Week 6: “Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things”

Defining “Evil” is about as easy as explaining the concept of left and right; everyone knows what it is, but not how or why they know this. After six weeks of studying evil I began to think I had a decent understanding of what evil is. I thought I would be able to come up with an operational definition that I was confident in, and would use as I continued to try and understand evil.

And then the Orlando LGBTQ  massacre happened.

In order to understand evil, Baumeister (1997) argues that you have to remove yourself from the perspective of the victim, and view the act from an outside perspective. Otherwise, it is impossible to view the act as anything but unexplainable and done only because the person is awful and wants others to suffer. I thought this was easy enough to do, or at least it was when reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment. But after this massacre, as a member of the LGBTQ family and as a human being, I realize just how wrong I was. As Baumeister explains,

“People tend to adapt real events to their expectations, based on the myth of pure evil. The result is a scenario involving wholly innocent, well-meaning victims attacked for no valid reason by arrogant, sadistic, out-of-control evildoers who hate peace and beauty and get pleasure from making people suffer”

(pg. 890)

How could you not want to take this as a valid explanation, and leave it at at? The victims of the massacre, and of many other evil acts, were innocent and just trying to live their lives, targeted because of their sexuality. Obviously the shooter was evil, and hated peace and beauty because he targeted those who loved differently from the “norm”.

While it may make us feel better to take this explanation as fact, ultimately it helps no one. As we’ve learned during this course, evil is not black and white, and there are so many different factors that can influence it. The main point to take away from Baumeister is that adopting the abovementioned view discourages us from seeing through to the essential nature of evil.

Evil can be influenced by empathy,desire for material gain, egotism, idealism, sadism, religion, authority, revenge, envy, power, ambiguity, lack of self control, and other factors we many not even know yet. It may be one factor or multiple in conjunction. The thing to understand is that there is no one explanation that can be applied to everyone who commits an evil act, and that we may not always know for sure what drove someone to committing evil, and that’s okay. This doesn’t mean that we stop trying to understand, but that we keep trying even more. The only way we can work to prevent evil is if we understand where it’s coming from, and work to stop it at its roots. This means teaching our future generations as well as trying to explain to the current ones that we must not view other human beings as things, no matter how different they are from us or if they have hurt us or those we love. We have to stop hiding behind excuses of religion or orders or authority as reasons for our actions. We have to understand that power can be deadly and needs to be handled responsibly and with compassion. In a world like ours, where there seems to be a new human caused tragedy every few days, it can be hard to believe that evil can ever be stopped, and I know I personally fall victim to this mindset at times. But we can’t think this way. Ultimately, what I took away from this course is that evil is a choice. And if we understand this, then it seems a lot more possible to fight it.

So, how would I define evil, now that I have spent six weeks studying it? I would say that evil is an ambiguous, vague, umbrella term that applies to any actions that harm another human being. There seem to be many explanations and none at all. But ultimately evil is something you choose to do, and something you can choose not to.

I want to leave my final post on a hopeful note, with the following quote:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

 

References:

Baumeister, R. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York, NY: W.H. Freemand and Company.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The science of evil: On empathy and the origins of cruelty. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Week 5: The Potential for Evil is in Us All

As we finish Zimbardo’s (2007) book this week, the takeaway message was that we, the reader, researcher, individual, need to recognize that evil is not simply something that you are born with but much more complex. Specifically, the potential for evil behaviours, in any form, are possible in us all. Zimbardo stresses the power of the situation in creating this evil, and argues that no one is free from its influence.

Consider, for example, the following scenario:

You’re involved in a two-car crash on your way to work one morning in which you accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian. As you get out of the car, you are intercepted by a tearful woman who seems to think that she hit and killed the pedestrian. You’re not sure why she thinks she hit the person, but she is convinced. There’s only you, the woman, and the person you hit on the road; there are no witnesses. You know that whoever is deemed responsible will probably be sent to jail. What do you do? (Source: Listverse)

As Zimbardo would argue, we would all have a tendency to believe the best in ourselves, and argue that of course we would accept responsibility, regardless of the consequences. We would not be capable morally of allowing an innocent person to live with that guilt and the punishment for something they did not do. Or would we?

