Evil as anthropocentricism: resolving the ambiguity of Schellingian evil in the Freiheitsschrift through an application of environmental ethics

Page, Phoebe (2018) Evil as anthropocentricism: resolving the ambiguity of Schellingian evil in the Freiheitsschrift through an application of environmental ethics. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Schellingian human freedom is the capacity for good and evil. This is what distinguishes humans from other beings. Despite Schelling’s articulation of this capacity formally, what remains unanswered is what evil looks like in the world. This investigation speculatively reads Schellingian evil as anthropocentrism and demonstrates that the central characteristics of both are resoundingly similar. I consider anthropocentrism within environmental ethics and ecofeminism, extracting the implications and ask what this means for Schellingian evil and critically, what do we do now? As such, this investigation examines the structure of the text outlined in the law of identity, and how this Spinozistic outline is furnished with Jakob Böhme’s concepts, considering what the implications are for Schellingian evil and beyond. This forms the ground for my central argument: that the ambiguity of what Schellingian evil looks like in the world can be understood in environmental terms as anthropocentrism.

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