Transcript Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life (7th ed.)

Good and Evil
Vice and Virtue in Everyday
Life
Chapter 1
From Cruelty to
Goodness, Hallie
► What
is institutionalized cruelty?
► It is not only physical assault.
► Assault on the dignity and self-respect
of others.
► The citizens of Le Chambon as an
example of the opposite of cruelty.
The Conscience of
Huckleberry Finn,
Bennett
► The
conflict between sympathy
and bad morality.
► 3 Cases of Conscience: Huck Finn,
Heinrich Himmler, and Jonathan
Edwards.
The Conscience of
Huckleberry Finn
► Moral
principles, moral
sympathies, and moral conduct.
► The moral significance of our
sympathies.
The Evil That Men
Think—And Do, Hallie
► Was
Edwards really worse than
Himmler, as Hallie argues?
► The morality of the Walrus vs. the
morality of the Carpenter.
► Bennett’s theory of evil
overemphasizes the sympathies of the
agent, and underemphasizes the
central role of victims.
The Evil That Men
Think—And Do
► Hallie’s
critique of Hannah Arendt’s
phrase, “the banality of evil.”
► The wholeness of evil.
Facing the Extreme: The War of
All Against All, Todorov
► The
nature of human existence in the
concentration camps.
► The social contract.
► The tension between vital values and
moral values.
Strategies for Survival,
Applebaum
► The
stories of those who survived.
 Some led extraordinary lives.
► Living
“without pity”
► Ordinary virtues: caring, friendship,
dignity, the intellectual life.
The Perils of Obedience, Stanley
Milgram
► The
roles of obedience and authority in our
social life.
► Submission to authority
► The banality of evil in Milgram’s experiments
► Findings about authority
 Physical presence of experimenter.
 Conflicting authority figures paralyzes action.
 Rebellion of others undermines authority.
The Moral Insight,
Royce
► We
need a clear moral insight, not
moral sympathy.
► The moral insight:
 My neighbor is a Self.
 My neighbor and my own future self.
Billy Budd, Melville
► The
killing of Claggart by Billy Budd.
► Billy did not intend to kill Claggart.
► The position of Captain Vere: we must
adhere to and administer the law,
even when our hearts would have us
do otherwise.
Beyond Good and Evil,
Nietzsche
► The
herd instinct of obedience.
► Life is the will to power.
► Master-morality vs. Slave-morality
► “Egoism belongs to the essence of a
noble soul.” (p. 58)
► Christianity is a fatal and seductive lie,
because it embodies a “morality of
paltry people.”