Ethics of Evil

<p>In today's world where every form of transgression enjoys a psychological motive and rational justification psychoanalysis stands alone in its ability to uncover the hidden motives that inform individual and social collective behaviour. Both in theory and practice it bears witness to the impact of anonymity on the potential for perpetration especially when others are experienced as faceless disposable objects whose otherness is at bottom but a projection displacement and denial of our own interiority-in short the evil within. In keeping with this perspective <em>Ethics of Evil</em> rejects facile rationalizations of violence; it also rejects the idea that evil as a concept is inscrutable or animated by demonic forces. Instead it evaluates the moral framework in which evil is situated providing a descriptive understanding of it as a plurality and a depth psychological perspective on the threat it poses for our well-being and ways of life. In so doing it also fashions and articulates an ethical stance that recognizes the intrinsic link between human freedom and the potential for evil. </p>