NO PAIN, NO GAIN. THE UNDERSTANDING OF CRUELTY IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON PERSONHOOD

• Authors: Barucello Giorgio
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Almost daily, we read and hear of car bombings, violent riots and escalating criminal activities. Such actions are typically condemned as 'cruel' and their 'cruelty' is taken as the most blameworthy trait, to which institutions are obliged, it is implied, to respond by analogously 'cruel but necessary' measures. Almost daily, we read and hear of tragic cases of suicide, usually involving male citizens of various age, race, and class, whose farewell notes, if any, are regularly variations on an old, well-known adagio: 'Goodbye cruel world'. Additionally, many grave cruelties are neither reported nor even seen by the media: people are cheated, betrayed, belittled and affronted in many ways, which are as humiliating as they are ordinary. Yet, what is cruel? What meaning unites the plethora of phenomena that are reported 'cruel'? How is it possible for cruelty to be so extreme and, at the same time, so common? This paper wishes to offer a survey of the main conceptions of cruelty in the history of Western thought, their distinctive constants of meaning being considered in view of a better understanding of cruelty's role in shaping each person's selfhood.

Keywords

EN

CRUELTY; LIBERALISM OF FEAR; PAIN; PERSONHOOD; WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filozofia (Philosophy)
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 170-183
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Barucello Giorgio

• Dr. Giorgio Baruchello, Faculty of Law and Social Science, University of Akureyri Solborg v/Nordurslod , IS-600 Akureyri, Iceland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10SKAAAA088828