The aim of this module is to introduce students to the philosophical and theological discussion of good and evil. Throughout the course, we will be connecting these philosophical problems to their real-life implications and consequences, ending with the question of how evil and suffering could be ethically represented. This module will be a journey through Western intellectual history to see how the problem of evil has been approached in different times and why. We will start with popular representations and understandings of good and evil in philosophy and art, and then turn to an analysis of The Book of Job, which, being a thorough theological investigation into the universal theme of unjust human suffering, is often regarded as one of the biblical answers to the problem of evil. This will be followed by discussing the theological problem of evil – the question of how God can allow so much evil and suffering in the world – as well as attempts at defending the idea of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God. We will then jump to how these problems were reinterpreted in modern times by looking at modern moral philosophy and an existentialist reading of the Book of Job by the 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. We will go “beyond good and evil” by consulting Friedrich Nietzsche, discuss how the literature of the absurd responds to the radical violence of the 20th century, and face the banality of evil and the problems it poses to the idea of free will and ethical choice, as explored by Hannah Arendt.
