The Psychology of Evil
Jul 17, 2011True evil seems easy to recognize: the killing of innocent children; assigning whole populations to death by gassing, or napalm, or aerial bombing.
Psychopathy and Evil
Sarah Kahn
12 June 2017
There is a certain diagnosis considered rare and nearly untreatable in the mental health community: psychopathy. Of course, a small amount of psychopathy may be socially advantageous. Consider the cool and collected CEO or saw-toothed lawyer. However, extreme cases illustrated by the fictional Patrick Bateman of American Psycho or the not-so-fictional child, Samantha from the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic, reveal that psychopathy is not only chilling but highly dangerous.
Psychopaths exhibit physiological abnormalities in addition to behavioral ones. As a result, clinicians can distinguish between average violent convicts and psychopaths. Given this, more and more psychopaths are sent to treatment centers over correctional facilities in an attempt to tame rather than cure this mental disease.
As attitudes shift from punishment to rehabilitation for curbing the threat to society posed by psychopaths, should our moral appraisal of their actions shift as well? How ought we to understand psychopathy, especially child psychopathy? If some unlucky children are wired to lack empathy or remorse, can we justifiably call them evil?
University of Pennsylvania Psychologist, Adrian Raine, argues that psychopathy is not a choice. So, to what extent can an action be labeled evil in the absence of choice? What must be true about the agent such that she is freely choosing to commit evil acts?
Intrigued? See the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-your-child-is-a-psychopath/524502/
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Related Shows
The Psychology of Evil
Jul 17, 2011True evil seems easy to recognize: the killing of innocent children; assigning whole populations to death by gassing, or napalm, or aerial bombing.
Evil
Feb 01, 2005Is there such a thing as pure evil in the world? How should we confront evil? Can evil ever be finally overcome?
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Mar 08, 2015The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is the primary reference catalog for mental health illnesses.
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Why do some people have a strange desire to do weird things for no (good) reason? There's something fascinating about kids who eat laundry soap as part of a “challenge,” or people who deliberately... Read more
Making a better world would be a great thing—but do we need philosophers to help us do that? Famously (or infamously), not all philosophers have been such great people. So are they the folks we... Read more
In her time—the 4th century CE—Hypatia was one of the most famous philosophers in Alexandria, and indeed in the ancient world. She studied and taught mathematics,... Read more
Mexican philosophy is full of fascinating ideas, from Mexica ("Aztec") and Mayan thought to Sor Juana’s feminism and Emilio Uranga’s existentialism... Read more
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Comments (2)
Cristy NL.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017 -- 2:29 AM
It's terrible! We can't callIt's terrible! We can't call children with psychopathy evil. I understand that psychopathy is not a choice, but people with this diagnosis must be isolated. One day they can hurt someone.
Cristy NL.
Pussy-Control
Thursday, December 9, 2021 -- 3:29 PM
You are an ignorant cowardYou are an ignorant coward who cannot handle people with a "diagnosis" that is an evolutionary advantage. People with autism, epilepsy, anxiety, and who were LGBT were "isolated" before the conditions were understood or accepted as normal.
You will never be able to entrap us all. Good luck trying to persist in a world with people who can outthink, outsmart, and con you without hesitation or difficulty.
People like me are everywhere. Blending in is part of my personality disorder.
People like me are your confidants, therapists, clergy, and we are your daughters, sons, brothers, and sisters.
“I don't feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt. I haven't blocked out the past. I wouldn't trade the person I am, or what I've done, or the people I've known, for anything. So I do think about it. And at times it's a rather mellow trip to lay back and remember.”