Summary
Boris Johnson has described a chilling phone call in which Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile strike in the run-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Almost a year on from the start of the war, it’s tempting to see it as a clear-cut conflict between good and evil; Putin the malign aggressor bent on destruction and conquest, Zelensky the courageous defender of liberty and his country. It may be true, or at least substantially so, but is it helpful?
Seeing events through the prism of good and evil enables us to make moral judgements and define what we value. But it can also brush aside the ambiguities of complex situations and de-humanise both those we deem evil, and those we regard as good. Plato and St Augustine thought they were not opposites; that evil was the absence of good, a lack of moral imagination. Psychologists might prefer to dispense with the term ‘evil’ altogether, seeing it as human behaviour to be explained and understood.
Does evil exist? If so, what is it? And how should we deal with it?
With Ed Condon, Professor Scott Atran, Professor Lars Svendsen and Professor Tony Maden
Producer Dan Tierney
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Good evening. Of course, Boris might have got the wrong end of the stick, or maybe Mr Putin's sense of humour is as dark as his reputation. |
| 0:10.9 | But on the face of it, the threat to top the Prime Minister, and presumably half of London, with a missile, must have been a conversation stopper, to put it mildly. |
| 0:18.8 | Since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Mr. Putin has |
| 0:22.5 | been cemented in the Western mind, at least, as the epitome of evil. The war itself is being |
| 0:27.2 | seen as an existential battle between the forces of darkness and the courageous defenders of liberty. |
| 0:32.6 | It may be true, or substantially so, but is it helpful? Seeing events through the prism of good and evil does |
| 0:38.9 | enable us to make moral judgments and define what we value, but it can also brush aside the ambiguities |
| 0:44.4 | of complex situations and dehumanises both those we deem evil and those we regard as good. |
| 0:50.6 | The ancients didn't see them as opposites. Rather evil to them was the absence of good, a lack of moral imagination. |
| 0:57.7 | Philosophers and psychologists have rather given up on the idea of evil, |
| 1:01.4 | partly because it's difficult in a secular age to ground the moral consciousness |
| 1:04.8 | to support that kind of judgment, |
| 1:06.9 | partly because they preferred to regard it as something to be understood |
| 1:09.6 | rather than merely demonised. |
| 1:12.1 | What in the world is evil and how should we deal with it, the moral maze tonight? |
| 1:16.3 | Our panel, the columnist and commentator Anne McElvoy, |
| 1:19.2 | Ash Sarker from the Navarra Media Group, the historian Tim Stanley, |
| 1:22.8 | and Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation. |
| 1:27.1 | Ash is evil real to you? |
| 1:30.7 | Well, it's only since preparing for this show that I've realised how little I use the word evil |
| 1:34.8 | and almost never to explain events or individuals. |
... |
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