ABSTRACT

In this chapter I examine the demonology portrayed in the cult TV Series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, created, written and produced by Joss Whedon. I examine three notions of the demon through which Whedon explores moral questions about moral motivation, objectivity and moralism: the demon as projected evil, the demonic god, and the Godless human. I demonstrate that the thread that weaves this imaginative and moral inquiry together is best understood as a form of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I claim that through presenting these images of evil, Whedon succeeds in conducting the kind of moral inquiry that Iris Murdoch advocated, one which does justice to the density of moral reality and the complexity of people and our moral psychology.