Book excerpt on the psychology of evil – no actionable investigative content

Stang] and Eichmann: two different routes into evil. Both possible and both equally lethal to humanity. This is a lean explanation of why evil evolved and how it develops within individuals and societies. It is an explanation that strips evil down to its root causes, focusing on the core psychological ingredients that enable us to violate moral norms and cause excessive harms to innocent others. A difficult journey This book takes you on a journey into evil. It is a story about our evolutionary past, our present state of affairs, and the prospects for our future. It is as much a story about you and me, as it is about all of our ancestors and future children. It is a story about the nature of moral decay and the prospects of moral growth. It is story about society’s capacity to engineer great harm, and about our own individual responsibility to avoid joining in. Explaining how our genes create brains that create a psychology of desire and denial that leads to excessive harms provides a satisfying explanation for the landscape of evil. It explains all varieties of evil by showing how particular genetic combinations can create moral monsters and how particular environmental conditions can convert good citizens into uncaring killers and extortionists. This explanation will not allow us to banish evil from the world. Rather, it will enable us to understand why some individuals acquire an addiction to feeling good by making others feel bad, and why others cause unimaginable harm to innocent victims while flying the flag of virtue. This, in turn, will help us gain greater awareness of our own vulnerabilities by monitoring the power of attraction between desire and denial. Hauser Prologue. Evilution 17 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012763