Excerpt from Philosophy of Cruelty

by Giorgio Baruchello

In the attempt to disseminate and spur philosophical reflection beyond sole academic circles, scholarly conferences and professional periodicals, Northwest Passage Books has offered me once more the opportunity to collect, revise and polish several past works of mine, which were written and published between 2000 and 2015. After a first volume focussing upon the philosophical theme par excellence, i.e. mortality, I was invited to gather and reshape articles, discussion pieces and book chapters, all of which deal with a less commonplace philosophical theme: cruelty. As the issue of mortality had led me into the history of philosophy, the lethal consequences of deficient conceptions of economics and the insights of a select group of great thinkers, so does the theme of cruelty open an equally rich spectrum of topics for keen philosophical inquiry. Fittingly, I explore here: (1) the most frequent conceptions of cruelty in Western culture; (2) some controversies surrounding its understanding in politics and in ethics; and (3) the contemporary school of political thought that is based upon its explicit and forceful rejection in the public sphere, championed by Judith Shklar and Richard Rorty, and known as liberalism of fear. I write “explore” because this is what the book consists in, chiefly: visiting strange new places, namely diverse thoughts and systems of thought, without knowing in advance where the wandering mind may end up. This book does not preach, though it does not shy away from judging, at times. It does not build a neat structure, though it organises a great variety of building blocks. Rather, this book sails over the vast sea of the Western canon and, while drawing a map of the same, it identifies the most perilous areas and the ones with fish aplenty.

Mortality terrifies and nevertheless intrigues many people for its inescapable yet definitive, indeed life-defining, character. In an analogous way, cruelty both repels for its intrinsic ugliness and yet appeals to a fond noir à contenter [a dark depth to please] that most persons experience not infrequently within their own psyche, as exemplified by the broad allure of crime novels, horror movies and the eager morbid curiosity elicited by car crashes along the busiest motorways. Possibly because of the resulting ambiguity at the heart of cruelty, which is both revolting and fascinating, philosophical works about cruelty are both sparse and ample. On the one hand, when one reviews the philosophical and theoretical literature, she discovers that there exist very few studies devoted entirely and explicitly to it. Long monographs and large tomes on cruelty are particularly rare, unlike voluminous inquiries into, say, knowledge, justice, or government. On the other hand, remarks and considerations about cruelty abound in studies dealing with cognate terms (e.g. violence, oppression, vice) and related phenomena that affect social relations nearly everywhere in the world and at a considerable variety of levels (e.g. education, crime, statehood, law enforcement, sexuality, agribusiness, healthcare). The material and the ideas presented in this book should be of interest to the reading public at large, for we all are bound to meet cruelty in our lives at some point. We may not like the idea and even less the experience, but there is often nothing that we can do about it, as some of the following chapters make clear. Also, the same material and ideas should be of interest to those academics that have not come across the past studies of mine hereby collected and re-edited, since they have obvious and obviously significant implications for sociology, criminology, psychology and legal studies. Northwest Passage Books and its chief consultant, Dr. Brendan Myers, dare cross the border separating academic and non-academic publishing, in order to let many disciplines and mental attitudes criss-cross and cross-fertilise. In the same spirit, I hope to be able to reach a most diverse readership and stimulate reflection in all departments—academic ones, yes, but above all, of human life.