Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy

Written by Susan Neiman

Narrated by Susan Neiman

This compelling audiobook narrated by Susan Neiman sheds critical light on the problem of evil in modern thought, from the Inquisition to global terrorism

Evil threatens human reason, for it challenges our hope that the world makes sense. For eighteenth-century Europeans, the Lisbon earthquake was manifest evil. Today we view evil as a matter of human cruelty, and Auschwitz as its extreme incarnation. Examining our understanding of evil from the Inquisition to contemporary terrorism, Susan Neiman explores who we have become in the three centuries that separate us from the early Enlightenment. In the process, she rewrites the history of modern thought and points philosophy back to the questions that originally animated it.

Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts—combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade—eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.

Beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, this book tells the history of modern philosophy as an attempt to come to terms with evil. It reintroduces philosophy to anyone interested in questions of life and death, good and evil, suffering and sense. Featuring a substantial new afterword by Neiman that raises provocative questions about Hannah Arendt's take on Adolf Eichmann and the rationale behind the Hiroshima bombing, this Princeton Classics edition introduces a new generation of readers to this eloquent and thought-provoking meditation on good and evil, life and death, and suffering and sense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9780691215624

Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum. Her previous books, which have been translated into many languages, include Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age; Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists; Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy; The Unity of Reason; and Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin. She also writes cultural and political commentary for diverse media in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman studied philosophy at Harvard and the Free University of Berlin, and was a professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities. She is the mother of three grown children, and lives in Berlin.

Reviews for Evil in Modern Thought

[G A McKee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just finished listening to this mammoth philosophical treatise over several sleepless nights. I learnt what ‘theodicy’ was. I learnt of the impact of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake on the minds of the main philosophers of the time struggling with the problem of evil and trying to make sense of widespread suffering & pain caused by both natural events and “man’s inhumanity to man”. All this in a world supposedly created by an all good and all powerful God worshipped by the Abrahamic religions. In particular the book focused on the Christian philosophers and their intellectual enemies at the time before & after the French Revolution. Evil was treated in the book as a thing. We are powerless to control non moral evil such as the Lisbon earthquake. That is a given. As for moral evil, this is the philosophical riddle. It is clearly a paradox to the Christian mind. From my perspective the book did not discuss the theory of evil based on human diversity in neurological make up i.e., the zero degrees of empathy theory proposed by neurologist and behavioral psychology expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University. Zero degrees of empathy can be genetic i.e., caused by physical impairment of the brain’s frontal lobe or empathy circuitry. Or, it could be manufactured e.g., by the military inciting hatred and contempt for the enemy in the minds of the infantrymen, enabling them to carry out unspeakable atrocities such as the March 1968 Mai Lai massacre. At the end of the book the twin issues Auschwitz and Hiroshima were discussed in the context of the problem of evil. But it was the issue of climate change briefly covered by the author that gave me a shock. It almost suggested that a person like me who believes climate change is a natural occurrence like the Lisbon earthquake is aiding and abetting a great moral evil. I must ponder that. This book I believe would be the author’s lifetime achievement and masterpiece. It was so voluminous and rich in content that a single reading would not do it justice as only a fraction of the content could be retained. Thus it would serve as a reference book for academic students of moral philosophy and ethics.

[Cia Leest · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A truly impressive work of philosophy! It is well-written in clear sentences that do not need deciphering by professional philosophers.

[Joshua Taylor Brown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant, simply brilliant, perhaps the most memorable introduction to not only the problem of evil but the core of modern philosophy itself one could find.