
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of evil. When Nietzsche killed off God he had it in for evil as well: In Beyond Good and Evil, he constructed an argument against what he called the “herd morality” of Christianity, and he complained "everything that elevates an individual above the herd and intimidates the neighbour is henceforth called evil." Nietzsche claimed that it was a dangerous idea that distorted human nature, ‘evil’ was invented by the church and was a completely alien concept to the noble philosophers of the ancient world. Was he right, did Christianity really invent the idea of evil? And has the idea meant anything more than excessively bad? With Jones Erwin, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Limerick; Stephen Mulhall, Tutor in Philosophy at New College, Oxford University; Margaret Atkins, Lecturer in Theology at Trinity and All Saints College, University of Leeds.
By BBC Radio 44.6
51095,109 ratings
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of evil. When Nietzsche killed off God he had it in for evil as well: In Beyond Good and Evil, he constructed an argument against what he called the “herd morality” of Christianity, and he complained "everything that elevates an individual above the herd and intimidates the neighbour is henceforth called evil." Nietzsche claimed that it was a dangerous idea that distorted human nature, ‘evil’ was invented by the church and was a completely alien concept to the noble philosophers of the ancient world. Was he right, did Christianity really invent the idea of evil? And has the idea meant anything more than excessively bad? With Jones Erwin, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Limerick; Stephen Mulhall, Tutor in Philosophy at New College, Oxford University; Margaret Atkins, Lecturer in Theology at Trinity and All Saints College, University of Leeds.

7,639 Listeners

301 Listeners

519 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

293 Listeners

3,223 Listeners

1,878 Listeners

870 Listeners

604 Listeners

720 Listeners

283 Listeners

2,110 Listeners

488 Listeners

4,785 Listeners

217 Listeners

360 Listeners

233 Listeners

307 Listeners

3,177 Listeners

3,370 Listeners

15,592 Listeners

1,895 Listeners

65 Listeners

814 Listeners

555 Listeners

2,409 Listeners

328 Listeners

643 Listeners

386 Listeners

239 Listeners

56 Listeners

75 Listeners

74 Listeners