Research has consistently shown that, in certain environments, our morality can go out the window and we become capable of things we did not otherwise expect. Many factors contribute to this, such as:

• Anonymity
• Informational needs (other people have knowledge that helps us make sense of the world)
• Orders and rules to follow
• Diffusion of responsibility
• Dehumanization

Each of these were present in the Stanford Prison experiment, and may explain why the guards acted as they did. Diffusion of responsibility is an important factor in particular, as it can explain the behaviour of the Stanford guards and the guards at the Abu Ghraib prison – the guards were just doing what was expected of them.

This diffusion of responsibility was also found to be a key predictor in a replication study of the Milgram experiment conducted by Burger (2009). Burger, Girgis, and Manning (2011) reviewed the comments made by participants during this procedure to determine what they were experiencing during the task. Many participants made comments that expressed their discomfort in continuing the task and that they felt sorry for the victim, but this did not mean they stopped delivering shocks. The only comments that were related to a refusal to continue were those that recognized personal responsibility.

Does that mean those who continued and were able to ignore their responsibility for their actions are more evil than those who are capable of accepting their responsibility? I personally don’t think so. It can be difficult in the midst of an emotionally charged, stressful situation to consider all factors of what you’re doing and how it affects others.

Zimbardo recognizes this difficulty, and argues that it is indeed possible for individuals to avoid falling into situational traps that influence negative behaviour. You need to first recognize that you have the potential to fall victim in order to actively work to avoid it. You have to be capable of admitting your mistakes, being responsible for your actions, being the best person you can be, respect authority and reject unjust authority, and oppose unjust systems. While it sounds easier than done, it is possible, and Zimbardo provides a detailed account of many heroes throughout history.

It is important to note, however, that you do not have to do some extreme altruistic act in order to be a hero. Take a look at this video for example:

The individuals in this scenario were not involved, and could have ignored what was happening. Instead, they realized the dangers this girl faced, and decided to step in to help her. And it didn’t take much to do this. All they had to do was offer some friendly advice, express their concern, and show that they were willing to help out. Ultimately that’s all it takes. We need to look out for our fellow humans, and be willing to help out when we can to ease any suffering or risk. Not so that we can be considered heroes, or because its the right thing to do, but because we’re all just human beings trying to live our lives, and we should support their right to that the way we would like others to support us.

References:

Burger, J. M., Girgis, Z. M., & Manning, C. C. (2011). In their own words: Explaining obedience to authority through an examination of participants’ comments. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(5), 460-466. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550610397632

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

 

Week 4: A Researcher and his Prison

For this week’s exploration of evil, we read a significant portion of Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect. The chapters we read detailed how quickly the atmosphere went from one of slightly giddy anticipation, to depression and cruelty. The conditions inside the “prison” became deplorable (the “prisoners” had to urinate in buckets kept in their cells during the night as they were not allowed bathroom trips), the guards more sadistic (resorting to sexual harassment and physical abuse i.e placing their foot on the back of a prisoner doing pushups) and the prisoners even more miserable.

A big focus of concern during class discussion focused on Zimbardo, and his attitude throughout the entire study. As he admits himself, he too became absorbed in his role as head of the prison and as researcher, and became more concerned about keeping the experiment running than the conditions of the participants. One telling example of this was when he was more concerned about the deplorable state of the prison causing concern for visitors than how it was affecting the participants themselves. As could be expected, the class discussion was mostly focused on outrage over how Zimbardo could let the experiment get as out of control as it did. I too was quite horrified by his behaviour, and his constant justifications as to why he shouldn’t be entirely to blame. What really annoyed me was during the section when he was describing ethics. He fully admits there were ethical issues in the study, and he also describes ways that it did not violate ethics. True, participants were told when signing up that they would experience a loss of privacy and would experience minor harassment. However, he goes on to say that there was no deception, and that visiting parents could have withdrawn their son at any time. What he fails to ignore with this argument is the fact that the guards threatened to punish anyone who complained about the conditions, and sat with the guests as they had their visits to ensure this. Not only that, but Zimbardo himself made the mother who expressed concern over her son out to be a fool, and played the father’s pride over her.

