Ethics of Evil: Psychoanalytic Investigations - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782203958 ISBN 13: 9781782203957

Publisher: Routledge, 2016

Synopsis

In today's world where every form of transgression enjoys a psychological motive and rational justification, psychoanalysis stands alone in its ability to uncover the hidden motives that inform individual and social collective behaviour. Both in theory and practice, it bears witness to the impact of anonymity on the potential for perpetration, especially when others are experienced as faceless, disposable objects whose otherness is, at bottom, but a projection, displacement, and denial of our own interiority-in short, the evil within. In keeping with this perspective, Ethics of Evil rejects facile rationalizations of violence; it also rejects the idea that evil, as a concept, is inscrutable or animated by demonic forces. Instead, it evaluates the moral framework in which evil is situated, providing a descriptive understanding of it as a plurality and a depth psychological perspective on the threat it poses for our well-being and ways of life. In so doing, it also fashions and articulates an ethical stance that recognizes the intrinsic link between human freedom and the potential for evil. The essays collected in Ethics of Evil argue that moralizing evil is one of the most important agendas of our time

About this title

Review:

Ronald C. Naso and Jon Mills have edited a fascinating, comprehensive volume on a topic of immense importance that for too long has been neglected by psychoanalytic writers. With a high degree of scholarship, the book's various contributors address the multiple sources and faces of evil. In so doing, they penetrate deeply into the heart, soul, and justifications that underlie an ethics of evil. --Peter Shabad, PhD, author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy
In a book as sobering as its topic, the editors bring together a wide variety of perspectives on evil, all motivated by the conviction that evil is a multi-faceted reality that psychoanalysis has the power to illuminate. Global in its scope, the book convincingly brings theoretical, empirical, and clinical material to bear on its argument that evil remains a powerful way of thinking about human hatred and vulnerability, even - or especially - in the modern world. --C. Fred Alford, Professor of Government and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, University of Maryland, College Park, and author of What Evil Means to Us and Think No Evil

About the Author:

Ronald C. Naso, PhD, ABPP is psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in independent practice in Stamford, CT. He is currently a director and secretary of the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis as well as a consultant and supervisor in the Internship and Postdoctoral Fellowship training programs at the Child Guidance Center of Southern Connecticut. The author of numerous papers on psychoanalytic topics and associate editor of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies, contributing editor of Division/Review, his book entitled Hypocrisy Unmasked: Dissociation, Shame, and the Ethics of Inauthenticity was published by Aronson in 2010.

Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP is a philosopher, psychologist, and psychoanalyst. He is a Diplomate in Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology with the American Board of Professional Psychology, Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology, Fellow of the Academy of Psychoanalysis, and is past President and Fellow of the Section on Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology of the Canadian Psychological Association. A Professor of Psychology and Psychoanalysis at the Adler Graduate Professional School in Toronto, he is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology and is the editor of two book series as well as the author of several books. He maintains a private practice and runs a mental health corporation in Ontario, Canada.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1782203958
• ISBN 13: 9781782203957
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Mills Jon, Naso Ronald C.