In the rationale for this symposium found on the front of the brochure for it, you will find listed four of the great evils of the twentieth century: the World Wars, the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, and the Chinese “Great Leap Forward.” After listing these four, the rationale adds that in the twentieth century there have been “many other less spectacular but no less horrific examples of ideological, ethnic, and religious slaughter.” It summarizes by speaking of “the killing of millions of innocent people, the literal dehumanization that occurred in the camps, and the possibility of omnicide.”

These are, as it were, prominent limbs of the body of evil. The goal of the symposium is to uncover the anatomy of this body. We recognize the body and its various members. What remains for investigation is the body's anatomy.

I have views about the anatomy. In all the examples cited, it was the over-reaching of the state in the twentieth century that was the root of the evil. The state had broken free from its tether and become a ravenous beast on the loose, perpetrating gross injustice on its own citizens and the rest of the world. I think it would be worthwhile to pursue this thought, asking why it is that states got on the loose in the way they did, and what if anything can be done in the future to decrease the likelihood of this happening again.

But instead I have decided to use this occasion to raise some preanatomy questions that have been occupying my mind for quite some time. Before we work at bringing to light the anatomy of evil, we have to be sure that we have correctly identified the limbs of evil's body. Are we sure that the two World Wars, the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, and the Chinese “Great Leap Forward” are evils? I do not mean to ask whether possibly they are outweighed by some good in the region; I mean to ask whether they are, in and of themselves, evil. I firmly believe that they are. But why do I believe that?