In the Philebus, Socrates constructs a dialectical argument in which he purports to explain to Protarchus why the pleasure that spectators feel when watching comedy is a mixture of pleasure and pain. To do this he brings in phthonos (malice or envy) as his prime example (47d-50e). I examine the argument and claim that Socrates implicitly challenges Protarchus’ beliefs about himself as moderate and self-knowing. I discuss two reasons to think that more is at stake in the argument than (...) the mixed pleasure and pain of comic malice. (shrink)

In online multiplayer games, players sometimes engage in “griefing”—deliberately harassing others without advancing any in-game objective. This paper argues that such virtual malice is morally wrong. Through philosophical analysis and empirical research, I argue that griefing causes real psychological distress for players, bridging the gap between virtual actions and real-world harm. A well-known World of Warcraft case—the “Serenity Now” funeral raid—illustrates the practice of griefing and its emotional impact on a gaming community. Applying multiple ethical frameworks (utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, (...) virtue ethics, and social contract theory) confirms that griefing is ethically indefensible under each. This convergence underscores that even in games, deliberately harming others for its own sake violates basic moral standards. (shrink)

This chapter reads Twilight of the Idols against Beyond Good and Evil to reveal a shift in tone from the vitriol of the earlier text to the good-natured, light-hearted chaffing of the later work, despite Twilight’s subtitle ‘How to Philosophize with a Hammer’ and despite the text’s closing injunction—borrowed from the pity-hobbled Zarathustra—to “become hard!” (Z3 ‘On Old and New Law Tables’ 29, KSA 4:268). Thus, while Nietzsche’s rhetorical arsenal is still in combat mode, his objective is no longer to (...) slash and burn but to jape and jibe. A glaring exception to this tonal shift is ‘The Problem of Socrates,’ an early Twilight chapter in which Socrates’ reputed ugliness precipitates a return to the arguably ugly animus of Beyond Good and Evil. The following chapter is divided into two halves: The first maps out Nietzsche’s path from the malice of Beyond Good and Evil to the magnanimity of Twilight, while the second examines the philological bad faith in Nietzsche’s elaborate rhetorical ruses aimed at proving to the reader that Socrates was a decadent. (shrink)

This book is about the inner roots of malice.

Schopenhauer is one of the few philosophers in the history of Western ethics to dedicate sustained critical attention to the nature, extent, and phenomenology of malice. Yet while other aspects of Schopenhauer's moral psychology have received significant attention, his nuanced account of malice is under-explored. This paper attempts to remedy this oversight. It argues that Schopenhauer defends a unified and hierarchical account of moral vice in which malice is a sui generis motive, the pinnacle of immorality, and (...) far more pervasive in the human psyche than typically recognized. Moreover, it is argued that part of the significance of Schopenhauer’s account lies in how his idiosyncratic conceptual framework allows him to philosophically capture many widespread beliefs about malicious persons — particularly the view that malice is best explained in terms of the agents own inner-suffering. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer’s views about malice raise a number of interpretive puzzles, which the paper subsequently aims to elucidate and solve. (shrink)

This essay explores David Hume's account of malice, as well as the principle of comparison that underwrites the sentiment. Considered an indirect passion by Hume, malice "gives us a joy in the sufferings of others" in that these pains can make our own more fortunate circumstances appear more prominent by comparison. We will investigate the possibility that there may be two distinct types of malice when we canvas the intentional objects of the sentiment. Finally, malice will (...) be held to serve a key explanatory function in a novel resolution of the paradox of tragedy. (shrink)

À partir de sa clinique, l’auteur montre que le fantasme de Cupidon est un des fantasmes organisateurs du couple. Il précise ensuite trois configurations de ce fantasme qui organisent chacune une combinaison particulière du conjugal et du parental.

