A conversation on Evil, Morality and Politics

Prof. Raef Zreik, philosopher, writer and jurist

Title: A conversation on Evil, Morality and Politics

Abstract: The talk will reflect on the concept of evil and the ways it is deployed in the discourse on war and in war; the role that such deployment can play; and the many dangers associated with that. It will be argued that the concept of evil hides more that it reveals and gives a false sense of clear and determinate moral orientation and as such can work as an argument stopper and blocks deep political and moral conversation.

Bio: Professor Raef Zreik is a legal and political philosopher based in Nazareth. He graduated Harvard University, where he wrote his dissertation on Kant’s distinction between right and virtue. Zreik’s main fields of interest and research include moral, political, and legal theory, citizenship, identity politics, Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. While his major and main work is on Kant, he also wrote on Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Ronald Dworkin, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Duncan Kennedy, Theodor Herzl and Christine Korsgaard. Among his recent publications: Kant’s Struggle for Autonomy (Lexington 2023), “Zionism and Political Theology” (Political theology, 24, 2023), “The Tyranny of Truth and the Tyranny of Opinion: Thinking with Hannah Arendt” (Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 26, 2025 ).