This timely book by philosopher Peter Dews explores the idea of evil, one of the most problematic terms in the contemporary moral vocabulary. Surveys the intellectual debate on the nature of evil over the past two hundred yearsEngages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Levinas and AdornoSuggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic point in western cultureArgues that, despite the widespread abuse and political manipulation of the term ‘evil’, we cannot do without itConcludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must acknowledge its religious dimension