Good and Evil

In this multi-disciplinary collection we ask the question, 'What did, and do, Quakers think about good and evil?' There are no simple or straightforwardly uniform answers to this, but in this collection, we draw together contributions that for the first time look at historical and contemporary Quakerdom's approach to the ethical and theological problem of evil and good. Within Quakerism can be found Liberal, Conservative, and Evangelical forms. This book uncovers the complex development of metaethical thought by a religious group that has evolved with an unusual degree of diversity. In doing so, it also points beyond the boundaries of the Religious Society of Friends to engage with the spectrum of thinking in the wider religious world.

’... the contributors certainly achieve what they set out to do: this is to look at both historical and contemporary approaches to ideas about good and evil, from a purely Quaker perspective.’ The Friend

Jackie Leach Scully is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Newcastle University, UK, and Senior Research Associate at the Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences, University of Basel, Switzerland. She has been a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow, and gave the Swarthmore Lecture Playing in the Presence: Genetics, Ethics and Spirituality to Britain Yearly Meeting in 2002. She is the author of Quaker Approaches to Moral Issues in Genetics (2002) and is currently working on a book on ethics and disability. Pink Dandelion is Honorary Professor in Quaker Studies, University of Birmingham, and Programmes Leader, Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and the University of Birmingham. He is also Editor, Quaker Studies, and Convenor, Quaker Studies Research Association.