Evil, Privation, Depression and Dread

In this essay I examine the idea that evil is to be understood as a kind of absence or a privation. I put forward two arguments against this idea. The first claims that if evil is an absence it becomes causally powerless, which seems strongly contradicted by experience and revelation. The other argu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Robson, Mark Ian Thomas (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge University Press 2013
In: New blackfriars
Year: 2013, Volume: 94, Issue: 1053, Pages: 552-564
Further subjects:B privatio boni
B Evil
B Privation
B Depression
B Brian Davies
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Summary:In this essay I examine the idea that evil is to be understood as a kind of absence or a privation. I put forward two arguments against this idea. The first claims that if evil is an absence it becomes causally powerless, which seems strongly contradicted by experience and revelation. The other argument says that the idea that evil is an absence cannot do justice to the evil of depression. Depression is a set of feelings which are all too real, and so cannot be understood as literally identical with a set of absences.
ISSN:1741-2005
Contains:Enthalten in: New blackfriars
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-2005.2012.01516.x