Evil and Human Agency

Arne Johan Vetlesen is Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway. He is the author of over thirteen books including Perception, Empathy, and Judgement: An Inquiry into the Preconditions of Moral Performance (1994) and Closeness: An Ethics (with De Maleissye-Melun, 1997).

• 1. The ordinariness of modern evildoers: a critique of Zygmunt Bauman's The Modernity and the Holocaust; 2. Hannah Arendt on conscience and the banality of evil; 3. The psycho-logic of wanting to hurt others; 4. The logic and practice of collective evil: ethnic cleansing in Bosnia; 5. Responses to collective evil; 6. A political postscript: globalization and the discontents of the self.

'This book is an excellent and brave contribution to a complex topic - balanced, well-argued, informative. I recommend it to all philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists who have research interests in understanding large-scale atrocities.' Claudia Card, Philosophy Review