Cause Of Evil Research Articles

CHILD MURDER, PEASANT SINS, AND THE INFANTILIZING OF EVIL IN TOLSTOY'STHE POWER OF DARKNESS

InThe Power of Darkness(Vlast' t'my;1886), Tolstoy examines the nature of human evil in the unlikely context of the Russian peasantry, a class with a privileged relation to the Good throughout most of his oeuvre. Tolstoy's first major play chronicles Nikita's rise as a philandering laborer who succeeds to the fortune of his peasant employer (Pyotr) through a murder that is conceived by his mother (Matryona) and carried out by his employer's wife (Anisya). After marrying Anisya, Nikita descends into drunkenness, seduces his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, Akulina, and fathers her child. Many commentators—taking their cue from the play's subtitle, “If the claw is caught, the bird is lost” (kogotok uviaz, vsei ptichke propast’)—have followed the logic of Tolstoy's plot in search of an original sin, usually locating it somewhere in the confrontation between a backward peasantry and the forces of progress, especially money—a bane of civilization that corrupts the play's characters from without. This same logical sequence can be reversed so as to foreground not the causes of evil but its victims. Nikita's final and greatest crime is the killing of Akulina's newborn. Here Tolstoy's oft-disparaged moralism proves no less groundbreaking than his play's cutting-edge naturalism. Through an artistic strategy of moral provocation,The Power of Darknesscontributes to a modern revaluation of evil through the figure of the murdered child, a tradition that runs from Swift to Dostoevsky to the photojournalism of twentieth-century warfare.

Relational Evil, Relational Good

I first demonstrate that certain process philosophers and Aquinas hold extremely similar notions of evil. Whitehead and Hartshorne parallel Aquinas in understanding evil as relational, as a conflict of goods, and as a necessary element in a larger good. On this last point, process philosophers contend that traditional theists must either reject the claim of God's omnipotence or admit that an omnipotent God would be responsible for evil, including moral evil. I respond that Aquinas's distinction between physical and moral evil moves beyond the process position and avoids the conclusion that God's omnipotence must be abandoned. I argue that (1) the process position does not take proper account of Aquinas's claim that the cause of evil is a negation and (2) the initial criticism relies on a distinction between moral and physical evil that process philosophy cannot make.

Grzech jako choroba duszy w homilii św. Bazylego Wielkiego "O tym, że Bóg nie jest sprawcą zła"

This paper concerns literary sources of the homily Quod Deus non est auctor malorum, written by St. Basil the Great in 369 AD. St. Basil never named his sources, but lexical analysis shows both influences of the philosophical writers (Plato, Stoics, Plotinus) and the Alexandrian theologians (Clemens of Alexandria, Origen). This homily deals with four problems: 1) the cause of evil, 2) two different kinds of evil: sin (injustice) and misery, 3) the Divine therapy of the ”curable” sinners, 4) the State of „incurable” sinners (the Heli). Ali these items imply the Platonic allegory rendering injustice (that is, sin) as a corporeal sickness or illness.

La libertad agustiniana

Saint Augustine conception of freedom forges through his polemics with Manichees and Pelagians. Augustine defends the existence of freedom against the Manichees and he considerates it the real cause of evil or sin as well as capable of obteining merits. Face to Pelagians he affirms that liberum arbitrium needs God grace to do good arriving to a more perfect freedom, libertas, which consists in the need to do the good. The goal of freedom is God, man's highest good and happiness.

Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter (De mal. subs. 30-7 )

AbstractIn De malorum subsistentia chs 30-7, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. I,8 \[51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good, because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter-evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that to posit a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism, or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to be able to escape the latter consequence, if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian tenets. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his Commentary on the Categories. It is possible that Iamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments.

Sorcery accusations unleashed: the Lele revisited, 1987

AbstractThe case described—an anti-witchcraft movement headed by two Catholic priests—occurred among the Lele of the Kasai (then in Zaire) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The information was received during a brief visit in 1987. This small, local case of rage against sorcery is set in a broader context. Some nations support institutions whose express purpose is to detect, disable and punish occult evildoers, such as sorcerers, and demons. Western theology is not currently attuned to answering the questions that plague Africans about the causes of evil in the world, the causes of illness and death, questions which their pagan traditions answer all too plausibly in terms of sorcery. Some Christian denominations have defined their doctrine concerning demons in a way that accommodates local sorcery beliefs. Where the subject is barely mentionable African Christians are unable to contribute to the developing moral philosophy of the Christian Church. The novitiate training for the Catholic African clergy can give no special guidance in dealing with pastoral problems to which the pagan religion had ready answers.

