@article{1477969,
      recid = {1477969},
      author = {Doubt, Keith, },
      title = {Understanding Evil : Lessons from Bosnia /},
      pages = {1 online resource (184 p.)},
      abstract = {Understanding Evil seeks to articulate the evil that  happened in Bosnia within the context of war crimes and  crimes against humanity. Its analysis centers on the  question of whether it is possible to understand evil as  action. Since the foundations of the social are found in  human action, evil's assault on these foundations results  in the demise of the social. While evil simulates the outer  form of action, ultimately evil belies itself as action.  Can someone act with an evil end? Socrates says no, no one  willingly does evil. Although, with a mixture of reason and  empiricism, the author tries hard to overcome the Socratic  position-searching for evil's agency, purpose, means,  conditions, and ethos-in the end, the search fails. The  author concludes by accepting the Socratic position: action  whose end is evil is unthinkable. This tack provides an  alternative to recent theorizing about evil by philosophers  such as Richard Bernstein and Jeffrey Alexander. The book  understands evil via a neologism-as sociocide, the  murdering of society. In Bosnia, not only were families  destroyed, but their homes as well. Not only were bridges,  libraries, schools, mosques, and churches demolished, but  towns and cities were obliterated. Bosnian Muslims were  murdered behind the mindless rhetoric of "ethnic  cleansing," and their history and collective memory were  viciously attacked. In the first case, the social violence  is called "domicide," in the second, "urbicide," and in the  third, "genocide." In Bosnia, however, war took on a truly  twisted orientation. Not only were social structures and  institutions attacked, but society itself became the  target. The book develops the significance of sociocide as  the consequence of evil in order to understand the  suffering and tragedy of people and communities in Bosnia.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1477969},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823293483},
}