Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing

Arne Johan Vetlesen argues that to do evil is to intentionally inflict pain on another human being, against his or her will, and cause serious and foreseeable harm. Vetlesen investigates why and in what sort of circumstances such a desire arises, and how it is channeled, or exploited, into collective evildoing. He argues that such evildoing, pitting whole groups against each other, springs from a combination of character, situation, and social structure. Vetlesen shows how closely perpetrators, victims, and bystanders interact, and how aspects of human agency are recognized, denied, and projected by different agents.