213. What Is Evil?

No Stupid Questions

What makes normal people do terrible things? Are there really bad apples — or just bad barrels? And how should you deal with a nefarious next-door neighbor?

• SOURCES:
  • Jonathan Haidt, professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
  • Christina Maslach, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • Stanley Milgram, 20th century professor of psychology at Yale University.
  • Edward R. Murrow, 20th century American broadcast journalist and war correspondent.
  • Alexander Pope, 17-18th century English poet.
  • Adrian Raine, professor of criminology, psychiatry, and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Oskar Schindler, 20th century German businessman.
  • Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Mental Illness and Violence: Debunking Myths, Addressing Realities," by Tori DeAngelis (Monitor on Psychology, 2021).
  • "How 'Evil' Became a Conservative Buzzword," by Emma Green (The Atlantic, 2017).
  • "The Double-Edged Sword: Does Biomechanism Increase or Decrease Judges' Sentencing of Psychopaths?" by Lisa G. Aspinwall, Teneille R. Brown, and James Tabery (Science, 2012).
  • "The Psychology of Evil," by Philip Zimbardo (TED Talk, 2008).
  • The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo (2007).
  • "When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize," by Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham (Social Justice Research, 2007).
  • "Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Speaks Out," by Michele Norris (All Things Considered, 2006).
  • Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, by Stanley Milgram (1974).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Does Free Will Exist, and Does It Matter?" by No Stupid Questions (2024).
  • "Are You Suffering From Burnout?" by No Stupid Questions (2023).
  • Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (1955).
  • "Essay on Man, Epistle II," poem by Alexander Pope (1733).