Preventive Political Morality and the Ontology of Evil: Some Lessons from Literature and Film

• Main Author: Krešimir Petković
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia 2012-01-01
• Series: Anali Hrvatskog Politološkog Društva
• Subjects: Edyvane; political theory; political morality; literature; violence; crime
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/146970

The article uses different discourses on evil from literature and film to probe Derek Edyvane's political theory that builds a preventive political ethics arguing for "sovereignty of evil". The discussion is limited to a specific evil – violence and violent crime – while its essential causes and consequences in nature and society, and the indicated politics to address it, are subsumed under the term ontology. The underlying idea is that Edyvane must first answer more precisely what evil is and how it works in order to make it sovereign. Avoiding the consequences of evil and building a political consensus around great evils presupposes the understanding of their causes. The method of inquiry that analyses fictional material is legitimated by Edyvane's own employing of art and literature in his study, but more importantly, by special quality and insight of classical films and novels that make them useful in the exploratory phase of research that procreates hypotheses to be tested. After different discourses are explored – ones that see nature, society, politics, or all of them, as roots of violent evil and imply different ideas for its control or eradication – and Edyvane's theory is tested against them, a tentative conclusion is reached that political liberalism is perhaps the best thing that we have to date.