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During my Summer Research Fellowship, I conducted an independent philosophical research project examining contemporary theories of evil. My work began with a close reading of Claudia Card's The Atrocity Paradigm, which served as the primary focus of my research, alongside works by Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Throughout the summer, I also read and evaluated secondary scholarship on moral philosophy, theories of agency, and philosophical accounts of wrongdoing to better situate my research within the existing literature.
Meetings with my faculty advisor, as well as his other advisee, centered on discussing philosophical arguments, refining conceptual distinctions, and evaluating successive drafts of each other’s progressing work. Much of the project involved identifying weaknesses in various positions, particularly our own, and testing those theories against difficult counterexamples. As my research progressed, the project evolved from a mere extension of Claudia Card's account into the development of an original descriptive framework equipped for understanding the concept of evil as it functions within typical moral discourse.
The fellowship strengthened my skills in philosophical research, conceptual analysis, and academic writing. I gained experience synthesizing primary and secondary sources, constructing and defending my own original arguments, and revising my work through sustained discussion and feedback. The project also required me to think carefully about how philosophical theories are evaluated, not only for their internal consistency, but also for their ability to explain our considered moral judgments, especially when pitted against each other in cases of competing principles.
The research conducted over the summer culminated in a substantial original paper, Beyond Atrocity: A Descriptive Analysis Reconstructing the Concept of Evil, which proposes a revised framework for distinguishing evil actions from evil agents while addressing limitations in existing philosophical accounts.