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Hello, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche constructed an argument against what he called

the herd morality of Christianity.

He complained, quote, everything that elevates an individual above the herd and intimidates the neighbor is henceforth called evil, unquote.

Nietzsche believed that it was a dangerous idea that distorted human nature, that evil was invented by a church which worshipped the week and was a completely alien

concept to the ideas of the noble philosophers of the ancient world.

Was he right then?

Did Christianity really invent the idea of evil?

And has the idea ever meant anything more than excessively bad?

With me to discuss the place of evil in Western philosophy is Jones Erwin,

lecturer in philosophy at the University of Limerick, Stephen Mulhall, tutor in philosophy at

New College, Oxford University, and Margaret Atkins Lecture in Theology at Trinity and

All Saints College at the University of Leeds.

Jones Owen, Plato used the term, how do you pronounce it, K-A-K-O-N-K-K-O-N.

K-K-K-O-K-K-O-N. K-K-K-O-K-O-N. K-K-K-O-K-O-N. What did he mean by this and I think there is a classical definition of evil? Well I think there is a question as

to whether the concept of evil arrives until Christianity as to whether there really

is a Greek conception of evil at all because in Plato there are some paradox as with regard to his conception of evil.

He seems to regard evil as a privation, an absence of being and defines good as being and therefore

evil as by definition non-being. So in one sense evil doesn't strictly speaking

exist at all. It's a privation of good. But on the other hand evil seems to play a part in

his text in terms of the characters he describes

...