Lars Fr. H. Svendsen

This is far and away one of the best books I’ve ever read on the subject of evil -- real evil. And by “real evil” I mean, simply, evil as I’ve experienced it out in the real world. The book is well reasoned, impassioned, and refreshingly free from hysterical descriptions of what Mr. Svendsen calls “demonic evil”; i.e., evil performed for evil’s sake. Simply put, “demonic evil” doesn’t exist. But real evil -- instrumental evil, idealistic evil, and what Arendt called show more “stupid” or “banal” evil -- really exists.

Clearly.

Evil exists in the world because humans are free agents. As Solzhenitsyn wrote, “the line dividing good and evil doesn’t run through different groups -- nations, classes, or political parties -- but “right through every human heart.” Yours. Mine.

"And who can kill a piece of his heart?"

Mr. Svendsen, quoting Stuart Hampshire, writes, “‘there is nothing mysterious or ‘subjective’ or culture-bound in the great evils of human experience, re-affirmed in every age and in every written history and in every tragedy and fiction: murder and destruction of life, imprisonment, enslavement, starvation, poverty, physical pain and torture, homelessness, friendlessness.’ We don’t need a theory to tell us that those evils are evil -- and every theory that concludes that these evils are not in fact evil will be wrong. As I’ve said time and again, such evils must be fought. This is the basic presupposition behind every known moral stance, and ought to be one for all political stances as well. Though different concepts of the good can lead to different priorities in the struggle against evil, all people agree on one thing: these evils, and others like them, must be opposed. What matters now is finally doing it.”

Go and do. show less

I am new to the concept of trying to understand the concepts of human identity in general and this book makes the claim of understanding human nature through animals is a new perception within the field. So, on the premise of the book I can only tell you about the concepts offered within it.
First I must admit that this was an assigned reading for a Philosophy class I am taking. Since my professor is incomprehensible, I only know what the book has taught me. So this book has taught me show more everything I know about differentiating between humans and animals. Considering the nature of my reading it was surprising that I did read the book in a single eight hour reading session. Svendson's writing is very plane. He does not assume you know the current discourse and thus his ideas are palatable. Further when he does use more complex elements within his tradition, he always explains them. However, do not assume that his simple writing makes the concepts boring.
Svendson has a lot to say on the topic of humanity versus animals (obviously since he wrote a book) and the simple language did not impede his ability to express complex ideas. He makes a number of notions that are filled with content that can and should be deliberated on by you and a few friends. There are just so many ways to apply some of his definitions for humanity that it makes sense to explore as many as you can. The problem leads to questioning how Svendson ultimately wants us to use his ideas.
I gave 4/5 because I could not quite understand what I was supposed to understand by the book. When I read a book on something I want to know what the author's conclusion is to the original question. This is a personal taste, but important to me. I believe Svendson starts off with what he believes to be true and then everything else is a justification of it. This isn't a terrible writing style, but there never seemed to be a follow up since the book ended making the claim this should be considered in the tradition that Svendson studies. As an outsider to the tradition the whole last few chapters were seemingly pointless to me. Still it had good ideas, but the thesis was not relevant to how I was using it.
Over all I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to someone with a passing interest inPhilosophy of Human Nature. Can't quite say taking a class on it was worth it, but the book definitely is worth it. (If you're curious, we only had to read this book and Frankenstein if you wanted to know what a 300 level philosophy course explores.) show less

I think it's so strange how, in the opening chapter, he contradicts religious arguments by saying they're not rational. Why on earth should we expect religious arguments to be rational.

Not finished, halfway and to be continued. But I did really enjoy the first part and the subject matter in this book.