While I could write several blog posts about Zimbardo and the ethics of this study, I’ll move on to the other areas of focus this week. The book also explored the question of why the prisoners and the guards acted as they did. Regarding the prisoners, Zimbardo explains their resigning into the role of prisoner as being caused by learned helplessness. Being in that prison environment with guards who were very into their roles, participants couldn’t help but adopt the opposite role of prisoner. Any discussions amongst themselves focused around the issues in the prison, and they began to adopt the negative views and comments of the guards onto themselves and their fellow prisoners. They became so accustomed to being harassed and treated as lesser people that they began to believe they were actually prisoners, which of course affected their mental well-being.

As for the guards, they too adopted their role, and likely resorted to as extreme behaviours as they did because that’s what they believed guards did. This role taking very likely resulted in their dehumanizing of the prisoners. In their role as “guard”, the “other” became the participants playing prisoners. The guards became so entrenched in their roles that they seemed to believe that the “prisoners” were there because they committed some illegal act, and thus deserved to be treated poorly, even though they were innocent participants who signed up for a study. Dehumanization is an interesting, and terrifying, phenomena that leads to immoral behaviour. As Baumeister (1997) discussed, there seems to be this tendency for people to view those who are different from them as the “others”. Because these “others” are so different, there must be something wrong with them. Thus, they are viewed as bad, and this is perpetuated by referring to them as the “others”, as if they aren’t human beings but something lower. It is likely that this happened with the guards, who viewed themselves as the purveyors of good and justice, and the prisoners as bad and deserving of harsh treatment.

Dehumanization is a serious issue, but it’s important to understand that the participants who acted as the guards can’t be thought of as bad people for falling victim to it. It appears that people can be influenced very easily into dehumanizing others, as was found by Fasoli, Paladino, Carnaghi, Jetten, Bastian, and Bain (2014). These researchers exposed regular Italian students (students who, on average, reported having at least 4 homosexual friends) to homophobic epithets (subliminally and supraliminally) and and human and animal related words, to see if the homophobic words would result in dehumanization of homosexuals. Specifically, after being exposed to the epithets, participants were asked to select from a list of presented words (the animal and human related words) and apply them to the categories of homosexuals and heterosexuals. They found that participants who were exposed to the epithets applied fewer human related words when describing homosexuals. They were also more likely to distance themselves physically when asked to have a discussion with a gay man. The fact that people who had homosexual friends, and who would likely not identify as homophobic, could be influenced to dehumanize homosexual people just from exposure to epithets is alarming. These findings can also be applied to the guards in Zimbardo’s study — guards are expected to be tough, and prison to be an unpleasant place for criminals, which likely influenced their behaviour.

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, offers an interesting explanation for what happens in the brain in order for people to be capable of dehumanizing others. As he points out, if the exact brain mechanisms could be discovered, this would be a huge step in furthering our understanding of evil.

What do you guys think? Was the behaviour of the guards a result of role taking and dehumanization, or was there something more to it?

