EVILICIOUS: Cruelty = Desire + Denial (24 page)

Milgram, S. (1974).
Obedience to Authority.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.

McCullough, M. (2008).
Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct
. New York: Jossey-Bass.

Singer, P. (2010).
The Life You Can Save.
New York: Random House.

Zimbardo, P. (2007).
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
New York: Random House.

Epilogue:
Evilightenment

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.

— Benjamin Franklin

Charles Darwin observed that of all the differences between humans and other animals, one capacity reigns supreme: we alone have the ability to contemplate what others
ought
to do. We alone are endowed with a moral imperative to reflect, consider, and imagine alternatives. We alone are impelled to be dissatisfied with the status quo, urged to contemplate what could be and ultimately what must be. This capacity creates a fundamental principle of human existence and enlightenment: we alone invest in the survival of the
least
fit. We give money to those in abject poverty, risk our lives to help others in areas of conflict, adopt abandoned children, nurture individuals with extreme disabilities, and care for the elderly. This principle fuels our humanitarian efforts. Sadly, it is often a necessary response to another unique difference between humans and other animals: we are the only cruel animal. We alone are responsible for creating work for those in the humanitarian sector, terrorizing innocent victims, inflicting unimaginable pain and suffering, and often, annihilating massive swaths of society. We alone are evil. The mystery is why normal, healthy individuals are gratuitously cruel, often for no apparent benefit. This is the mystery I have attempted to explain. What I have suggested is that we can explain evil by looking both to the unique evolutionary changes in our brain’s design, as well as to the simple recipe that some follow as they attempt to satisfy addictive desires by means of denying reality. Here I take stock of these ideas and then draw some implications.

• • •

In the beginning, before there were bald, bipedal, big-brained, babbling humans, there were hairy, quadrupedal, bitsy-brained, barking bonobos. These animals, clearly clever, have survived for over 6-7 million years, despite attempts by our species to demolish their habitat. But — and this is a significant
but
— in the millions of years that encompass their evolutionary history, bonobos have remained virtually unchanged. They are still hairy, quadrupedal, bitsy-brained and barking. They still live in the jungles of Africa. Not a single bonobo, or its close relative the chimpanzee, has ever taken a step out of Africa the way that members of our species did some 60-100,000 years ago. In fact, not a single bonobo or chimpanzee has ever ventured across national borders within the continent to explore new opportunities or develop new cultures. Not a single bonobo or chimpanzee has even moved out of the forests and on to the beaches or deserts or alpine environments of Africa. Not one. When we took our steps out of Africa, we did so with confidence, ready to tackle new environments, create novel tools, engage in rituals to commemorate the dead, build fires to cook food and keep warm, join hands with unrelated strangers in the service of cooperation, and create oral histories that could be passed on to generations of children. What enabled this celebratory migration was a cerebral migration. Not only did our brain get much bigger than the one housed within bonobo and chimpanzee skulls, it evolved into an engine that generates an unlimited combination of thoughts and feelings. We uniquely evolved a combinatorial brain.

What did our uniquely designed brain buy us as we started our planetary sprawl? In a word: “creativity.” It enabled regions of the brain that evolved for highly specialized functions to intermingle with other regions of the brain to create new ways of thinking about and expressing what we see, hear, touch, taste and feel. A combinatorial brain paved the way for awe-inspiring bursts of creativity in art, music, literature and science, as well as in the organization of society, including its laws and governing bodies. A combinatorial brain enabled us to imagine things we have never directly experienced, to create once unimaginable worlds, including blissful heavens and living hells. My focus in this book has been the infernos we create for other human beings, here on this earth. What I have argued is that we got here as an incidental consequence of our brain’s creativity. Once in play, however, this capacity was used strategically. By threatening to carry out seemingly crazy, irrational and unpredictable acts of gratuitous cruelty, we intimidate the enemy, often to a state of absolute passivity. By carrying out over-the-top, energetically wasteful acts of violence, we send an honest signal of power to our competitors. Those with the resources to waste can waste them on such gratuitous acts of cruelty. From a mere incidental consequence of connecting up different brain regions, we were handed an ability to impress with excess. These ideas speak to the evolution of evildoers, and the material covered in
part II
.

In
part I
, I suggested that evildoers are born when unsatisfied desires accumulate and combine with the denial of reality. In some cases, this combination causes only personal damage, as in all of the addictions to food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, and shopping. In other cases, this combination causes damage to others without leaving a single emotional scar on the perpetrator. In fact, most perpetrators feel good about their actions. Sometimes, this feel-good feeling is aided by moral disengagement, a state of mind that not only facilitates harming others by hibernating our moral standards, but actively encourages violence in the service of dispensing with society’s parasites and vermin. Sometimes this feel-good feeling is aided by self-deception, a form of mind distortion that enables us to perceive those outside the inner sanctum as a threat to our sacred values. However we get to the space where our capacity for violence is unconstrained, we develop desires to hurt others that, like an addiction, is never satisfied. Though painlessly punishing cheaters or killing the enemy has always been an option for our species, we have often found ways of inflicting excessive pain and suffering first. This is excessive violence caused by normal human beings, not madmen. This is gratuitous cruelty that some enjoy. This is evilicious.

What can we do? How can we harness our understanding of evil to predict when it might occur again? Can we reduce future danger? Though these questions tilt us away from the descriptive level that I have pursued in this book, I can’t resist dipping my toe into these prescriptive waters as we end this journey into evil. I can’t resist some discussion of what we
ought
to do — our uniquely human imperative.