In the early 1990s, the Commonwealth reformed its political structure to allow interference in domestic affairs of member states. This article examines whether such an institutional transformation has helped the organization to fulfil its purpose to work in the common interests of member countries and of their people. The article demonstrates that, while, as a consequence of post-Cold War globalization, concerns about the Commonwealth's political credibility and public perception have relaxed Commonwealth leaders' reluctance to accept legally binding norms of the (...) organization, strong resistance to Commonwealth interference in internal affairs exists among developing member states. It is argued that, because the new Commonwealth political structure lacks legitimacy and is contrary to the real interests of the majority of members, institutionalizing the Commonwealth has not contributed to the formation of a collective identity among Commonwealth members and to the resolution of the problem of inequality within and without the organization. (shrink)

This article addresses three interpretive errors that are common with respect to Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of malice. The first error concerns the interpretation of malice as consisting in the preference or choice of a lesser good over a greater good. I argue that malice instead consists in a disorder of the will, and where that disorder results in the choice of a spiritual evil. The second error occurs when one charges Thomas with inconsistency: it is claimed that (...) Thomas’s view of the will is incompatible with malicious actions. I argue that such claims rest on a mistaken understanding of the role of choice in Thomas’s thought. The third error is one of translation: some scholars caution against translating Thomas’s malitia as “malice.” The reasons that are usually given for this view do not hold up to scrutiny. (shrink)

The article explores two recurring themes in the scholarly writings on ‘transferred malice’ the doctrine designed by Anglo-American law to allow full criminal responsibility where the defendant caused harm to a different object than the one he had in mind, due to either accident or mistake. First, in face of the diversity of views advocating the eradication of transferred malice, the article searches for the provinces in which that doctrine should still have relevance to our legal system. It (...) is often assumed that malice cannot transfer amongst different offences, which has led many scholars to conclude that the doctrine is superfluous. The analysis here offered counters both assumption and conclusion alike, as well as the common view that differentiates between the implications of accident and mistake. Second, reflecting on the different criteria proposed to restrict the implementation of transferred malice such as physical and immediate harm to the actual object, remoteness of the actual harm from the harm intended, and foreseeability as to the actual harm the article provides an analytical framework by which to assess these criteria and to determine which of them proves more persuasive. The result is a notion of transferred malice that strikes a favourable balance with the requirement of mens rea. (shrink)

In both their external and internal communications, organizations tend to present diversity management approaches and corporate social responsibility initiatives as a kind of morally ‘good’ organizational practice. With regard to the treatment of employees, both concepts largely assume equality to be an indicator of organizational ‘goodness’, e.g. in terms of equal treatment, or affording equal opportunities. Additionally, research on this issue predominantly refers to prescriptive and imperative moralities that address the initiatives themselves, and values them morally. Schopenhauer opposes these moralities (...) by conceptualizing morality as exclusively being based on the incentives of acting instead of the actions themselves. He identifies egoism, compassion, and malice as the sole incentives for every human action, whereby only those actions solely motivated by compassion can be ascribed genuine moral worth. In this context, this article shows that from a Schopenhauerian perspective, CSR and DM initiatives only have a genuine moral worth in so far as the individuals who have initiated or supported their implementation were exclusively motivated by compassion. Stressing the narrative of a business case, if utilized as a façade for true compassion that attaches economic legitimacy to these initiatives, does not necessarily harm their moral worth. The approach and the findings developed in this paper contribute to the discourse on the ethical behavior of organizations, as well as to the discourse on CSR and DM. (shrink)

(2013). Hume's Theory of Pity and Malice. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 324-344. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.692664.

Inchoate crime consists of acts that are regarded as crimes despite the fact that they are only partial or incomplete in some respect. This includes acts that do not succeed in physically harming the victim or are only indirectly related to such a result. Examples include attempts (as in attempted murder that does not eventuate in the killing of anyone), conspiracy (in which case the crime has only been planned, not yet acted out) and incitement (where the inciter does not (...) himself commit the crime he is urging others to undertake). The present paper attempts to analyze these inchoate crimes from a libertarian perspective, based on the non-aggression principle. (shrink)

