The Oddity of Theodicy

For many years, Google’s unofficial mantra was, reportedly, “Don’t be evil.” This sounds simple, and is a great aspiration, but is a) too low a bar (note the double negative, it’s not “be good”), and b) presumes that a bunch of computer scientists and business leaders are also fairly sophisticated philosophers who have a robust…

Institutions and Evil

What do we do when we believe that people we disagree with are not only misguided, but evil, and a threat to our society, values, or even the world? If we believe that the depth of the threat excuses actions we would otherwise condemn (e.g., violence, humiliation, theft, separation of families), we are confronted with…