Rethinking Evil

Maria Pia Lara is Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Iztapalapa, Mexico.

"In an environment in which philosophy increasingly shies away from the big questions, this volume takes them on in a conscientious, analytical, and enlightening way. For Lara, the problem is not just that human beings suffer but that other human beings intentionally want to make them suffer, and to suffer in such extreme ways that the explanations offered by natural and social science seem as insufficient as those offered by older theodicies. The volume makes for engrossing reading; it sheds new light on an age-old issue." - Georgia Warnke, author of Legitimate Differences "An important work because it inaugurates a distinctive secular approach to the problem of evil, which has generally been the province of theology and the philosophy of religion." - David M. Rasmussen, editor of The Handbook of Critical Theory.

• Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Contemporary Perspectives 1 Maria Pia Lara Part One: A Critical Review of Evil 1. Is God Evil? Isabel Cabrera 2. What's the Problem of Evil? Susan Neiman 3. "Radical Finitude" and the Problem of Evil: Critical Comments on Wellmer's Reading of Jonas Peter Dews Part Two: Evil and Moral Philosophy 4. Radical Evil: Kant at War with Himself, Richard J. Bernstein 5. Reflections on the Banality of (Radical) Evil: A Kantian Analysis, Henry E. Allison 6. The Polyhedron of Evil, Gustavo Leyva 7. An Evil Heart: Moral Evil and Moral Identity, Maeve Cooke 8. Understanding Evil: Arendt and the Final Solution, Robert Fine Part Three: Postmetaphysical Approaches for a Theory of Evil 9. Toward a Sociology of Evil: Getting beyond Modernist Common Sense about the Alternative to "the Good," Jeffrey C. Alexander 10. The Evil That Men Do: A Meditation on Radical Evil from a Postmetaphysical Point of View Alessandro Ferrara 11. Major Offenders, Minor Offenders, Sergio Perez 12. On Pain, the Suffering of Wrong, and Other Grievances: Responsibility, Manuel Cruz 13. Forgiveness and Oblivion: A New Form of Banality of Evil?, Carlos Pereda Part Four: Narratives of Evil 14. "Happy Endings" hrs/hrs Unendings: Narratives of Evil, Carol L. Bernstein 15. Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment, Maria Pia Lara Notes List of Contributors Index