Transferred malice, or transferred intent, is the criminal doctrine that states that if D tries to kill A, and accidentally kills B, the intent to kill transfers from A to B, and so D is guilty of murdering B. This is widely viewed as a useful legal fiction. One of the finest essays on this topic was written by our honorand, Douglas N. Husak. Husak views both the potential usefulness of, and his preferred alternative to, transferred malice through (...) the lens of sentencing – how much hard treatment the offender will receive. In this essay, I take a step back and ask in what ways transferred malice might be useful. I find its potential usefulness is not restricted to sentencing, but thinking about other ways in which it might be useful actually brings other potential drawbacks into focus – in particular, I argue, transferred malice mislabels the crimes the offender committed, and does so in a way that erases one of the victims from the moral description of the crime. (shrink)

The deontic relevance of motives in virtue ethics is examined. Various types of virtue ethics are distinguished. Only some of them endorse the usage of the deontic concepts of obligation, wrongness, and permissibility. Hursthouse's neo‐Aristotelian theory is a type of virtue ethics that utilizes deontic concepts, but it yields a completely objective conception of deontic status. That is, motives never make a difference to the deontic status of an action. This is problematic. Michael Slote's non‐Aristotelian theory is examined next. In (...) his theory a motive like malice is strongly wrong‐making: any action from malice is wrong. An example of a prosecutor acting from malice is considered. Slote's position that such a person necessarily acts wrongly is refuted. Further objections to his position are presented. Slote's recent position aligns him with Hursthouse. Virtue ethics oscillates between asserting that motives are never relevant deontically and asserting that some motives are strongly wrong‐making. (shrink)

What does it mean to do wrong for its own sake, and is this even possible? I call this the puzzle of malice, and in this paper I review a historical dialectic that plays out between Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche on how to address it. By reviewing each author’s account of malice, and their criticism of their respective predecessor, I reach several surprising findings: First, that Nietzsche has a positive account of malice (albeit one on which it (...) isn’t always a vice); second, that recent attempts to defend Schopenhauer’s account of malice fail; third, that Nietzsche’s account bears more resemblance to Kant’s than to Schopenhauer’s; and fourth that Nietzsche’s broad account of malice sheds light on moral phenomena left out of more conventional approaches (e.g. willful defiance of the sacred). (shrink)

This chapter discusses the issue of medical narcissism as seen in the film _Malice_ (1993). The film focuses on a pathologically narcissistic physician, Dr. Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin), who proclaims himself as God during deposition in which he is defending himself against the malpractice allegations of a former patient, Tracy Safian (Nicole Kidman). Dr. Hill personifies a typical narcissistic mix of charm, brilliance, and grandiosity, whether he is mesmerizing the operating room staff with his surgical virtuosity or sweeping women off (...) their feet. The chapter argues that while physicians do need a healthy sense of self to survive the psychological rigors of their work and to maintain therapeutic relationships with patients, claims that Jed Hill's narcissism is justified by his awesome technical skills is itself an idealizing, narcissistically based rationalization that only perpetuates that kind of pathological behavior. Narcissists like Jed Hill have no place in medicine, and allowing their behavior to go unaddressed redounds to no one's advantage. (shrink)

In Treatise 2.3.4 Hume provides an explanation of why ‘we naturally desire what is forbid, and take a pleasure in performing actions, merely because they are unlawful’. Hume’s explanation of this phenomenon has barely received any attention so far. But a detailed analysis bears fruit for both Humean scholarship and contemporary moral psychology. After putting the passage in its context, I explain why desiring and taking pleasure in performing certain actions merely because they are unlawful poses a challenge to Hume’s (...) theory of evaluation. Then I propose a solution of the challenge which draws on Hume’s treatment of malice, and highlights the role played by comparison and the self in these apparently paradoxical passions. Finally, I distinguish three views in contemporary discussions of desiring something under the guise of the bad (negationism, parasitism, at-face-valuism), and I argue that Hume’s account stands out as a particularly plausible version of the third view. (shrink)

The article seeks to demonstrate that hypotheticals which depict collective criminality shed light on the contested issue of conceptualizing criminal intent. Since the formulation of the doctrine of transferred malice in the English Common Law, criminal law has been grappling with the question of framing intent as either object-specific or type-oriented. This question is particularly salient where the defendant caused harm to a different object than the one he had in mind, either by accidentally missing the target or as (...) a result of mistaken identification. In such cases, an object-specific conceptualization does not permit conviction for the harm caused, whereas a type-oriented one does, as would the doctrine that transfers the defendant’s intent from the intended person or object to the one actually harmed. Utilizing a methodology of embedding instances of accidental miss-aim and mistaken identification into scenarios that involve multiple accomplices, the article argues that the object-specific conceptualization of intent has the advantage of being most suited for assigning liability to the participants in an offence. The analysis offered also supports equal treatment of accidents and mistaken identification. (shrink)

The Psalms are a heterogeneous collection of texts that may come from many different periods, yet a reasonably consistent picture emerges of the sins they mention. These are mostly to do with social interactions, though there is some attention to sins of thought and intent. Because so many Psalms are concerned with supplications by those oppressed by others, the emphasis tends to fall on malice rather than on more ‘obvious’ sins such as murder or adultery, which are little mentioned. (...) There is not much reflection on the nature of sin as such, though Psalm 51 suggests that it goes back even as far as one’s conception. (shrink)

Common law treats cases of misfire in which the actor has a valid defence in relation to either the intended victim or the victim actually harmed as particular instances of ‘transferred malice’. It is said that just as the actor’s intention is fictitiously ‘transferred’ from the intended victim to the victim harmed so are defences, meaning that any—and only—defences that would have been available to the actor had he harmed the intended victim will be granted to him with regard (...) to the harm caused to the actual victim. I argue that the blanket solution of transferring defences ‘as is’, without accounting for their differing rationales and their specific implications for cases of misfire, produces bad reasoning and oversimplified decisions—and should therefore be substituted by a separate examination of the actor’s liability with respect to each victim and each type of defence. However, I reject the more robust argument that commentators have made, that a conclusion against transferring defences entails a conclusion against transferred malice in general. I argue that the underlying logic of transferred malice—i.e., treating victims of equivalent wrongs alike—stays intact even if we excise from it the treatment of cross-victim defences. (shrink)

Malice that cannot speak its name, cold-blooded but secret hostility, impotent desire, hidden rancor and spite--all cluster at the center of envy. Envy clouds thought, writes Joseph Epstein, clobbers generosity, precludes any hope of serenity, and ends in shriveling the heart. Of the seven deadly sins, he concludes, only envy is no fun at all. Writing in a conversational, erudite, self-deprecating style that wears its learning lightly, Epstein takes us on a stimulating tour of the many faces of envy. (...) He considers what great thinkers--such as John Rawls, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche--have written about envy; distinguishes between envy, yearning, jealousy, resentment, and schadenfreude ; and catalogs the many things that are enviable, including wealth, beauty, power, talent, knowledge and wisdom, extraordinary good luck, and youth. He looks at resentment in academia, where envy is mixed with snobbery, stirred by impotence, and played out against a background of cosmic injustice; and he offers a brilliant reading of Othello as a play more driven by Iago's envy than Othello's jealousy. He reveals that envy has a strong touch of malice behind it--the envious want to destroy the happiness of others. He suggests that envy of the astonishing success of Jews in Germany and Austria may have lurked behind the virulent anti-Semitism of the Nazis. As he proved in his best-selling Snobbery, Joseph Epstein has an unmatched ability to highlight our failings in a way that is thoughtful, provocative, and entertaining. If envy is no fun, Epstein's Envy is truly a joy to read. (shrink)

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”—so says Hanlon’s Razor. This principle is designed to curb the human tendency toward explaining other people’s behavior by moralizing it. We ask whether Hanlon’s Razor is good or bad advice. After offering a nuanced interpretation of the principle, we critically evaluate two strategies purporting to show it is good advice. Our discussion highlights important, unsettled questions about an idea that has the potential to infuse greater humility and civility (...) into discourse and debate. (shrink)

Another version of Kant's Categorical Imperative is the Formula of Humanity. This is investigated with regard to its treatment of the deontic relevance of motives. The portion of the formula prohibiting treating humanity merely as a means is shown to yield an implausibly subjective conception of deontic status. It is more plausible to take the essence of the Formula to be a requirement to treat rational agents as ends. The special meaning of ‘end’ is explored, and it is shown that (...) it can support a largely objective conception of deontic status. The question of whether motives can ever be relevant deontically, given this interpretation, is then investigated. Evidence from Kant's _Metaphysics of Morals_ is examined, in particular, the passages that discuss motives like malice. Kant's position about such motives seems to be ‘intrinsic Kantianism’: any action from malice is wrong. To make malice strongly wrong‐making in this way is implausible. (shrink)

Against the background of a great deal of structural symmetry between intellectual and moral virtue and vice, it is a surprising fact that what is arguably the central or paradigm moral vice—that is, moral malevolence or malevolence proper—has no obvious or well-known counterpart among the intellectual vices. The notion of "epistemic malevolence" makes no appearance on any standard list of intellectual vices; nor is it central to our ordinary ways of thinking about intellectual vice. In this essay, I argue that (...) there is such a thing as epistemic malevolence and offer an account of its basic character and structure. Doing so requires a good deal of attention to malevolence simpliciter. In the final section of the essay, I offer an explanation of our relative unfamiliarity with this trait. (shrink)

This chapter shows how the recursive account can illuminate a large number of particular virtues and vices, identifying both, what they have in common that makes them virtues or vices and what distinguishes them from each other. It identifies three main categories of vice, made such by three different elements of the recursive account, and three main categories of virtue. Among the particular vices discussed are malice, callousness, cynicism, selfishness, and cowardice; among the virtues are benevolence, compassion, courage, modesty, (...) and self‐control. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Dante's Mission The Journey Begins Vestibule (Ante‐Hell): The Indecisive Neutrals Upper Hell: Sins of Unrestrained Desire (the Wolf) River Styx, Walls of the City of Dis Lower Hell: Sins of Malice Leading to Violence (the Lion) Lower Hell: Sins of Malice Leading to Fraud (the Leopard) Dante's Existential Lessons in Hell.

This chapter surveys answers to the question of whether there is a psychological hallmark of evil action. Arendt, Card, and Formosa think that evil actions can be banal, in that an evildoer need not act out of malice or with sadistic pleasure, and need not know that he is acting wrongly. According to this psychologically thin account, there is no psychological hallmark of evil action. Some advocates of competing psychologically thick accounts of evil action, including Singer, Kekes, McGinn, and (...) Steiner, directly contradict Arendt, and argue that an action can be evil only if it is malicious, or only if it is accompanied by sadistic pleasure, or only if the agent does what he knows is morally wrong. Garrard and Morton think that Arendt is right to claim that evils need not be malicious, sadistic, or defiant, but that there is a complex psychological hallmark of evil action nonetheless. (shrink)

The topic of the deontic relevance of motives is introduced: can the motive of an action ever be the reason, or part of the reason, that the action is morally right or wrong? The deontic concepts of obligatory, wrong and merely permissible are explained and distinguished from other moral concepts such as moral worth, a virtue and a vice. Three arguments from the literature that seem to show that motives are never relevant deontically are presented. These arguments derive from deontologists (...) like Kant and Ross, as well as from consequentialists like J. S. Mill. Certain apparent counterexamples to the assertion that motives are never relevant deontically are presented. There seems to be a plausible case for the claim that motives like malice and racism are sometimes wrong‐making. (shrink)

Seven questions were posed at the end of Chapter 1. Four of them have been answered. Extrinsic consequentialism has emerged as the most plausible approach to the deontic relevance of motives. It is employed in addressing the remaining questions. These center on the issue of whether there are, or could be, obligation‐making motives. Ross argued, by appealing to the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ that there could not be an obligation‐making motive. It is contended that Ross himself showed that there (...) is a viable conception of an obligation‐making motive that does not violate this dictum. If motives are a sort of desire, it seems that obligation‐making motives violate Kant's implicit claim that a hypothetical moral imperative is self‐contradictory. The extrinsic consequentialist asserts that, suitably defined, there are obligation‐making motives. Two examples are presented. The practical advice an extrinsic consequentialist would give about acting on bad motives like malice is presented. (shrink)

Life, but not as we know it -- Still life in nearly present time -- Driving and the city -- Movement-space -- Afterwords -- From born to made -- Spatialities of feeling -- But malice aforethought -- Turbulent passions.

On the traditional reading, Schopenhauer claims that compassion is the recognition of deep metaphysical unity. In this paper, I defend and develop the traditional reading. I begin by addressing three recent criticisms of that reading from Sandra Shapshay: that it fails to accommodate Schopenhauer's restriction to sentient beings, that it cannot explain his moral ranking of egoism over malice, and that Schopenhauer requires some level of distinction to remain in compassion. Against Shapshay, I argue that Schopenhauer does not restrict (...) compassion to sentient beings and that a more metaphysically refined version of the traditional reading can accommodate both Schopenhauer's moral ranking of characters and allow for some level of distinction in compassion. I then turn to four further questions for the traditional reading: what the relation is between the feeling of compassionate pain and the recognition of metaphysical unity, how cognitions mediate compassion, whether compassion is limited to the present, and how the feeling of compassion relates to Schopenhauer's fundamental moral principle. I conclude by explaining how, in a reductive vein, the traditional reading can also allow for compassion to have normative content. (shrink)

Everyday moral thought uses the concepts of virtue and vice at two different levels. At what I will call a global level it applies these concepts to persons or to stable character traits or dispositions. Thus we may say that a person is brave or has a standing trait of generosity or malice. But we also apply these concepts more locally, to specific acts or mental states such as occurrent desires or feelings. Thus we may say that a particular (...) act was brave or that a desire or pleasure felt at a particular moment was malicious. Even when they concern acts, these last judgements are of virtuousness rather than of moral rightness. They therefore turn essentially on a person’s motives; while he can act rightly from a bad motive, he cannot act virtuously from a bad motive. But they assess the virtue or vice of particular acts and mental states rather than of persons or traits of character. These global and local uses of the virtue-concepts are clearly connected, in that we expect virtuous persons to perform and have, and virtuous traits to issue in, particular virtuous acts, desires, and feelings. A philosophical account of virtue should explain this connection, but there are two different ways of doing so. Each takes one of the two uses to be primary and treats the other as derivative, but they disagree about which is the primary use. A dispositional view takes the global use to be primary and identifies virtuous acts, desires, and feelings in part as ones that issue from virtuous.. (shrink)

On the traditional view, Butler maintains that forgiveness involves a kind of “conversion experience” in which we must forswear or let go of our resentment against wrongdoers. Against this reading, I argue that Butler never demands that we forswear resentment but only that we be resentful in the right kind of way. That is, he insists that we should be virtuously resentful, avoiding both too much resentment exhibited by the vices of malice and revenge and too little resentment where (...) we merely condone the wrongdoer and leave ourselves open to future injury. I argue that this Butlerian approach offers us a more attractive account of forgiveness as a “virtue” than many recent discussions. In the final section, I address Butler’s challenging thesis that forgiveness is an unconditional moral duty. I argue against those who claim that forgiveness is supererogatory (Kolnai/Calhoun) or else merely morally conditional and even morally blameworthy in some cases (Murphy/Hampton/Novitz/Richards). By contrast, I defend a context-sensitive account of forgiveness which recognizes that it takes place on many different levels. I conclude by taking up the difficult issue of whether anybody can be ultimately “unforgivable”, offering some Butlerian and Strawsonian reflections that might help mitigate our judgments about such matters. (shrink)