
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.

7,913 Listeners

314 Listeners

523 Listeners

1,067 Listeners

296 Listeners

3,196 Listeners

1,910 Listeners

870 Listeners

618 Listeners

743 Listeners

280 Listeners

2,113 Listeners

488 Listeners

4,791 Listeners

227 Listeners

346 Listeners

235 Listeners

326 Listeners

3,245 Listeners

3,358 Listeners

15,506 Listeners

1,920 Listeners

73 Listeners

689 Listeners

528 Listeners

2,552 Listeners

347 Listeners

630 Listeners

394 Listeners

239 Listeners

54 Listeners

80 Listeners

96 Listeners