References:

Fasoli, F., Paladino, M. P., Carnaghi, A., Jetten, J., Bastian, B., & Bain, P. G. (2015). Not “just words”: Exposure to homophobic epithets leads to dehumanizing and physical distancing from gay men. European Journal of Social Psychology,doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2148

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Week 3: What Makes a Criminal

In this week’s readings, we delved even deeper into evil, exploring what it is exactly that influences criminal behaviour. We read a first hand account of the Stanford Prison experiment (Zimbardo, 2007), and saw how quickly each participant assumed their respective roles. Many of the “prison guards” immediately (as in, within hours of starting) assumed a tough guy role, berating the “prisoners” and commanding them to do an exorbitant number of pushups and jumping jacks for any disobedient behaviour. And by the next morning, the “prisoners” were miserable with their conditions, and began planning ways to escape or overthrow the prison. It was fascinating to read how quickly each participant seems to have adopted their role, apparently truly believing they were a prisoner or a guard despite hours ago living their usual lives.

After reading this account, it sparked the question of how this could happen. Why did these otherwise normal men become strict dictators, seemingly enjoying dispensing harsh punishments? Fortunately, the readings provided by Baumeister (1997) shed some light on this with a focus of how evil behaviours begin and continue. According to Baumeister, the main instigator of criminal behaviours is a lack of self control. We all may have desires to illegally come into large sums of money to pay back our student loans, but we have the self control to work and earn that money legally instead. When you are lacking in self control, however, things like laws and punishments won’t deter you. People with low self control are more likely to be thinking in the present, instead of considering any long term effects of their behaviour. If they want money, why wait and obtain it honestly if you could just take it right now?

According to Baumesiter (1997), there’s a sort of perfect storm that seems to drive criminal behaviour. First, there is the important lack of self control (which may be influenced by alcohol, mental states, or other factors), and then other factors as well, such as ambiguous circumstances (would this behaviour actually be illegal?) or conflicting obligations (I have to pay rent and don’t have enough money to buy this food). Society may also be an influencing factor. Take binge drinking for example: we know it isn’t a good idea, but thanks to the media (movies, TV, etc.), college students engaging in binge drinking is basically expected and encouraged of all students, despite any potential legal or health benefits that may arise.

So you have a lack of self control that initiates criminal behaviours, but why does it continue? Baumeister argues that when you commit criminal behaviours you become desensitized, so that each subsequent act has less of an effect on you, and will likely begin to seem enjoyable. As you continue to commit these acts, any guilt you may feel also begins to weaken, and you begin to excel at making excuses. There are many different kinds of excuses that could be used, alcohol being a popular one, but what I found interesting was the excuse that the victim actually benefited from the crime.

This excuse made me start to wonder about excuses in general, and why people use them and whether or not they should influence punishment. We’ve all heard or read about perpetrators using rather stupid excuses for their behaviours, and we may have used some ourselves (I didn’t mean to hit my sister, she was standing in the way!). As Baumeister posits, offenders make excuses to reduce any guilt they may feel, and to justify their behaviours, more so to themselves than to others. Similar findings have been produced in a study by Markman and Tetlock (2000), where participants were given stocks to manage, and held accountable for whatever gains or losses they experienced as a result of any decisions they made. There were two conditions, however, where participants were either warned about the possibilities of likely losses or gains, or not warned. As you may have guessed, participants who experienced losses in the unwarned conditions provided more counterfactual excuses and denied responsibility, fairly so. They argued that they had no way of predicting any stock market crashes, and thus should not be blamed. These excuses allowed them to retain their confidence and self image, instead of beating themselves up.

While we can say it’s perfectly fair for those participants to make these excuses, since they really did have no way to predict what would happen, does this really make them any less accountable? After all, they were the ones in charge, and whether or not they meant to lose money it still happened. What about people who do more than just lose money. What about cases where people murder others while sleepwalking? Or those who kill others because they were possessed by a demon? How do we punish these people, how do we decide who should be held accountable and who really has a valid excuse?

Baumeister’s argument is that whether or not someone commits and evil act is dependent on their level of self control. When we have these cases, like the sleepwalkers, where it is difficult to determine how much self control they really had, how do we go about deciding who should be blamed for their lack of self control? The person who killed someone while sleepwalking doesn’t seem to have much self control at all, but are they still evil? I really don’t know my answer on this yet. Any opinions?

