Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T00:50:10.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reflexivity of Evil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

John Kekes
John Kekes
Affiliation:
Philosophy, State University of New York at Albany
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The aim of this essay is to argue for the following claims: evil is prevalent; its prevalence is mainly the result of habitual and predictable patterns of action; these actions follow from the vices of their agents; in many cases, neither the evil actions nor the vices from which they follow are autonomous; it is nevertheless justified to hold the agents who perform these actions morally responsible for them; the widespread denial of this claim rests on the principle “ought implies can”; two versions of this principle must be distinguished; neither version can be used to exempt agents from moral responsibility for their nonautonomous actions and vices; this has fundamental implications for how morality and responsibility should be conceived.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Winter 1998, pp. 216 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 For more complete accounts, see Benn, Stanley I., “Wickedness,” Ethics, vol. 95, no. 4 (07 1985), pp. 795–810CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kekes, John, Facing Evil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Milo, Ronald D., Immorality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For an account of the difficult concept of autonomy and a bibliography of the large literature on this subject, see Dworkin, Gerald, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Autonomy,” in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. Goodin, Robert E. and Pettit, Philip (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 359–65.Google Scholar

3 See Wolf, Susan, Freedom within Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 43.Google Scholar

4 See Gowans, Christopher, ed., Moral Dilemmas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar, for seminal articles and a bibliography; see also Gowans, Christopher, Innocence Lost (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Rescher, Nicholas, Ethical Idealism (Berkeley. University of California Press, 1987), ch. 2.Google Scholar

5 This is a minority view, but see Brown, James, “Moral Theory and the Ought-Can Principle,” Mind, vol. 89, no. 342 (04 1977), pp. 206–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kekes, John, “‘Ought Implies Can’ and Two Kinds of Morality,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 137 (10 1984), pp. 459–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larmore, Charles E., Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 84–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and White, Morton, “Ought and Can,” in The Idea of Freedom, ed. Ryan, Alan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 211–19.Google Scholar

6 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Smith, Norman Kemp (London: Macmillan, 1953), A548.Google Scholar

7 Kant, Immanuel, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Greene, Theodore M. and Hudson, Hoyt H. (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 43, 46, and 55.Google Scholar

8 See, for instance, Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, trans. Barnes, Hazel E. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), esp. Part IV.Google Scholar

9 Falk, W. David, “Morality, Self, and Others,” in his Ought, Reasons, and Morality (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 219.Google Scholar

10 See Frankfurt, Harry G., “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” in his The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 11–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, Charles, “Responsibility for Self,” in The Identities of Persons, ed. Rorty, Amelie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 281–99Google Scholar; and Watson, Gary, “Free Agency,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 72, no. 8 (04 1975), pp. 205–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Wolf, Susan, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility,” in Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions, ed. Schoeman, Ferdinand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 46–62.Google Scholar

12 Greenspan, Patricia, “Unfreedom and Responsibility,”Google Scholar in Schoeman, , ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions, pp. 63–80.Google Scholar

13 Fischer, John Martin, “Responsiveness and Moral Responsibility,”Google Scholar in Schoeman, , ed., Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions, pp. 81–106.Google Scholar

14 Bennett, Jonathan, “Accountability,” in Philosophical Subjects, ed. van Straaten, Zak (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 14–47Google Scholar; Scanlon, Thomas M. Jr., “The Significance of Choice,” in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. McMurrin, Sterling M. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988), pp. 151–216Google Scholar; and Strawson, Peter F., “Freedom and Resentment,” in his Freedom and Resentment, and Other Essays (London: Methuen, 1974), pp. 1–25.Google Scholar

15 Wolf, Susan, “Asymmetrical Freedom,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77, no. 3 (03 1980), pp. 151–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar