A selection of the best from recent issues of the Philosopher

The development of the concept of evil has a primarily philosophical history, dating back to Plato and Aristotle's ruminations on 'moral incontinence' and vice. In more recent times, however, disciplines such as theology and psychology have stolen philosophy's thunder and attempted to define wickedness in strictly theological or psychological terms. 

The publication of Midgley's Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay, in 1984, constituted an important corrective to this anti-philosophical tendency and its re-publication now (in a second edition) indicates renewed interest amongst philosophers in this topic. In particular, Midgley sets out to distance her approach from theology: 'This book is about the problem of evil, but not quite in a traditional sense, since I see it as our problem, not God's'. That is, even if God does exist, and even if such a God has made us capable of doing evil, one still has to ask: why do human beings choose such evil? 'People often treat each other abominably. They sometimes treat themselves abominably too. They constantly cause avoidable suffering. Why does this happen?'

In an area where little recent philosophical work has been done, Midgley's approach combines recourse to ancient sources (Plato, Aristotle, Manicheanism) with reference to more modern approaches, most notably the work of Hannah Arendt. Midgley also refers extensively to developments within evolutionary theory. Midgley's own philosophical perspective on wickedness, however, remains resolutely Aristotelian throughout. On the one side, she vehemently rejects a dualism which would see evil as a privation and something extrinsic to being. 

On the other hand, she rejects the conception of evil as a positive, independent substance in its own right. With very subtle theoretical manoeuvring, Midgley positions herself between these two extremes: wickedness is not something positive but neither is it a privation of being: 'to think of wickedness not primarily as a positive, definite tendency like aggression, whose intrusion into human life needs a special explanation, but rather as negative, as a general kind of failure to live as we are capable of living'. 

For Midgley, therefore, as for Aristotle, wickedness involves an unwillingness or an incapacity to live in accordance with true human nature, which is in essence moral and good. It may be chosen voluntarily and we bear responsibility for such choices, but at the same time it signals a lack of true self-knowledge and self-realisation. For Midgley, that is all that wickedness implies: it is, in effect, merely banal ineptitude. 

This de-mythologising approach certainly has its merits with regard to the analysis of evil, a concept traditionally plagued by mystification and hyperbole. Nonetheless, at the heart of Midgley's common sense would appear to lurk a certain idealism concerning human nature and goodness. This reader at least remains unconvinced that wickedness can so easily be marginalized to the realm of human error and ignorance. 

Reviewed by Jones Irwin