Understanding Evil - by Keith Doubt (Hardcover)

About the Book

In Understanding Evil, Keith Doubt uses the horrors of the recent war in Bosnia to develop meaningfully adequate accounts of evil within the context of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since the foundationsof the social are found in human action, evil's assault on these foundations results in the demise of the social. In Bosnia, not only were individuals, families, homes, and buildings destroyed, but entire towns and cities wereobliterated. Not only were individual human beings murdered, but so was the history and memory of vibrant communities. Crimes against humanity in Bosnia, Doubt argues, were sociocidal; they were systematic attacks on social life itself. The book develops the significance of sociocideas what evil is in order to understand the suffering and tragedy of the people and communities in Bosnia.

Book Synopsis

Understanding Evil seeks to articulate the evil that happened in Bosnia within the context of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its analysis centers on the question of whether it is possible to understand evil as action. Since the foundations of the social are found in human action, evil's assault on these foundations results in the demise of the social. While evil simulates the outer form of action, ultimately evil belies itself as action. Can someone act with an evil end? Socrates says no, no one willingly does evil. Although, with a mixture of reason and empiricism, the author tries hard to overcome the Socratic position--searching for evil's agency, purpose, means, conditions, and ethos--in the end, the search fails. The author concludes by accepting the Socratic position: action whose end is evil is unthinkable. This tack provides an alternative to recent theorizing about evil by philosophers such as Richard Bernstein and Jeffrey Alexander.

The book understands evil via a neologism--as sociocide, the murdering of society. In Bosnia, not only were families destroyed, but their homes as well. Not only were bridges, libraries, schools, mosques, and churches demolished, but towns and cities were obliterated. Bosnian Muslims were murdered behind the mindless rhetoric of "ethnic cleansing," and their history and collective memory were viciously attacked. In the first case, the social violence is called "domicide," in the second, "urbicide," and in the third, "genocide." In Bosnia, however, war took on a truly twisted orientation. Not only were social structures and institutions attacked, but society itself became the target. The book develops the significance of sociocide as the consequence of evil in order to understand the suffering and tragedy of people and communities in Bosnia.

Review Quotes

. . . Understanding Evil succeeds in both enhancing our understanding of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and of evil in our world today.-- "--Slavic Review"

Doubt is adept at identifying particular instances of the ill-effects of nationalism and how it wreaked havoc on the former Yugoslavia, and very particularly, on the Bosnian people.-- "--Human Rights Quarterly"

[A] passionataely written book. . .-----Asim Mujkic', University of Sarajevo

Doubt masterfully explicates the savage atrocities of the Bosnian war and uses those heinous deeds to construct a philosophy of evil uniquely suited for our time.-----Bob Donia, coauthor of A Tradition Betrayed

Doubt undertakes a bold and innovative sociological analysis of evil as actual social action. Invoking a rich humanistic ans sociological tradition, from Plato and Hobbes to Marx and Durkheim, the essays focus on ethnic cleansing, nationalism, and sociocide, and their evil perpetrators.-----Edward A. Tiryakian, Duke University

Social theory at its best--high-minded yet empirically rich.-----Charles Lemert, Wesleyan University

About the Author

Keith Doubt is Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department at Wittenberg University. His books include Towards a Sociology of Schizophrenia: Humanistic Reflections and Sociology after Bosnia, and Kosovo: Recovering Justice.