The Lesser Evil
E537895
The Lesser Evil is a political philosophy book by Michael Ignatieff that examines how democracies can confront terrorism and other threats while compromising as little as possible on civil liberties and human rights.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Lesser Evil canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5660567 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Lesser Evil Context triple: [Michael Ignatieff, notableWork, The Lesser Evil]
-
A.
Necessary Evil
"Necessary Evil" is a popular studio album by Ghanaian dancehall and reggae artist Stonebwoy that helped solidify his prominence in the African music scene.
-
B.
The Consequences
The Consequences is a notable work associated with the creator or project known as Consequence, recognized for its significance within their body of work.
-
C.
The Righteous
The Righteous is a film written by and starring Mark O'Brien, known as a brooding psychological horror drama with strong religious and moral themes.
-
D.
The Great Betrayal
The Great Betrayal is a political book by Pat Buchanan that critiques free trade and globalization from a nationalist, protectionist perspective.
-
E.
The Menacing Power
"The Menacing Power" is an episode title from the 1939 science fiction movie serial *The Phantom Creeps*, starring Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Lesser Evil Target entity description: The Lesser Evil is a political philosophy book by Michael Ignatieff that examines how democracies can confront terrorism and other threats while compromising as little as possible on civil liberties and human rights.
-
A.
Necessary Evil
"Necessary Evil" is a popular studio album by Ghanaian dancehall and reggae artist Stonebwoy that helped solidify his prominence in the African music scene.
-
B.
The Consequences
The Consequences is a notable work associated with the creator or project known as Consequence, recognized for its significance within their body of work.
-
C.
The Righteous
The Righteous is a film written by and starring Mark O'Brien, known as a brooding psychological horror drama with strong religious and moral themes.
-
D.
The Great Betrayal
The Great Betrayal is a political book by Pat Buchanan that critiques free trade and globalization from a nationalist, protectionist perspective.
-
E.
The Menacing Power
"The Menacing Power" is an episode title from the 1939 science fiction movie serial *The Phantom Creeps*, starring Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
political philosophy book ⓘ |
| argues |
democracies may need to adopt lesser-evil measures to confront serious threats
ⓘ
democracies must preserve core civil liberties and human rights even under threat ⓘ |
| author | Michael Ignatieff ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Canada ⓘ |
| exploresConcept |
balancing security and freedom
ⓘ
ethical constraints on counterterrorism ⓘ lesser-evil justification ⓘ limits of liberal democracy in crisis ⓘ temporary suspension of rights ⓘ |
| genre |
human rights literature
ⓘ
political philosophy ⓘ political theory ⓘ |
| hasForm |
hardcover
ⓘ
paperback ⓘ print ⓘ |
| hasTopic |
constitutional democracy
ⓘ
counterterrorism policy ⓘ emergency powers ⓘ human rights law ⓘ just war theory ⓘ liberalism ⓘ moral philosophy ⓘ preventive detention ⓘ rule of law ⓘ security policy ⓘ security vs liberty trade-off ⓘ state power ⓘ torture ⓘ war on terror ⓘ
linked to:
Global War on Terrorism
|
| intendedAudience |
policy makers
ⓘ
scholars of political science ⓘ students of human rights ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
civil liberties
ⓘ
democracy ⓘ human rights ⓘ political ethics ⓘ terrorism ⓘ |
| notableFor |
influence on debates about post-9/11 security policies
ⓘ
systematic analysis of liberal responses to terrorism ⓘ |
| proposes | framework for democratic states to confront terrorism ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2004 ⓘ |
| publisher | Princeton University Press ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Lesser Evil Description of subject: The Lesser Evil is a political philosophy book by Michael Ignatieff that examines how democracies can confront terrorism and other threats while compromising as little as possible on civil liberties and human rights.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.