180136 SE The Moral Psychology of Evil (2016S)

Contents
We are surrounded today by individual actions and group activities that invite the old, moralistic language of e v i l, a t r o c i t y, and u n m i t i g a t e d w r o n g d o i n g. At the same time, philosophical positions in the post-Enlightenment era include the Evil Skeptics (with Nietzsche perhaps the most famous), Evil Revivers, and those influenced by the accumulated social science about moral psychology, who we might call the Evil Explainers-Away. This course explores the varying assumptions, theories, and empirical findings at the center of those contested positions, and the methodology of experimental ethics. Topics include the concept of a moral monster; efforts to define evil such as those of Hanna Arendt and Claudia Card; s i t u a t i o n i s t challenges to traditional notions of vicious character; the part played by (i) early suffering and deprivation and (ii) cognitive disability and disorder in attributions of evildoing; new empirical findings and theorizing about collective wrongdoing, and finally, the implications of these debates for ethical theory.
Aims
Students will
* acquire an understanding of the leading contemporary philosophical theories of evil, including those supported by empirical methodologies
* become familiar with key psychological explanations of evildoing
* learn to interpret, clarify and critically discuss texts, ideas and empirical findings
* acquire skill in giving oral presentations and writing short essays on specifically-focused topics
Methods
* close reading of a range of texts
* group discussion
* oral presentations on reading materials