The Positive Function of Evil - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0230219551 ISBN 13: 9780230219557

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Synopsis

This collection explores the controversial and perhaps even abject idea that evils, large and small, human and natural, may have a central positive function to play in our lives. Religious thinkers from the Christian tradition have been concerned with the basic ideas explored in this collection for centuries, but very little systematic work has been done to explore this idea from the secular point of view. This collection is an important first step in filling this gap in the literature and, as such, it is a central reading for all those who are interested in better understanding key issues pertaining to human ethical existence, broadly conceived.

About this title

Review

"An unusual and stimulating collection. The presence of evil in our world, so often discussed from a religious viewpoint, is here tackled from a largely secular perspective. The papers open up a fascinating array of ethical and psychological questions about the human moral predicament."
- John Cottingham
 
 
"It is perhaps no surprise that the country which gave the world the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should also play host to creative and unorthodox work in moral philosophy. Welcome evidence of the fact comes in the shape of this stimulating volume of essays, which explore various aspects of the question whether human life is made better by the presence in it of evil."
- Edward Harcourt, University of Oxford, UK
 
 

Book Description

The only collection of its kind that explores the idea that evil is necessary for goodness from the secular point of view

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0230219551
• ISBN 13: 9780230219557
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 204
• Editor: Tabensky P.