Employee Vice: Some Competing Models A Response to Moberg

Abstract:Much of the current discussion of evil within business and professions locates evil within the individual employee. Dennis Moberg (1997) has argued for conceiving of employee viciousness as a lack of self-control. This paper argues, that while some evil behaviors may be well-modelled as instances of low self-control, this model does not fit much of what might qualify as evil (e.g., child-caregivers falsely accusing their fellow employees of ritual child abuse). The paper examines three alternative models of evil, two drawn from literature, one from theology, and shows why these alternative models are just as relevant for thinking about the nature and cause of evil as the low self-control model drawn from the criminology literature.How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits—Albert Camus

Employee Vice - Some Competing Models

Much of the current discussion of evil within business and professions locates evil within the individual employee. Dennis Moberg (1997) has argued for conceiving of employee viciousness as a lack of self-control. This paper argues, that while some evil behaviors may be well-modelled as instances of low self-control, this model does not fit much of what might qualify as evil (e.g., child-caregivers falsely accusing their fellow employees of ritual child abuse). The paper examines three alternative models of evil, two drawn from literature, one from theology, and shows why these alternative models are just as relevant for thinking about the nature and cause of evil as the low self-control model drawn from the criminology literature.How intoxicating to feel like God the Father and to hand out definitive testimonials of bad character and habits—Albert Camus

The evolution of evil: an inquiry into the ultimate origins of human suffering

problem of the ultimate causes of evil - especially human strife and suffering - has agitated people's minds from the beginning of history. problem was particularly acute for the Christian tradition, with its faith in an all-loving and all-powerful God. In the modern scientific worldview, various specific evils are ascribed natural origins, but contemporary habits of thought are still governed by the premise of a fundamentally beneficient Providence. With the acceptance of Darwinian natural selection, has been equated with Providence: It is widely supposed that evolution always does what is best, and always in the most efficient way. term has even come to be synonymous with progress or improvement to this popular notion by suggesting that natural selection operates always and wholly for the good of each individual organism. In The Evolution of Evil, Timothy Anders takes issue with this popular conception, and suggests that it is based on wishful thinking and anthropocentric bias. As Anders sees it, the process of evolution is neither progressive nor benign. At its every turn, evolution creates new forms of suffering, hardship, and conflict, which the organisms produced by it are obliged to endure. Anders describes the human organism's inherent physical defects, the serious disadvantages of reliance on intelligence and learning, the anti-human traditions prevalent in all human cultures, the atrocities of the ignoble savage, and the biological roots of interpersonal conflict.

Bad Books in Series: Nancy Drew in the Public Library

Bad Books in Series:Nancy Drew in the Public Library Esther Green Bierbaum (bio) We know that "bad" books—however they are defined—can become best sellers. But has popularity ensured a spot on the shelves of the public library? Children's series books,1 and particularly the Nancy Drew series, can illuminate this question. This paper looks at ideas of "badness," how bad books have been defined and labeled, and, finally, how public libraries in the past have responded to that label. The Public Library Now —and Then These days, public librarians give more thought to being alert to the public's wants and needs than to historic issues of badness. As the "Code of Ethics for Librarians" states, "Librarians must resist all effort by groups or individuals to censor library materials" (American Library Association). By extension, the librarian must also resist imposing personal preferences upon the selection of books; hence, the public librarian responds to the reading interests of the community, even if those interests include Sex, Anne Rice, Batman, and the Baby Sitters' Club. It was not ever thus. In its first half century or more—roughly from 1876 to the beginning of World War II—the public library was envisioned by its supporters and promoters as one of the engines of culture that would meld the disparate elements of the American population into a unified whole, tied with golden cords of education, common language, and civic righteousness. Upon the occasion of the dedication of the Newark Public Library's new building, John Cotton Dana declared: "And so we are, for the first time in all history, building, in our public libraries, temples of happiness and wisdom common to all" (69). In a less lofty mode, J. P. Quincy noted that the library was "the one secular institution which encourages self-development as an aim" (390). [End Page 92] Self-development was an aim; but librarians felt called to "encourage" it to appropriately high planes. Indeed, librarians accepted the role of being lamps unto the feet of the body politic and civic with more zeal than humility. There was a great amount of discussion about what constituted "good" reading and "good" books—good often being determined on the basis of rectitude of content rather than literary grace. As Dorothy Broderick has recently noted, "These librarians knew what was decent and what was improper and they were direct in their commitment to keeping out of the hands of the public anything they felt unworthy" (447). The Effects of Fiction One of the most prolonged and heated deliberations centered on "the fiction question": whether libraries should give shelf room to fiction at all and, if so, to what examples of this dubious branch of literature. In 1876, when Melvil Dewey introduced the first version of his Decimal Classification, American fiction was not even in the question, as evidenced by the fact that he provided no classification number for it, lumping whatever of it might be tolerable in with British fiction. Quincy approvingly quotes Justin Winsor's annual report of the Boston Library regarding fiction: There is a vast range of ephemeral literature, exciting and fascinating, apologetic of vice or confusing distinctions between plain right and wrong . . . which it is not the business of a town library to supply. (395) Winsor was a towering figure in the American library world of the late nineteenth century; his opinion counted. His pronouncement was not a negative speciation devised solely by librarians; Victorians on both sides of the Atlantic were forthright in expressing concern for their neighbors' moral well being, and the Little Colonel and Elsie Dinsmore were among child characters whose authors gave them opportunity to express distress over the novel reading of friends and parents. The dangers of fiction seemed real enough to warrant concern: Physicians versed in the treatment of those nerve centres, whose disorder has so alarmingly increased of late years, have testified to the enervating influence of the prevalent romantic literature, and declared it to be a fruitful cause of evil to youth of both sexes. (Quincy 393) Because of early medical concerns and, later, on the basis of the benttwig theory and other notions of child development...

