ABSTRACT
Administrative evil draws attention to the limitations of public service, professional, and business ethics in modern organizations and the culture of technical rationality. As defined by Adams and Balfour, it is distinct from other forms of evil because its appearance is masked. The concept of administrative evil applies best in situations where complex organizations have destructive effects on “surplus populations,” people who lack the basic protections and rights afforded citizens of a democratic polity. Administrative evil was unmasked by the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of the Jews during World War II, when the mask of administrative evil made it easier for every profession and social/political institution to contribute to the genocide. The Holocaust and other instances of administrative evil suggest that conventional norms of legality, efficiency, and effectiveness do not necessarily promote or protect the well-being of individuals, especially that of society's most vulnerable members, whose numbers are growing in the turbulent years of the early twenty-first century.
