Satanically Great Instigators and Banal Compliers

Abstract

This Reflection focuses on three of the great threats we confront in thinking about evil. First, we often forget to distinguish clearly between instigators of evil and compliers with evil. Second, we are too often tempted to think of the instigators as satanically great embodiments of pure evil—outside the moral domain. Second, we are also tempted to think that compliers are all banal and, in some sense, less guilty than the instigators.