Dissent: Perspectives from the Book of Mormon

Abstract Most scriptural references to dissent are in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon teaches that dissension is a cause of evil, suffering, and destruction; some dissenters undergo a hardening, while others may be reclaimed; preaching the gospel is the best way to reclaim dissenters; after patient endurance, compulsion may be necessary to stop militant dissenters from causing severe harm to the innocent, but compulsion should be avoided when possible; both spiritual and civic responses may be used to quell dissent; responding to dissent is not the task of leaders only; dissent is inevitable in our society and the church; and the Lord blesses the faithful who endure the trials and temptations of dissent.

Leibniz’s Conception of Metaphysical Evil

The first part of Leibniz's Theodicy ranges over many different subjects pertaining to justification of God's goodness, wisdom, and power in face of world's ills, many of which are taken up in greater detail later in work. It is perhaps this synoptic character of part one which accounts for relative brevity and obscurity of Leibniz's initial stab at question regardant la cause du mal. In section twenty Leibniz is concerned with marking out a position which avoids at once ascribing cause of evil to will of God and locating its source in some reality, such as matter, existing independently of God. The solution he offers is one which in its essentials is found in his writings both early and late: that origin of evil must be sought in the ideal nature of creature, insofar as this ideal nature exists in divine understanding, since there is an original imperfection in creature before sin, because creature is essentially limited.' Original imperfection is due to fact that God create gods, and therefore any possible creature will inevitably fall short of fullness of perfection which God possesses. In some ways imperfection helps to explain occurrence of evil, as Leibniz illustrates using example of evil of sin: because of original limitation, creature cannot know all, and can deceive itself and commit other faults.2 Leibniz then presents a kind of taxonomy of species of evil: Evil can be taken metaphysically, physically and morally. Metaphysical evil consists

Plato and the ἈΡΧΗ ΚΑΚѠΝ

Cook Wilson remarks that one of the chief doctrines of the Timaeus ‘relates to the existence of evil … all cosmogonies which attribute the world to some divine activity find a difficulty here. Some assume another spirit, an evil one, though partly subordinate to the good one; others, to avoid making an evil spiritual principle, assume an unintelligent matter, or in general some form of Necessity beside the Good Spirit. We should suppose that Plato, if not monist, would incline to the latter and should have thought he clearly adopted it in the Timaeus.’ In Laws X, ‘soul’ is the cause of evil as of good. So Plato says one thing at one time, another at another. But his interpreters do not like to admit this. Professor Cornford found the spiritual view of evil lurking in the Timaeus too. Mr. Vlastos and lately the Rév. Père Festugière, though they differ about the meaning of Laws X, agree that for Plato the κακοποιόν is always matter. I think that we should not try too hard to smooth over the discrepancies in what Plato says about evil. They call attention to something obscure, perhaps incoherent, in his metaphysical thinking.