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 years * Engages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Levinas and Adorno * Suggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic point in western culture * Argues that, despite the widespread abuse and political manipulation of the term 'evil', we cannot do without it * Concludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must acknowledge its religious dimension