God created the world good, and He created humans to do good. However, He also gave humans the ability to choose, known as free will.
This means that even though humans were created to do good, they can also choose to do the opposite of good, what we have termed evil. Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Read more from this special report: Science of the Occult. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Their scepticism is focused on the category of evil in particular.
Are they right to say that there is no such thing as evil? In answering this question we must survey the claims people make about evil, and ask what these people take evil to be. We might say the sadistic torture carried out by members of the US military at Abu Ghraib was not merely wrong but evil, and that serial killers such as Dennis Rader and Ted Bundy are not merely morally flawed or corrupt, but are evil.
Hannah Arendt famously declared that the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann revealed the banality of evil. While there is some disagreement about what Arendt meant by this, no-one thinks she was suggesting that Eichmann was possessed by a banal demon. In judging that something is evil, we are making a distinctive kind of moral judgement, rather than committing ourselves to a contentious supernaturalistic worldview. Believing in the reality of evil is like believing in the reality of greed.
If there are any greedy actions or greedy persons, then greed is real. Similarly, if there are any evil actions or evil persons, then evil is real. You might grant this point, but remain sceptical nonetheless. Once Paulhus had begun to open a window on these dark minds, others soon wanted to delve in to answer some basic questions about the human condition. Are people born nasty, for instance? Studies comparing identical and non-identical twins suggest a relatively large genetic component for both narcissism and psychopathy , though Machiavellianism seems to be more due to the environment — you may learn to manipulate from others.
You only need to look at the anti-heroes of popular culture — James Bond, Don Draper or Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street — to realise that dark personalities have sex appeal, a finding supported by more scientific studies. Further clues to the benefits might come from another basic human characteristic — whether you are a morning or evening person. They are often risk-takers — one of the characteristics of psychopathy; they are more manipulative — a Machiavellian trait — and as narcissists, they tend to be exploitative of other people.
That might make sense if you consider our evolution: perhaps dark personalities have more chance to steal, manipulate, and have illicit sexual liaisons late while everyone else is sleeping, so they evolved to be creatures of the night.
Whatever the truth of that theory, Paulhus agrees there will always be niches for these people to exploit. Recently, he has started probing even further into the darkest shadows of the psyche. Unknown to the participants, the coffee grinder had been adapted to give insects an escape route — but the machine still produced a devastating crushing sound to mimic their shells hitting the cogs. Some were so squeamish they refused to take part, while others took active enjoyment in the task.
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