#503 Luke Russell - Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective
RECORDED ON APRIL 22nd 2021.
Dr. Luke Russell is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research explores moral philosophy and he has written about evil, forgiveness, virtue and vice. Dr. Russell teaches ethics, moral psychology, and critical thinking, as well as running the University’s high school philosophy course, Mind and Morality. His new book is Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective.
In this episode, we focus on Being Evil. We ask what evil is, and go through several different criteria we can use to say that a particular action or person in evil, including its extremity, the consequences, incomprehensibility, people’s reactions, the perpetrator’s motives, and others. We talk about depictions of evil in fiction, and ask if they are useful. We discuss some possible psychological traits of evil people, and refer to Arendt’s banality of evil. Finally, we discuss if people are born evil, and what we can do to help them.
Time Links:
Intro
What is evil?
Evil in fiction
Is evil banal?
Other criteria – motives, reactions, incomprehensibility
Are people born evil?
Preventing evil
Follow Dr. Russel’s work!
Follow Dr. Russell’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/2NPUeDX
PhilPeople page: https://bit.ly/3tChm8F
Being Evil: https://amzn.to/39qJVOT