Examining worldwide evil
May 28, 2003
Evil has been around since the Garden of Eden. Yet the buzzword for bad has made a huge comeback, especially among the media, since U.S. President George Bush denounced Iran, Iraq and North Korea as constituting an "axis of evil."
That's why evil will be examined as never before by a group of scholars at McGill. From June 2 to 6, the University is holding a conference called "Evil and international affairs: Moral rhetoric, reality and responsibility." The conference will explore religious, philosophical, political, legal and moral aspects of evil as a concept and problem in world affairs. Please read on for a complete schedule of events. Please note this conference is open to the media only.
June 2: Religions on evil
Session leaders: R. Scott Appleby, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame; Todd Lawson, Islamic Studies, University of Toronto; Barry Levy, Religious Studies, McGill University.
Session 1; 10:00 am to noon: Judaism
Questions: What is the source of evil in Judaism and Christianity? How does the existence of evil influence individual conduct? How are evil, suffering and faith related? What is the morally appropriate response to evil, injustice and suffering?
Session 2A; 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm: Religion, evil and international conflict
Questions: How do religious/cultural difference and conflict affect the contours of international political conflict and security?
Session 2B; 3:45 pm to 5:30 pm: Islam
Questions: How does the idea of God as "the Compassionate, the Caring" relate to the idea of God as judge of good and evil and the designer of the "day of reckoning"? What moral responsibilities lie with human beings?
June 3: Philosophy, politics and evil
Session leaders: Phil Buckley, Philosophy, McGill University; Alan Patten, Political Science, McGill University.
Session 3; 9:00 am to 10:30 am: Machiavelli
Questions: Was Machiavelli a "teacher of evil"? Is evil implicated in the nature of politics? How do we choose between evils? Can evil be justified in the name of political necessity?
Session 4; 11:00 am to 12:30 pm: Carl Schmitt on the friend/enemy distinction
Questions: How is the friend/enemy distinction related to the good/evil distinction in Schmitt's thought? How is the "other" constructed in international affairs? What role does the language of evil play in the construction of the other, especially in times of war? How do these constructions of the other affect the conduct of soldiers?
Session 5; 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Hannah Arendt
Questions: Is evil banal? What does it mean to attempt to eradicate the concept of a human being? How is the concept of humanity related to the concept of the modern? How does the concept of evil relate to modernity?
June 4: Evil, realism and liberalism
Session leaders: Michael J. Smith, Department of Politics, University of Virginia; David A. Welch, Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Toronto.
9:30 am - noon: Special screening: Ararat (2002) Cinéma du Parc (3575 Ave. du Parc)
Session 6; noon to 2:00 pm: The place of evil in realist thought
Questions: How are evil and tragedy related or dichotomized in realist thought? How are moral agency and responsibility related to both concepts?
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Atom Egoyan speaks on his film Ararat.
Session 7; 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm: Reinhold Niebuhr
Questions: What is Niebuhr's conception of evil and its relation to politics?
Session 8; 5:15 pm to 6:45 pm: Judith Shklar and the liberalism of fear
Questions: Does it make sense to understand liberalism in terms of a "summum malum"? Is avoidance of evil enough to ground morality? How does Shklar's "realist liberalism" contribute to the divide in IR theory between realism and idealism?
June 5: Moral and legal responsibility
Session leaders: Jutta Brunnée, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto; Tony Lang, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs; Stephen Toope, Faculty of Law, McGill University.
Session 9; 9:00 am to 10:30 am: Evil, agency and responsibility
Questions: What does "responsibility" mean at the global level? Can individuals, states and institutions be held responsible for outcomes? How are ordinary individuals, such as the butler in Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day, complicit in larger political evils? Does the moral concept of responsibility help citizens and leaders evaluate world politics? Or does it lead to practices of blaming that do not alleviate problems?
Session 10; 11:00 am to 12:30 pm: International legal responsibility
Questions: How does international law hold actors responsible for evil actions (amounting to crimes against humanity)? Who are the relevant actors, and are they treated similarly? Can courts adequately address the problem of accountability? Is the use of force ever justified? How can lawful action be taken against non-state actors (who may have the tacit or direct support of states in the perpetration of evil acts)?
Session 11; 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm: The Milosevic trial, and Congo vs. Belgium
Questions: How do leaders balance the interests of their states with the moral imperative to protect human rights? Do all states have a duty to punish crimes against humanity committed anywhere on the globe? Should other states seek to punish perpetrators when domestic processes are directed to reconciliation rather than accountability?
June 6: The moral life after evil
Session leaders: Peter Digeser, Political Science, University of California at Santa Barbara; Catherine Lu, Political Science, McGill University.
Session 12; 9:00 am to 10:30 am: Revolution, reconciliation and moral regeneration
Questions: Is human rights discourse able to transcend the politics of revolution/counter-revolution? Is tragedy an appropriate framework for understanding and judging evil caused by human actions? Does "restorative justice" take evil seriously enough? Is moral regeneration too ambitious?
Session 13; 11:00 am to 1:00 pm: Forgiveness, the unforgivable and IR
Questions: What role can forgiveness play in politics? Is political forgiveness too demanding or not demanding enough?
"Evil and international affairs: Moral rhetoric, reality and responsibility" is sponsored by McGill University, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, and the Arsenault Foundation.
