Good and evil are as old as ethics or morality itself. For without an understanding of religious or philosophical ethics, the moral existence of good and evil would be impossible to comprehend; the term good, for example, would be exclusively a matter of subjective personal likes and dislikes in other words, a mere matter of taste, differing from individual to individual with no real obligation to the public good or safety. As it currently stands in philosophy, for instance, the term good may be understood as engaging in righteous conduct; the term good may also be understood as an object that corresponds and fulfills natural needs inherent in human nature. These natural needs, for example, which are deeply, rooted in human nature, manifest themselves in our human desire for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, among other things. In these two senses, the term good is an objective universal value, based on the reality of man (by man I mean human beings everywhere, of course). From natural needs, we derive the doctrine of human rights. It logically follows that the things we have a natural human need for, we as human beings also have a natural right to. This idea is not only used in the real world that you and I live in; it is also used in the storyteller's world of fiction or imaginary literature. Anything working to defeat or frustrate the good in the real world or in the storyteller's world is judged evil. This is of the utmost importance to those who believe in right and wrong. For right and wrong always follow good and evil. Society can never know what right or wrong is in the domain of social human affairs, without first knowing what is good and what is evil, and what makes it so. In Trapped Between the Extremes of Good and Evil, we enter a fictional world and explore the phenomenon of good and evil through the actions of an international serial killer, angels and demons, one twin brother's hatred of the other, and a San Francisco detective caught in the middle of it all.

Alphatopbetics: Ideas We Live With and Live by Every Day of Our Life is a book inspired by the study of psychology, theology, history, science, and especially philosophy. Influenced by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Jerry Dampier has combined life experience and informal discussions to arrive at the basis of Alphatopbetics. “The ideas written about in this book are not just research based, although I have done extensive research over four or five years, the ideas I have written about are ideas in which I have had many conversations; the discussions or conversations were held with family and relatives, friends and acquaintances, academicians or college professors and classmates. They, along with the research I have put into this book, have helped me to write it.”

Alphatopbetics: Ideas We Live With and Live by Every Day of Our Life is a book inspired by the study of psychology, theology, history, science, and especially philosophy. Influenced by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Jerry Dampier has combined life experience and informal discussions to arrive at the basis of Alphatopbetics. The ideas written about in this book are not just research based, although I have done extensive research over four or five years, the ideas I have written about are ideas in which I have had many conversations; the discussions or conversations were held with family and relatives, friends and acquaintances, academicians or college professors and classmates. They, along with the research I have put into this book, have helped me to write it. About the Author: Jerry Dampier is a philosophical essayist and studies psychology at Argosy University. He is the author of the novels The Pedagogy and the Boys from Beal Alley Boulevard, Trapped Between the Extremes of Good and Evil, and The Downfall and Rise of Steven Leroy Zienner. He is currently writing his next novel, The Romantic Comedies of Clover.Born in Akron, Ohio, he now lives in San Francisco. Publisher's website: http: //SBPRA.com/JerryDampie

The idea of moral evil has always held a special place in philosophy and theology because the existence of evil has implications for the dignity of the human and the limits of human action. Andrew M. Flescher proposes four interpretations of evil, drawing on philosophical and theological sources and using them to trace through history the moral traditions that are associated with them. The first model, evil as the presence of badness, offers a traditional dualistic model represented by Manicheanism. The second, evil leading to goodness through suffering, presents a theological interpretation known as theodicy. Absence of badness—that is, evil as a social construction—is the third model. The fourth, evil as the absence of goodness, describes when evil exists in lieu of the good—the "privation" thesis staked out nearly two millennia ago by Christian theologian St. Augustine. Flescher extends this fourth model—evil as privation—into a fifth, which incorporates a virtue ethic. Drawing original connections between Augustine and Aristotle, Flescher’s fifth model emphasizes the formation of altruistic habits that can lead us to better moral choices throughout our lives. Flescher eschews the temptation to think of human agents who commit evil as outside the norm of human experience. Instead, through the honing of moral skills and the practice of attending to the needs of others to a greater degree than we currently do, Flescher offers a plausible and hopeful approach to the reality of moral evil.

"An outstanding collection that brings an extraordinary international perspective to the growing literature on the treatment of the survivors of torture." -- New England Journal of Medicine