Evil and degradation techniques: Phenomenology of tortured body

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to expose the tools offered by Husserlian phenomenology for the definition, description, and analysis of moral evil. My starting point is the Ricoeurian distinction between moral evil and suffering evil, in order to justify the insertion of the Husserlian analysis in both spheres. My purpose to highlight this distinction within a Husserlian interpretation frame so we can understand the suffering evil as pain, and the moral evil as violence and degradation. First, I expose the limitations of hermeneutical analysis in the assumption of pain as pure passivity. Second, I analyze the contemporary developements of the phenomenology of pain through the central concepts of the Husserlian theory of the constitution, specifically, the theory of corporeality. Third, I try to define moral evil–the same contemplated within the Ricoeurian distinction–as violence, and violence as an articulated action through an array of degradation techniques, or dehumanization, characterized by the hostile intention of the other to damage or alienate the identity of the ego by manipulating the sensible feelings of the victim, through the creation of scenarios and material conditions considered as infrahuman.