• • •

All legal systems impose age-related restrictions on when we can do different things. These restrictions are commonly designed to minimize future risks to both the individual and others that he or she may encounter, or to guarantee some minimum level of experience for the job. The specific age limits assigned are, however, puzzling. Why do we allow 16 year olds to drive in many parts of the United States, but prevent them from drinking alcohol until 21 and from renting a car until 25? Why must the President of the United States be at least 35 years old, but members of the House of Representatives can enter at 25? If 16 is the magic number for driving, why isn’t it also the magic number for drinking, voting, becoming president, marrying without parental consent, joining the military, and being executed for a felony murder? Or why not make 21 the magic age for all age-restricted behaviors and positions? This would make sense in terms of our biology: it is precisely around the age of 21 that our frontal lobes have matured more completely, thereby providing us with a more functional engine for self-control. Or, why not question why we have a legal age at all? Why not have a brain scan for frontal lobe maturation along with a test for self-control that would allow some pre-16 year olds to drive, but might prevent some post-21 year olds from drinking? If experience is relevant, as in the case of the executive branch of the government, why not establish the nature of such experience, which might allow a brilliant and experienced 21 year old to become President in favor of a less experienced 50 year old. And if you are in favor of the death penalty — I’m not — than why not detach it from age altogether and look at the individual’s moral competence and capacity for self-control?

These are hard questions. How we answer them will have resounding implications for law and society. Increasingly, legal arguments are premised on scientific evidence, as revealed by the US Supreme Court Decision in 2012 to end life without parole for youths who committed murder: much of the argument was based on the mind sciences and evidence of changes in brain maturation over development. When a legal system decides that someone can drive, drink, vote, kill, run for president, marry, and die as a penalty for crime, it has constrained human behavior based on a statistical evaluation of psychological capacity. In each case, our assignment of age-appropriateness indicates that we believe the person is responsible for his or her actions and thus, his or her future actions. It also indicates that those under age are not responsible for their actions. We grant permission to drive at 16 years of age because we believe that
most
16 years olds are capable of driving responsibly, imposing minimal risks to others, now and in the future. We believe that a person who committed a heinous crime at the age of 18 is responsible and is likely to repeat this crime or worse in the future. He or she is thus eligible for the death penalty, at least in some states within the United States. In contrast, we believe that a 17 year old is still developing and has the potential to change. In this sense, we hold them less responsible for their actions, and hold out hope that they can change; this was the basis of the Supreme Court’s decision mentioned above.

Looking out at the tapestry of age-limited restrictions reveals a rather incoherent structure. In many of these cases, the cut-off age seems both arbitrary and inappropriate given the statistics. Consider the legal driving age of 16, a decision that carries with it the implication that this is a responsible and safe age group. Accident records, however, say something different. Sixteen year olds have higher crash rates than any other age group in the United States, are more likely to die in a car crash than the average of all other age groups, and car crashes are the leading cause of death among 16 year olds. North Dakotans believe that 14 year olds can drive a car. They may have fewer drivers on the road then other states, but that doesn’t mean that a 14 year old won’t hit them or drive off the road after irresponsibly drinking. Why not keep all youths off the road until 21 when the statistics on fatal car crashes drop? Or why not follow the lead of car rental agencies and wait for the 25
^th
birthday?

There are at least two common answers to the driving age problem, both utilitarian or outcome-based: in farming communities and other environments where children work with their parents, it is essential to have them driving as soon as possible; and throughout the country, many parents look forward to the day when their children can drive, thereby alleviating the need for their private chauffeur service. There is no question that these are benefits. But if the cost is death to the child and others, the economics just don’t work out. One option would be to lower the legal driving age for those communities or situations in which parents demonstrate the significance of young children driving for their financial security and well being. Those without this justification must wait until they are 21, frontal lobes matured and the novelty of intoxication lowered.

Given my focus on violence and harm to innocent others, the most interesting and relevant age-related issue is when someone is treated as an adult as opposed to a juvenile criminal. Within the United States, most states set the bar at 18 years, but some as young as 16. Where a state sets its bar determines whether or not the individual is eligible for the death penalty or a life sentence, as well as a host of social services. Many states with the bar currently set below 18, are presently debating whether the age limit should be raised. For some, the issue is simply one of parity: this is not an issue where states should differ, and thus everyone should be with the majority at 18 years. Others add to this discussion by arguing that it should be 18 because of brain maturation. Although it is certainly the case that a more mature brain enables better self-control and less sensation-seeking or risk-taking, there is no evidence of a reliable difference between 16, 17 and 18 year olds. Some 16 year olds are remarkably patient and risk-averse whereas some 18 years olds are remarkably impulsive and risk-prone. If this is to be a meaningful discussion about future risks, plasticity, and the opportunity for rehabilitation, it will have to grapple with the scientific evidence that is presently on offer.

When we use age to distinguish between legally permissible and forbidden actions, we have acknowledged that our biology and upbringing represent mitigating factors. We believe that juvenile crimes are forgivable and their actions correctable. In fact, their crimes are forgivable because their actions are correctable. Once we admit nature and nurture into the legal calculus concerning our youths, we must also allow such factors to guide our decisions about adults with developmental disorders, brain damage, and different genetic make-up. Yet, the law seems to have a double standard: youths lack free will, whereas adults have it, even if it is somewhat diminished. But if we believe that juveniles lack a sufficiently mature capacity for self-control, planning and thinking about alternative options, then we must recognize that fully mature adults can lose these capacities as they naturally age, and can lose them at any age if they suffer from brain damage. We must also wrestle with the fact that some people are born with a genetic constitution that biases them in the direction of addiction, sensation-seeking, violence, and a lack of compassion. Perhaps they too should be banned from driving, voting, drinking, marrying and military combat. When do we look at the excessive harms caused by individuals and hold them responsible? When do we punish them to pay for their crimes and fend off future atrocities?