Macrocosm: Is Evil Created or Born?

David Wall

In 2011, 2-year-old Wang Yue was struck by a van while crossing a busy road. The driver didn’t stop to help her. Neither did the motorist in the second car that hit her. Security footage later revealed that at least 18 bystanders skirted around her bloodied body before someone decided to stop. We all like to believe that we would never hesitate to help a child, especially one who was dying. Certain circumstances can force us to act against our better judgements and betray our instincts.

For decades in China, there were no laws protecting Good Samaritans from exploitation. Frequently, Good Samaritans were accused of injuring the people they assisted. To protect themselves legally and financially, citizens simply stopped helping one another. The death of Wang Yue and others like it inspired the Chinese government to finally pass a national Good Samaritan law in 2017.

Individuals who would otherwise be considered “good people” can be coerced into committing acts of evil. Evil is all around us, some of it worse than others. Everywhere we turn it seems there is a new story of a horrific incident or heinous crime. We tend to think of evil as an illness or disorder we can treat. We often link it to choice and categorize it as avoidable. We never try to understand the motivations behind it, not really. So, what compels people to commit evil?

What is Evil?

The word evil has lost its meaning. We use it so often and so casually that over time, it has slowly become muddled. To understand what possess someone to commit evil, we must first establish a clear definition of the word.

In his book The Roots of Evil, John Kekes, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Albany, describes evil as “serious harm caused by human beings to other human beings”. Kekes explains that there are three classifiers of evil: motivation, excessiveness, and excuse. Essentially, for an act to be deemed evil it must both inflict excessive harm and lack a morally acceptable excuse. Although balanced, this definition fails to answer an important question: is evil an attribute of action or individual?

Because we possess a “you are what you do” mentality, we never quite realize that actions are evil, not necessarily people. Just because a baby crawls on its hands and feet, doesn’t exactly make it a dog. This logic can be extended; just because someone commits a heinous act, doesn’t exactly make them evil.

Human Nature

By nature, we are all born with the ability to do good. In fact, the human race is inherently altruistic. In her book, Conscience, neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland, argues our brains evolved to have moral instincts, or a conscience. We extend the natural attachment we feel towards our loved ones, to care about the feelings of others. This helps us to judge between right and wrong and act in accordance. Humans subconsciously favor actions that are socially acceptable over those that result in social disapproval. We evolved, for example, to be honest and loyal because these traits improved our abilities to cooperate, helping us to build and maintain societies. 

To understand the fundamental nature of human begins, we must turn to the only demographic largely unaffected by society: infants. If we can determine whether they favor helping or harming others, we can definitively say if humans are inherently good or bad. In 2007, researchers at Yale University conducted a study to identify the type of individual infants prefer: one who helps, hinders, or acts neutrally towards others. They had the infants choose between two puppets and found that the majority preferred the helping puppet over the harming one. These results indicate that, in its most basic form, the human intuition rejects evil.  

 For centuries, psychologists have debated whether human behavior is more influenced by genetics or environment, by nature or nurture. In reality, it appears both environment and genetic predisposition influence the way we act. We know that humans are fundamentally good, meaning there must be something along the way that makes some of us abandon our most basic instincts. That turns the inherent goodness into immorality.

Personality Disorders

We are obsessed with murders. We love true crime podcasts, documentaries, TV shows, and books. It appears the weirder and gorier the crime, the more we are fascinated by it. Maybe it is our way of exerting control over death, getting very close to it without ever falling victim to it. Some believe it allows us to indulge our darkest desires without actually acting on them. Our obsession with evildoers, no matter how we choose to explain it, is likely to attract those who seek attention, narcissists, and inspire them to commit similar acts.

According to the National Institute of Health, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a mental condition characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, extreme self-preoccupation, and a lack of empathy for others. Those with NPD, narcissists, have an insatiable desire to be noticed and will do anything to fulfill it. It’s clear to see why a narcissist would be drawn to the amount of attention the media industry puts on evildoers. Think of all the copycat murders who tried to emulate the attention and glory of the original perpetrator.

Many would argue that we shouldn’t really worry about narcissists since they only make up about 6% of the population. In the the U.S. alone, that is roughly 20 million people. Columbine only took two. The 2017 Las Vegas Shooting, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Sandy Hook only took one.

Manipulation

Terrorist organizations and cults often manipulate writings, usually religious works, to recruit members. While many of the groups are genuine in their fanaticism, some of these groups pick and choose certain phrases and passages that justify their violent agenda, taking them out of context to change their intended meanings. They share these incorrect and skewed beliefs with others and slowly expand their reach. In order to convince even more people into joining their “cause”, they employ mind-control.

Mind-control, or brainwashing, is a terrifying name given to the psychological techniques used to alter or control the human mind, to compromise the freedom of choice and action of an individual or collective. This includes: isolation, fear, social shunning, threats/rewards, and skewed ideologies. Once indoctrinated into the group, these very same mind-control techniques are used to persuade members into committing acts of evil. According to Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, when mind-control is used it “can induce false confessions, create converts who willingly torture or kill "invented enemies,” engage indoctrinated members to work tirelessly, give up their money--and even their lives--for “the cause.””.

What is most concerning about mind control is that we are all susceptible to it. In an interview with Yahoo Health, cult expert, Steve Hassan explains that “most people operate with an incorrect notion that only weak people who are looking for someone to control them wind up in cults or mind-control scenarios. That’s simply not true... and humans are vulnerable simply by being a social species”. The truth of the matter is we are all susceptible to brainwashing. People of all backgrounds, education levels, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic status have been recruited by corrupt organizations. Once inside, mind-control makes it very hard to get out or be truly aware of one’s actions. 

Humans are biologically programmed to act in socially acceptable ways, which often translates into morality. Often, the decision to betray that instinct is completely out of our control. Individuals with personality disorders can’t help having one, everyone is susceptible to mind control, and sometimes it’s the only reasonable option. To be human is to understand. To understand the world around us and the people within it. Evil is a problem we all want to solve. One that terrifies us because no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to wrap our minds around it. Now that we have a better understanding, we can start to consider what we can to do to stop it.