The Summum Malum of Cruelty: Judith Shklar and the (Rejection of) Common Good

‘The Summum Malum of Cruelty: Judith Shklar and the (Rejection of) the Common Good’ examines the work of the 20th century political theorist Judith N. Shklar via the prism of the common good tradition. Even if Shklar rejected this tradition, as evidenced especially in her criticism of Michael Walzer’s communitarianism, the chapter demonstrates that she shared some of its ethical commitments in a manner that was unique to liberals of her era. It shows that it is productive to analyse Shklar’s focus on the evil and her theory’s reliance on concrete cultures and cultural communities from the perspective of the common good. Shklar’s theory of ordinary evil morally orders the social world similarly to how some common good theorists seek to order the world, even if Shklar’s ordering does not offer a gratifying moral psychology. Shklar’s political theory relies on the use of cultural artefacts from a specific cultural context, but this not as a repository of positive moral rules but as a repository of stories of human vulnerability and susceptibility to harm.