The 20th century witnessed the Holocaust, an unparalleled evil in the eyes of most people, and attempted genocide in Rwanda. The beginning of the 21st century saw the launching of a so-called "war" against terrorism, proclaimed to be a struggle of good against evil.
Robert L. Holmes, internationally known professor of ethics and peace studies, will present "The Nature of Evil" on Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m. in Sudro Hall 24. The presentation is the Northern Plains Ethics Institute spring lecture.
"But what is evil?" Holmes asks. "If we don't know what we're struggling against, we're unlikely to be successful. We can kill plenty of people, but we won't know that we're killing evil people. Nonviolence provides a perspective from which to answer this question and points the way to a more constructive response to violence than mere condemnation and force."
Holmes is professor emeritus at the University of Rochester. He is the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Professor of Peace and Disarmament, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is a former Fulbright Lecturer at Moscow State University. Most recently, he held the McCullough Distinguished Visiting Professor of Political Philosophy at Hamilton College. He also has served as president of the international group, Concerned Philosophers for Peace.
For more information, contact Dennis Cooley at 1-7038 or dennis.cooly@ndsu.edu