The Sacred and the Bad
The Sacred and the Bad
Badness is not understood here, in parallel with goodness, as resemblance to a transcendent Bad. Rather it is understood in relation to the Good, as privation of goodness, more gravely as opposition to goodness, or in the most horrifying cases as violation of something sacred. This chapter takes a widely shared sense of moral horror at certain actions as a clue in developing the relevant concepts of violation (here preferred to that of defilement) and the sacred. The treatment of the sacred in terms of images of God provides a context for an account of the special value of persons as persons.
Keywords: badness, defilement, horror, persons, privation, sacred, value
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