 

References

Baumeister, R. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York, NY: W.H. Freemand and Company.

Gallegos, E.G. (2014, May 23). Husband Of Woman Who Killed Her Three Daughters Says She Was Possessed By A Demon. Laist. Retrieved from http://laist.com/2014/05/23/husband_of_woman_who_killed_three_g.php

JOSEPH MITCHELL FOUND NOT GUILTY IN ‘SLEEPWALKING’ MURDER TRIAL (2015, March 11). abc 11 News. Retrieved from: http://abc11.com/news/mitchell-found-not-guilty-in-sleepwalking-murder-trial/553824/

Markman, K. D., & Tetlock, P. E. (2000). ‘I couldn’t have known’: Accountability, foreseeability and counterfactual denials of responsibility. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(3), 313-325.

V.,T. (2012, April 14).The 6 most hilariously stupid criminal excuses of all time. Cracked.com. Retrieved from: http://www.cracked.com/article_19771_the-6-most-hilariously-stupid-criminal-excuses-all-time.html

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Week 2: An Eye for an Eye, or (Emotionally) Blind?

In our continuing search for a suitable definition of evil, this week’s readings took a narrower focus and considered two possible causes of evil behaviour: empathy deficiencies, and personality characteristics.

Regarding empathy, Baron-Cohen (2011) attempted to humanize perpetrators by explaining how their evil actions may be due to neurological deficiencies that result in an inability to experience empathy. The brain consists of what he calls an empathy circuit, consisting of different regions of the brain that are responsible for different aspects of empathy. For example, the medial prefrontal cortex (as seen in the picture below) is responsible for self awareness and awareness of others. When this portion of the brain is not working as it should, the result is an inability to be completely aware of the emotions and experiences of others, an important aspect of empathy.

Many factors can influence the ability of these important brain regions to function properly, such as injuries as exemplified by the case of Phineas Gage, who had a railroad spike impaled in his left frontal lobe (illustrated in GIF below), which changed him from a responsible, nice guy to what others considered to be a mean, vulgar, unpleasant person.

His argument is that while a lack of empathy is likely to result in harm to others, is it fair of us to punish individuals for something they cannot control? Further, should anyone with a lack of empathy be considered a threat to others? This is challenged by people he refers to as having Zero Positive Empathy, where individuals, usually with an autism spectrum disorder, have deficiencies in empathy as a result of their disorder but do not resort to violent acts. These individuals are not able to recognize other human beings as humans, but this does not mean they harm others.

Since empathy appears to be an important consideration when exploring evil, it is important that the two do not become synonymous. To treat everyone with empathy deficits as potentially evil would be wholly unjust. Instead, empathy should be one of the many factors to be considered when trying to determine what makes a person evil.

Fortunately, Baumeister (1997) provided additional factors to consider. For example, self esteem is one of the elements he argues is important to consider. There is a common belief that anyone who hurts other people are suffering from low self esteem, and are trying to hurt others in order to make themselves feel better about themselves. Baumeister argues that this is inaccurate, and rather that perpetrators actually have very high self esteem. When this is threatened, and especially when in front of an audience, these individuals are the ones who are likely to resort to violence in order to protect their image.

Another factor he mentions is the desire for revenge. When harmed by another person, there seems to be an innate human tendency to want to get back at them, either to restore a sense of equality or to make yourself feel better. All you have to do is Google the word revenge and you will see examples of people getting revenge on their cheating spouse or on the person who cut them off in traffic. And the response to these acts are overwhelmingly positive, that the person got what they deserved and that the person exacting revenge was justified, despite the extent of the damage it caused the other person. While this is not completely surprising, as we have all likely felt the need to get revenge at one time or another, the interesting point he described is how people will go to great lengths to get revenge, even if it actually ends up harming them. An example of this happened recently, when a father and his son kidnapped a mother and her children at gunpoint, because they believed she had reported their drug use to the police. Neither individual had anything to gain from this, and were actually increasing the severity of their offense. So why would they go to such extremes to get back at this woman?

