ABSTRACT
On 22 July 2011, in two separate attacks, one in Oslo, the other at Utøya, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers. The attacks were preceded by a 1,500-page manifesto stating Breivik’s ideological mission: to combat the threat of a Muslim takeover of Norway aided in secret by the Social Democratic Party whose youth camp he targeted at Utøya.
The attacks raise a number of questions discussed in the chapter: What sort of ideology is Breivik adhering to? Are there historical parallels? Are his murderous attacks those of a rational agent who knows what he is doing? Or should they be considered the acts of an insane person not to be held accountable? Does there have to be an either/or? Insights from Hegel are employed to show that the case of Breivik is one where evildoing and madness meet, though in a fashion that includes rather than excludes moral responsibility.
