The Atrocity Paradigm written by Claudia Card and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Is hatred a necessarily evil? Are some evils unforgivable? Are there evils we should tolerate? What can make evils hard to recognize? Are evils inevitable? How can we best respond to and live with evils? Claudia Card offers a secular theory of evil that responds to these questions and more. Evils, according to her theory, have two fundamental components. One component is reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm -- harm that makes a life indecent and impossible or that makes a death indecent. The other component is culpable wrongdoing. Atrocities, such as genocides, slavery, war rape, torture, and severe child abuse, are Card's paradigms because in them these key elements are writ large. Atrocities deserve more attention than secular philosophers have so far paid them. They are distinguished from ordinary wrongs not by the psychological states of evildoers but by the seriousness of the harm that is done. Evildoers need not be sadistic: they may simply be negligent or unscrupulous in pursuing their goals. Card's theory represents a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic alternatives (including Kant's theory of radical evil). Utilitarians tend to reduce evils to their harms; Stoics tend to reduce evils to the wickedness of perpetrators: Card accepts neither reduction. She also responds to Nietzsche's challenges about the worth of the concept of evil, and she uses her theory to argue that evils are more important than merely unjust inequalities. She applies the theory in explorations of war rape and violence against intimates. She also takes up what Primo Levi called "the gray zone", where victims become complicit in perpetrating on others evils that threaten to engulf themselves. While most past accounts of evil have focused on perpetrators, Card begins instead from the position of the victims, but then considers more generally how to respond to -- and live with -- evils, as victims, as perpetrators, and as those who have become both.
Download or read book Being Evil written by Luke Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We regularly encounter appalling wrongdoing, with the media offering a depressing parade of violent assault, rape, and murder. Yet sometimes even the cynical and world-weary amongst us are taken aback. Sometimes we confront a crime so terrible, so horrendous, so deeply wrong, that we reach for the word 'evil'. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were not merely wrong, but evil. A serial killer who tortures their victims is not merely a bad person. They are evil. And as the Holocaust showed us, we must remain vigilant against the threat of evil. But what exactly is it? If we use the word 'evil', are we buying into a naive Manichean worldview, in which two cosmic forces of good and evil are pitted against one another? Are we guilty of demonizing our enemies? How does 'evil' go beyond what is merely bad or wrong? This book explores the answers that philosophers have offered to these questions. Luke Russell discusses why some philosophers think that evil is a myth or a fantasy, while others think that evil is real, and is a concept that plays an important role in contemporary secular morality. Along the way he asks whether evil is always horrific and incomprehensible, or if it can be banal. Considering if there is a special psychological hallmark that sets the evildoers apart from the rest of us, Russell also engages with ongoing discussions over psychopathy and empathy, analysing the psychology behind evildoing.
Download or read book Evil written by Luke Russell and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When asked to describe wartime atrocities, acts of terrorism, and serial killers, many of us reach for the word "evil." But what does it mean to say that an action or a person is evil? Some philosophers have claimed that there is no such thing as evil, and that thinking in terms of evil is simplistic and dangerous. In response to this sceptical challenge, Luke Russell shows that concept of evil has a legitimate place within contemporary secular moral thought. In this book he addresses questions concerning the nature of evil action, such as whether evil actions must be incomprehensible, whether evil actions can be banal, and whether there is a psychological hallmark that distinguishes evils from other wrongs. Russell also explores issues regarding the nature of evil persons, including whether every evil person is an evildoer, whether every evil person is irredeemable, and whether a person could be evil merely in virtue of having evil feelings. The concept of evil is extreme, and is easily misused. Nonetheless, Russell suggests that it has an important role to play when it comes to evaluating and explaining the worst kind of wrongdoing.
Download or read book Evil in Modern Thought written by Susan Neiman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.
Download or read book Women and Evil written by Nel Noddings and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991-05-08 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human beings love to fictionalize evil--to terrorize each other with stories of defilement, horror, excruciating pain, and divine retribution. Beneath the surface of bewitchment and half-sick amusement, however, lies the realization that evil is real and that people must find a way to face and overcome it. What we require, Carl Jung suggested, is a morality of evil--a carefully thought out plan by which to manage the evil in ourselves, in others, and in whatever deities we posit. This book is not written from a Jungian perspective, but it is nonetheless an attempt to describe a morality of evil. One suspects that descriptions of evil and the so-called problem of evil have been thoroughly suffused with male interests and conditioned by masculine experience. This result could hardly have been avoided in a sexist culture, and recognizing the truth of such a claim does not commit us to condemn every male philosopher and theologian who has written on the problem. It suggests, rather, that we may get a clearer view of evil if we take a different standpoint. The standpoint I take here will be that of women; that is, I will attempt to describe evil from the perspective of women's experience.
Download or read book The Many Faces of Evil written by Amélie Rorty and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first anthology to present the range of the forms of evil, from vice, sin, cruelty and crime to disobedience and wilfulness. The readings are drawn from an array of perspectives and each one is introduced and set in context by the author.
Download or read book Rethinking Evil written by María Pía Lara and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-11-30 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text examines evil in the context of a post-metaphysical world, a world that no longer believes in a God. The question of how and why God permits evil events to occur is replaced by the question of how and why humans perform evil acts.