According to a study conducted by Bone and Raihani (2015), revenge appears to be driven by a desire to hurt the offender. When participants were playing a game that involved punishing their partner, who had the ability to steal up to $0.20 from them. Participants could choose how many punishment points to give each round, but each point costs them $0.05. While not a lot, it does add up if you seek revenge, which is what happened here. Most participants continued to punish the other person, even when they experienced a loss rather than an equal payoff. While the mentioned news report is significantly more extreme than this scenario, it is a possible explanation. Perhaps this father and son, who felt slighted by this woman reporting them and trying to have them charged, felt she and her family were deserving of such an extreme response.

Ultimately, the above scenario illustrates the importance of considering a number of factors in our goal of defining evil. Empathy alone is not a suitable explanation, and while revenge seems sufficient there are still many questions to consider. Therefore, we need to further explore how characteristics like empathy, self esteem, revenge, power and enjoyment all play a part in influencing evil behaviour. An evil individual may have a lack of empathy, or may consider violence to be fun, or may have such high self esteem that they believe anyone who wrongs them deserves to be punished.

 

References:

Baumeister, R. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York, NY: W.H. Freemand and Company.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The science of evil: On empathy and the origins of cruelty. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Bishop, R. (2016, May 17). Father and son ‘kidnapped mum and teenage daughters at gunpoint in revenge attack’. Mirror, Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/father-son-kidnapped-mum-teenage-7986097

Bone, J. E., & Raihani, N. J. (2015). Human punishment is motivated by both a desire for revenge and a desire for equality. Evolution and Human Behavior,36(4), 323-330. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.02.002

Week 1: What, exactly, is “Evil”?

Defining “Evil” is about as easy as explaining the concept of left and right; everyone knows what it is, but not how or why they know this. While the idea of evil seems like a much simpler concept than left versus right, when you think about why you have decided something is deserving of the label “evil”, you begin to wonder why one thing is bad enough to be evil while another is not. Add to that the fact that what you consider evil may not be evil to someone else, and it becomes difficult to provide a precise yet broad definition that everyone can agree upon. While I cannot provide such a definition as of yet, it is my hope that by the end of the six weeks spent studying the concept of evil I will be closer to accomplishing this.

With the beginning of this course comes the beginning of an understanding of what evil is. The difficulty in defining evil is exemplified by the differing explanations provided by different researchers. According to Baumeister (1997), evil is best understood as an act carried out by one person onto another, with the intent of doing harm. This concept can be traced back to the first religious texts, where there is a very clear distinction between forces of good and forces of evil, where evil exists as the opposite of good. Baumeister recognizes that over time the concept of evil has evolved into what he calls “The Myth of Pure Evil”, a socially agreed upon idea of what constitutes evil, spread through mediums like horror films and even children’s cartoons. It involves the idea that an “evil person” is someone who purposely inflicts harm upon an innocent victim, not for any reason other than the enjoyment they gain from it. These evil individuals have always been, and will always be, evil, and thus must be defeated by the good guys. Baumeister argues that to accurately explore evil, one must look at factors deeper than this surface definition. One consideration involves the idea of a perpetrator and an innocent victim. It is argued that evil cannot be considered only in the context that an innocent person is harmed, but rather that both parties may be responsible for what occurred. While this is a controversial idea, the goal is not to downplay the severity of the crime committed by the perpetrator but to understand what influenced this behaviour. This is important, as many crimes do involve perpetrators and victims that are both at fault (for example, the victim provokes a bar fight that results in their death), and ignoring this does nothing to aid in the understanding of why people resort to violent, “evil” behaviours.

