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Conceiving Evil: A Phenomenology of Perpetration
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Bibliographic Detail
Publisher Algora Pub
Publication date August 1, 2014
Pages 184
Binding Hardcover
Book category Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN-13 9781628940947
ISBN-10 1628940948
Dimensions 0.75 by 5.75 by 8.75 in.
Weight 0.70 lbs.
Availability§ Apply Direct
Original list price $29.95
§As reported by publisher
Summaries and Reviews
Amazon.com description: Product Description: This book argues that the epistemological framework that permits us to see others as 'evil' also resituates our own moral compass and reframes our moral world such that we can justify performing violent deeds, which we would readily demonize in others, as the heroics of eradicating evil.

When conflict is understood positively as the confrontation of differences, an unavoidable and indeed desirable consequence of the rich tapestry of earthly life, then a discussion can open as to how to navigate the countless confrontations of difference in the most skillful way. Through this lens, violence comes into view as the least skillful means of responding to, and working with, difference, since violence tends to 'rebound' and leaves both victims and perpetrators worse off shameful and vengeful.

Philosopher Wendy C. Hamblet argues that the radically polarized and oversimplified worldview that sorts the phenomena of the world into 'good guys' and 'evil others' is a framework as old as human community itself, and one that undermines people's own moral infrastructure, permitting them to take up the very acts that they would readily demonize as 'evil' in others. One's own violent responses to the human condition come to be reframed from unskillful and undesirable actions to valiant heroic reactions. In short, those who see 'evil' in others are far more likely to do 'evil,' resorting to the least skillful means for navigating difference violence.

In theory, violence is demonized as 'evil' in popular and criminological discourse and calls forth 'rebounding' like responses in the form of acts of vengeance in individuals and punitive responses in state institutions. However, punishment is itself defined as an 'evil' inflicted by a legitimate authority upon a wrongdoer in compensation for a wrong done. This leads to the conundrum that the state, as much as the vigilante, must necessarily undermine its own legitimacy by taking up the very acts that it deems as evil in its enemies and punishes in its deviant citizens. By reframing conflict positively, Hamblet introduces a new way of thinking about difference that allows the reader to appreciate (rather than tolerate) difference as a desirable feature of a multicultural, multi-religioned, multi-gendered world. This resituates the discussion of conflict such that conflict response styles can be viewed as more and less skillful means of navigating impasses in a world of differences.

Editions
Hardcover
Book cover for 9781628940947
 
The price comparison is for this edition
from Algora Pub (August 1, 2014)
9781628940947 | details & prices | 184 pages | 5.75 × 8.75 × 0.75 in. | 0.70 lbs | List price $29.95
About: This book argues that the epistemological framework that permits us to see others as 'evil' also resituates our own moral compass and reframes our moral world such that we can justify performing violent deeds, which we would readily demonize in others, as the heroics of eradicating evil.
Paperback
Book cover for 9781628940930
 
from Algora Pub (August 1, 2014)
9781628940930 | details & prices | 184 pages | 5.50 × 8.25 × 0.50 in. | 0.50 lbs | List price $19.95
About: This book argues that the epistemological framework that permits us to see others as 'evil' also resituates our own moral compass and reframes our moral world such that we can justify performing violent deeds, which we would readily demonize in others, as the heroics of eradicating evil.

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