To me, the key characteristicsof an evil person, regime, or empire is captured by the "Star Wars" expression: "He went over to the dark side of 'the force.'"  Evil consists of consistently deceiving, exploiting, and hurting others as a modus vivendi.  To be evil is to serve, and rely on, the dark side of human nature.  The Nazis were the paragon of evil because, ultimately, they did not redeem themselves, for example, by sparing the lives of teenaged German boys--the epitome of German virtue--who were mobilized to defend the Berlin Bunker in April, 1945.  All human activity has such a dark side: athletes who choose steroids, businesspeople who mislead their customers, politicians who lie, spouses who cheat.   Evil consists is making the dark side in any endeavor the paradigm of one's life.  At the individual level, the life of the French anti-semite Louis Darquier, as recounted in "Bad Faith," was an evil life.  The expression itself, "Bad Faith," is a very civilized name for an evil life; a  life utterly without a redeeming spark.  Ironically, a person of Bad Faith would probably be incapable of hearing the expression, let alone understanding how it applied in his or her case. 

This is the first time over a one-sided relationship; lasting some years, that I find I must question Mr Dalrymple's stream of consciousness.  If 'evil' cannot be described what about the concept of 'good' which I will assume is its exact oppopsite. (This is NOT a postmodernist's argument.) 

What of people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot - to name only a few celebrities of recent history.  Is humanity incapable of assessing their degree of 'evil'?  Or is 'bad' the only suitable immoral opposite to the positive morality of 'good'?

Prof. Cole probably is not aware that his ideas about abolishing the concept of evil have been realized in history with the most devastating consequences. For a Marxist good and evil are profoundly relative, they are part of a superstructure of the society which changes with a change of of its economical foundations. A professional revolutionary fights bourgeoisie not because it is evil (though moral indignation of the masses may be a welcome tool in this struggle), but because the laws of history are on the side of proletariat and he/she simply wants to be on the side of the winners.  Physical destruction of the "exployting classes" undertaken by Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot was conceived not as a punishment for their crimes (do not forget, justice is also a part of the superstructure and is therefore relative), but as a measure of social hygiene.  People were murdered and worked to death not because they were guilty of something (it was irrelevant), but because as carriers of bourgeoise consciousness they were deemed inconvenient for the new society.   

  By abolishing the concept of evil one will achieve nothing but increase in a cruelty of punishment and intensity of  social engineering.

By using absolute term like "evil" one is passing a moral judgement - and men ought to be judgemental for it is the co-habitation and cooperation that makes us what we are.

All the time, people are born with evil (from whom evil adults grew if not from evil children).  And people are made and even tought to be evil - it is rather easy to encourage the demons whispering in one's head. Germans commited unspeakable acts during WWII and yet when you had examined them, most turned out rather normal if unhappy fellows, following their orders.

The standard for exculpating the perpetrators of violent acts needs to be high - human beings are not automata, predestined at birth and provided with inescapale routine that compels their act. In the words of Dr. Lecter: "You cannot reduce me to a set of circumstances, Clarice. You gave up good and evil for the behaviouralism." 

Humans are flock creatures. And chimps are also known to engage in organised clan warfare and cases of premeditated serial murder among chimps has been documented. So one can view evilness as an aberration that is most damaging to the well-being of the whole group. Evil is clearly recognisable to the group members even in the absence of a clear concept.

So even as defining evil in philosophical terms (rather than legal or religious ones) might be difficult, one cannot afford to abandon the concept - it is a useful emotional shorthand, that band us together in self-defense.

An interesting and challenging piece. I suggest two additional problems with Cole's thesis, as formulated here by Mr. Dalrymple:

If Cole suggests that the role of evil "is to frighten populations into acquiescence to the extension of power over them by ruling elites whose legitimacy might otherwise be called into question. For it is not common values or characteristics that unite political entities such as states in the modern world, he says, but common enemies, who are either wholly imaginary or whose power and malevolence are much exaggerated" etc., then he goes too far. It is possible to do all of these things based on appeal to interest or identity, and to characterize the outsider as "Other", without need of the metaphysical concept of Evil. It is possible to mobilize much hatred and violence against the Other without any recourse to moral philosophy at all. It is human nature to do all these things, whether or not one believes in Good and Evil, or wishes to characterize oneself as Good and the Other as Evil.

Secondly, "When we say of someone that he is evil, we are saying that he is a being of a quite distinct category from ourselves, such that normal ethical limits and restraints do not apply in the way that we must deal with him. For evil is the ultimate – well, evil, and must be destroyed by any means possible. Without the concept of evil, then, we would be much less likely to treat people evilly" goes too far for much the same reason. If we do not have, or have abandoned, metaphysical moral concepts, we need have no ethical restraints at all. The Other is a being different from ourselves already, definable as such by any set of markers and distinctions we want, great or trivial, and however arbitrary. Only metaphysical morality prevents us indulging our nature willy nilly, and only the concept of evil allows us to give it a name, thereby helping us restrain it.

Evil is what we do, though not the only thing we do. The ability to give it a name is vital to controlling it.

Just to inform you that your "here" is turned off for commenting on your new essay.  Thanks you!