Evil in Aristotle

Aristotle's notion of evil is highly elaborate and attractive, yet has been largely overlooked by philosophers. While most recent studies of evil focus on modern understandings of the concept, this volume shows that Aristotle's theory is an invaluable resource for our contemporary understanding of it. Twelve leading scholars reconstruct the account of evil latent in Aristotle's metaphysics, biology, psychology, ethics, and politics, and detect Aristotelian patterns of thought that operate at certain landmark moments in the history of philosophy from ancient thought to modern day debates. The book pays particular attention to Aristotle's understanding of 'radical evil', an important and much disputed topic. Original and systematic, this study is the first to provide a full exploration of evil in Aristotle's work, shedding light on its content, potential, and influence. The volume will appeal to scholars of ancient Greek philosophy as well as to moral philosophers and to historians of philosophy.

Introduction Pavlos Kontos; Part I. Kakon in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Biology: 1. Good and bad in Aristotle C. D. C. Reeve; 2. Badness as posteriority to capacity in metaphysics Theta 9 Jonathan Beere; 3. The good, the bad, and the ugly: natural teleology and its failures in Aristotle Stasinos Stavrianeas; Part II. Kakon in Aristotle's Practical Philosophy: 4. Radical evil in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics Pavlos Kontos; 5. Aristotelian demons Howard J. Curzer; 6. Aristotle on psychopathology Giles Pearson; 7. Aristotle on enduring evils while staying happy Marta Jimenez; 8. The political kakon: the lowest forms of constitutions Richard Kraut; Part III. The Presence of Aristotle in Post-Aristotelian Philosophy: 9. Plotinus against Aristotle on the problem of evil Paul Kalligas; 10. Being bad: Aristotelian resonances in Aquinas' conception of evil Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.; 11. Virtue and vice in Aristotle and Kant Stephen Engstrom; 12. Practical unintelligence and the vices Daniel C. Russell.

Pavlos Kontos is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Patras, and has published extensively on Aristotle's ethics and on phenomenology. He is the author of Aristotle's Moral Realism Reconsidered (2013) and L'action morale chez Aristote (2002).