Baron-Cohen (2011) provides a narrower explanation of evil, describing it as “empathy erosion”; whereby a person’s empathy (understanding the feelings of others and taking their perspective) is essentially nonexistent, and the person treats others more like objects than as human beings. While empathy is an important determinant in the diagnosis of personality disorders like psychopathy, it is not quite accurate to say that everyone who experiences diminished empathy is evil. For example, empathy erosion is why individuals who watch videos of slaughterhouse operations are still comfortable eating meat. It is not fair to say that this makes them evil, as most people who eat meat are otherwise perfectly capable of empathy.

A final explanation provided by Zimbardo (2008) considers the possible approaches to understanding evil. According to Zimbardo, “evil” is any behaviour that intentionally causes harm to an innocent other, or using one’s power or authority to have others carry out such behaviours on your behalf. As for why these acts occur, explanations can be as follows:

• Essential view: evil is inert, present from birth. Therefore there is a clear divide between good and evil
• Incremental view: the possibility of evil exists in everyone, it is what they learn from their environment that determines whether or not they become evil
• Dispositional view: like the essentialist view, evil people are genetically predisposed to be evil
• Situational view: evil behaviour is caused by the environment

Ultimately, Zimbaro argues that people are either born good or evil, or are influenced by a specific environment to commit evil acts.

Before beginning this course, my idea of evil was essentially any behaviour that harms another person, regardless of cause (with the exception of accidents), thus making the perpetrator evil. Now, I recognize evil is not as clear cut as that, and requires many considerations. I find myself agreeing with Baumeister (1997) in the idea that in order to understand evil, you need to consider the viewpoint of the perpetrator. This is especially important when you consider honour-killings (murders committed against individuals who are considered to have brought dishonor upon themselves and others).Earlier this month, a teenage girl was killed by a tribal council in Islamabad, Pakistan, for helping a couple elope, thus dishonoring the village’s reputation.

Upon first consideration, honour killings could be considered evil, as it involves murdering what we would consider to be an innocent individual. While murder is illegal and morally wrong, labelling those who commit honour killings as evil is not that easy, as there are factors that need to be considered, an important one being the viewpoint of the perpetrator. Dogan (2014) decided to explore why these individuals commit honor killings by conducting interviews with perpetrators, asking what honor means to them, and what constitutes an honorable person. The overwhelming response was that to these individuals, honour is more important than life; basically honour is associated with life, and dishonour with death. This idea is paramount to their way of life, and is something they learned as children from their parents, who learned it from their parents. This aspect of their culture has been spanned many generations, and is a normal part of their life.

In our culture, as in many others, murder is not acceptable. Not only is it illegal, but it is morally wrong, and only to be decided upon by those with granted authority. In these cultures, while honour killings are illegal, the perpetrators do not see themselves as doing something that is morally wrong, but rather necessary. This brings up the question of whether or not they fit the definition of evil. While they are doing harm to another, it is not done for enjoyment, and it is difficult to say if it involves evil tendencies they are born with or rather actions that they have been taught since birth are necessary. As Dogan found, many of the perpetrators recognized that killing was illegal, and experienced distress as a result of committing the murder. In no way am I arguing that honour killings are acceptable, that the victim was in any way deserving, or that the perpetrators are deserving of sympathy. However, it is important to consider these issues when deciding upon what constitutes evil, as the example of honour killings illustrates just how many considerations there are when defining evil.

 

References:

Asrar, Shakeeb. “Pakistan Police Arrest 13 for Burning Girl in ‘honor Killing’.”USA Today. USA Today, 5 May 2016. Web. 11 May 2016.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The science of evil: On empathy and the origins of cruelty. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Baumeister, R. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York, NY: W.H. Freemand and Company.

Doğan, R. (2014). Different cultural understandings of honor that inspire killing: An inquiry into the defendant’s perspective. Homicide Studies: An Interdisciplinary & International Journal, 18(4), 363-388.

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.