This is part 4 of a series of blog posts. Please read part 1 first.
Now only category 3 is left: why even neuroscientists refuse to apply their science to the problem of evil
Why do even many neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists refuse to tackle the problem of evil with their own scientific toolkit? The problem they sense is the following: if we start to understand evil people, doesn‘t this mean that we also have to forgive them? Will we still be able to punish wrongdoers if we see their actions as something ultimately and inevitably created by the environment?
I see it like this: Yes, we can and we will also have to. At least for some time to come. But admittedly we will, armed with new insights, not really enjoy this anymore. But this is a good thing, as it will shift our attention away from punishments towards the necessary change of the environment. And this is, as we will see later, also the only approach which is promising long term success. Fortunately we will really enjoy working on this. And the more work we will have done on the problem, the more the need for punishments will diminish.
But it’s not only about punishment. If we talk about evil, we enter the realm of moral. And most people see moral as something indispensable to keep evil at bay. Something which can be never questioned if we don’t want to let evil roam free.
But what if our ever growing need for moral is more a symptom for an increasingly pathological environment than a sign of progress towards an evil free society? In this case we would only treat a symptom instead of the root cause. And this means that we will ultimately fail at overcoming evil.
But if the theories of evil and moral are so tightly intertwined, how can we efficiently discuss them? We cannot think about moral if our thinking is bound by it. This would be like trying to prove a mathematical conjecture with the constraint of not being allowed to use the number 6 and the minus sign. It would never work and the output would be hilarious.
And this is the biggest challenge: if we want to analyze the phenomenon of evil successfully, we must be able and willing (emotionally and intellectually) to do this in a completely moral free way.
At the moment I cannot give you much yet to motivate you to do this. I very much hope you are willing to trust me that this story will have a happy ending.
One small thing I can maybe promise you already now: if we learn to think about evil from the perspective of the environment in which people live in (instead of individual moral responsibility and guilt), we can free ourselves from the hatred that is increasingly destroying our society.
Now we are finally ready to have a first look at evil.
Please continue here with part 5 of this series.
Image: Shutterstock / ArtMari
Follow me on X to get informed about new content on this blog.
