Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide

In this new contribution to philosophical ethics, Claudia Card revisits the theory of evil developed in her earlier book The Atrocity Paradigm (2002), and expands it to consider collectively perpetrated and collectively suffered atrocities. Redefining evil as a secular concept and focusing on the inexcusability - rather than the culpability - of atrocities, Card examines the tension between responding to evils and preserving humanitarian values. This stimulating and often provocative book contends that understanding the evils in terrorism, torture and genocide enables us to recognise similar evils in everyday life: daily life under oppressive regimes and in racist environments; violence against women, including in the home; violence and executions in prisons; hate crimes; and violence against animals. Card analyses torture, terrorism and genocide in the light of recent atrocities, considering whether there can be moral justifications for terrorism and torture, and providing conceptual tools to distinguish genocide from non-genocidal mass slaughter.

Author: Claudia Card
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07/01/2010
Pages: 350
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.23lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780521728362

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2011

About the Author
Card, Claudia: - Claudia Card is Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (2002), The Unnatural Lottery (1996), Lesbian Choices (1995), and more than 100 articles and reviews. She has edited several books, including The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir (Cambridge, 2003).

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