McBride on The Nature of Evil @cambridgelaw

Nicholas McBride, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law, has published The Nature of Evil. Here is the abstract.

This 30 page paper sets out the argument about the nature of evil that will comprise the first half of a book I hope to work on entitled ‘Deliver Us From Evil: Essays on the Limits of Law’. It criticizes existing definitions of evil and offers a (relatively) novel definition of evil that better fits the way we think about what is and is not evil, and also accounts for the repulsiveness of evil. After reflecting on how we can classify evildoers, and the characteristic targets of evil, it concludes by setting out the ways in which evil places limits on (a) what respect for the rule of law demands; (b) the validity of laws; and (c) how much law can do to eradicate evil.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.