Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side

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Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius as war looms on the horizon. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friends have been lost and gained, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those who don't.

This is an extraordinary book that defies classification. He doesn’t have a single pitch or argument to make, but it is a beautiful exploration of evil, not just of what motivates the perpetrators, but also about how we see the perpetrators.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them We make evil when we label something so. Evil exists as a word, as a subjective concept. But I firmly believe there is no person, no group, no behaviour, no thing that is objectively evil. Perhaps evil only really exists in our fears. knowing the various influences that can contribute to problematic behavior makes us more likely to identify those influences and to stop them from having their full effect. Understanding that we are all capable of much harm should make us more cautious and more diligent.”

The Three Best Books on Understanding Evil

Do you see this inability to let people get close as a common human trait? For example, I think there are similar types of characters in your book, Union Atlantic, with the 21st-century hard-nosed power-hungry New Yorkers. It is amazing how deeply the author is blinded to any other reality by her own social and personal preferences. She knows how the world should be, and we should just shut up and listen. Russell also offers us an account of what we mean by an evil person. Again, he begins with seven ‘folk’ intuitions and argues that the most plausible account focuses on a certain kind of fixed disposition to perform evil actions in certain circumstances. Russell’s account of evil persons relies heavily on what he also believes defines evil actions, and hence he is a pluralist about what constitutes an evil person too.

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. One of the most revealing insights into the minds of actual perpetrators and architects of the Holocaust can be obtained from the speeches of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was leader of the SS and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. As "Architect of the Final Solution", he was one of the people most directly responsible for the Holocaust. In October 1943, in Posen (Poznan), Poland, Himmler delivered secret speeches to officials of the Nazi party, including SS officers—the “most secret circle”. In these speeches, Himmler spoke explicitly of the extermination of the Jews, dispensing with the more usual veiled or euphemistic terms. He framed the extermination program as a very difficult but necessary historical mission of the Nazis, the necessity for which would be more fully understood and appreciated by future generations but must remain secret at the time. In these speeches, extracts of which are quoted below, he is talking to fellow officials who are involved in the extermination program and is essentially praising them for their unflinching commitment to this difficult undertaking. He remarks about how others who are less directly involved in the program and who think of it more abstractly and theoretically, tend to underestimate its magnitude and its difficulty:As the Clone Wars rage, victory or defeat lies in the hands of elite squads that take on the toughest assignments in the galaxy–stone-cold soldiers who go where no one else would, to do what no one else could. . . . Shaw momentarily brings up the idea that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” but abandons the point without too much exploration. Again, subjectively true, but in purely rational terms, there must be some kind of agreement on what is right and what is wrong or else we fall apart as a society. Vera’s novel draws on and strikingly articulates the well-documented effects of those who suffered from and survived the worst kinds of evil actions. We know that the victims of genocide, torture, and rape, never fully recover. We also know that evil leaves a residue of moral pollution for the perpetrator and deep shame for the victim, which is never washed away. Our horror and visceral disgust in the face of evil actions and persons is a testimony to this. Vera’s novel is a masterpiece at expressing this facet of the concept. Honourable Mentions As a philosopher I’m always surprised how little actual acts of real evil are discussed by philosophers. Philosophers frequently discuss thought experiments or hypothetical situations. Jonathan Glover, in his book Humanity, is exceptional in his level of specificity about real history. But on the whole philosophers shy away from the facts.

We struggle to understand how these people went home at night and tenderly kissed and played with their children, loved their dogs, appreciated classical music and read philosophy. As Michael Berenbaum, project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum puts it: “The killers were civilized men and women of an advanced culture. They were both ordinary and extraordinary, a cross section of the men and women of Germany, its allies, and their collaborators as well as the best and the brightest.” [Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), p.220] But isn’t it true that in many of the worst acts of cruelty in the Holocaust, for example, dehumanisation was a crucial part of the process? Propaganda portrayed Jews as vermin, camps replaced names with numbers, and so on. There’s a passive defence for everything from pedophiles and bestiality to the idea that words like “murderer” and “rapist” are hypocritical and heinous definitions we as a species label people unfairly with when really we’ve all made mistakes as humans. I really wanted to like this, but absolutely didn’t like this, and frankly, parts of it are so off-putting I want to toss it out a window.

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From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. What is evil? Is there a definition that can be applied — a tipping point for actions. Shaw does punctuate the chapters of the book with Nietzsche quotes that tend to imply that the answer is no. The Trolley Experiment is an excellent example of the sliding scale of right and wrong, and that experiment can be played on many different levels and settings. These experiments have no right answer many times. If letting a child die to save a person wrong, what about if ten people were saved, or one hundred? Where is the line drawn? Is someone who kills a person by accident or negligence deserving of the title of “murderer” the same as a serial killer? We all have a dark secret of some kind or something we are not proud of in our past. Should that label be made public and remain with us for our entire lives? So, we should not summarize a murderer’s character with the label “murderer” because we make mistakes too?! Why would someone attempt to use actions such as lying/infidelity/theft to defend someone who commits murder? This is quite the mental jump to make. If we didn’t label a murderer as a murderer, would that help them to not murder again? Truly struggling here. Is it the same as our fascination with horror movies? Trying to imagine the worst that could happen?