Some people on the political Left are very reluctant to deploy the concept of evil, and distrust the use to which others put it. This reluctance and distrust are, I shall argue, unnecessary. What I hope to do here is to outline a case for evil and the Left – that is, a case for saying that the Left can legitimately appeal to the concept of evil, and that it can be of some use to them.

I don't intend to offer a complete theory of evil here: it's a highly disputed area, and the case for saying that the Left can legitimately deploy the idea of evil shouldn't depend too much on the details of any specific theory. But a broad characterisation of it, based on our common understanding of the term, can be provided, and should be enough to underpin the argument for the viability of the term in the lexicon of the Left. Similarly, I won't attempt to offer a watertight definition of what it is to be on the Left – it's most unlikely that any such definition exists. I'll treat the Left as being that large group of people who are especially concerned, in the political arena, with equality, diversity, democracy, the reduction of suffering, concerns about class, and concerns about human rights. A member of the Left will be a person who is particularly committed to these things, or at least to some largish subset of these things.