EFTA01103908

Endnotes: Chapter 4 
Recommended Books 
Chagnon, N. (1996). Yanomamo. 5th Edition. Harcourt Brace. 
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. (2009). Worse Than War. New York: Public Affairs. 
Jones, A. (2010). Genocide: a comprehensive introduction. New York: Routledge. 
Kiernan, B. (2007). Blood and Soil: A world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to 
Darfur. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row 
Publishers, Inc. 
McCullough, M. (2008). Beyond Revenge: The evolution of the forgiveness instinct. Jossey-Bass, New 
York 
Singer, P. (2010). The Life You Can Save. New York: Random House. 
Wittenbrink, B. & Schwarz, B. (2007). Implicit Measures of Attitudes. Guilford Press. 
Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random 
House. 
Key references 
• What's normal: Cohen, I. L., Liu, X., Lewis, M. E. S., Chudley, A., Forster-Gibson, C., Gonzalez, M., 
Jenkins, E. C., et al. (2011). Autism severity is associated with child and maternal MAOA 
genotypes Clinical genetics, 79(4), 355-362. 
• Eggs and coops: Alia-Klein, N, Goldstein, R, Kriplani, A, & Logan, J. (2008). Brain Monoamine 
Oxidase A Activity Predicts Trait Aggression. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(19), 5099-5104; 
Baler, Ruben D., Volkow, N.D., Fowler, J.S., & Benveniste, H. (2008). is fetal brain monoamine 
oxidase inhibition the missing link between maternal smoking and conduct disorders? Journal of 
Psychiatry & Neuroscience : JPN, 33(3), 187; Beaver, K.M, DeLisi, M., Vaughn, M.G., & 
Barnes, J. C. (2010). Monoamine oxidase A genotype is associated with gang membership and 
weapon use. Compr Psychiatry, 51(2), 130-134; Bukholtz, J.W, & Meyer-Lindenberg, A. (2008). 
MAOA and the neurogenetic architecture of human aggression. Trends in neurosciences, 31(3), 
120-129; Derringer, J., Krueger, R.F., irons, D.E., & Iacono, W.G. (2010). Harsh discipline, 
childhood sexual assault, and MAOA genotype: an investigation of main and interactive effects 
on diverse clinical externalizing outcomes. Behav Genet, 40(5), 639-648; Enoch, M-A., Steer, 
C.D, Newman, T.K., Gibson, N., & Goldman, D. (2010). Early life stress, MAOA, and gene-
environment interactions predict behavioral disinhibition in children. Genes Brain Behav, 9(1), 
65-74; Fergusson, D. M., Boden, J. M., Honvood, L. J., Miller, A. L., & Kennedy, M. A. (2011). 
MAOA, abuse exposure and antisocial behaviour: 30-year longitudinal study The British journal 
of psychiatiy : the journal of mental science, 198(6), 457-463; Gibbons A. (2004) American 
Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting. Tracking the evolutionary history of a 
"warrior" gene. Science 304:818; Lea, R, & Chambers, G. (2007). Monoamine oxidase, 
addiction, and the "warrior" gene hypothesis. J. New Zealand Medical Association, 120(1250),1-
5; Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Buckholtz, J.W., Kolachana, B., Hariri, A., Pezawas, L., Blasi, G., 
Weinberger, D.R. (2006). Neural mechanisms of genetic risk for impulsivity and violence in 
humans. Proc Nail Aced Sci, 103(16), 6269-6274; Sebastian, C L, Roiser, J P, Tan, G C Y, 
Hauser 
Chapter 4. Wicked in waiting 
141 
EFTA01104048

Viding, E, Wood, N W, & Blakemore, S-J. (2010). Effects of age and MAOA genotype on the 
neural processing of social rejection. Genes Brain Behav, 9(6), 628-637; Tikkanen, R., Auvinen-
Lintunen, L., Ducci, F., Sjoberg, R.L., Goldman, D., Tiihonen, J., Virklcunen, M. (2010). 
Psychopathy, PCL-R, and MAOA genotype as predictors of violent reconvictions. Psychiatry 
research. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2010.08.02; Williams, L.M, Gan, J.M, Kuan, S.A., Dobson-
Stone, C. Palmer, D.M., Paul, R.H., Gordon, E. (2009). A polymorphism of the MAOA gene is 
associated with emotional brain markers and personality traits on an antisocial index. 
Neuropsychopharmacology, 34(7), 1797-1809. 
• Banality, situationism, and authority: Zimbardo, P.G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the 
psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In: The 
social psychology of good and evil, A. Miller (ed), NY, Guilford, 1-23; Haslam, S.A., & Reicher, 
S. (2007). Beyond the banality of evil: three dynamics of an interactionist social psychology of 
tyranny. Pers Soc Psycho! Bull, 33(5), 615-622; Russell, N. (2010). Milgram's obedience to 
authority experiments: Origins and early evolution. British Journal of Social Psychology 50: 140-
162; Sabini, J, & Silver, M. (2007). Dispositional vs. Situational Interpretations of Milgram's 
Obedience Experiments:" The Fundamental Anributional Error". Journal for the Theory of Social 
Behaviour, 13(2), 147-154. 
• Selling albino body parts in Africa: Dave-Odigie, C.P. (2010). Albino killings in Tanzania: Implications 
for security. Peace Studies Journal, 3(1), 68-75; 
http://www.telegraph co uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoceatthanzania/7687951/Seven-new-
albino-killings-in-Tanzania-and-Burundi.html; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-
11001791; 
• On self-control, glucose, and aggression: Baumeister, R.F. (2002). Yielding to temptation: Self-control 
failure, impulsive purchasing, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(4), 
670-676; Baumeister, R.F., & Alquist, J. (2009). Is There a Downside to Good Self-control? Self 
& Identity, 8(2), 115-130. Baumeister, R.F. (2002). Yielding to temptation: self-control failure, 
impulsive purchasing, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 28, 670-676; 
DeLisi, M., & Vaughn, M. G. (2007). The Gottfredson-Hirschi Critiques Revisited: Reconciling 
Self-Control Theory, Criminal Careers, and Career Criminals. International Journal of Offender 
Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 52(5), 520-537; DeWall, C, Baumeister, R, & Stillman, 
T. (2007). Violence restrained: Effects of self-regulation and its depletion on aggression. Journal 
of Experimental Social Psychology 43: 62-76; Gailliot, M. T, & Baumeister, R. F. (2007). The 
Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self-Control. Personality and Social 
Psychology Review 11(4), 303-327; Muraven, M, Tice, D.M, & Baumeister, R.F. (1998). Self-
control as limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social 
Psychology, 74(3), 774-789; Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R.F., Schmeichel, B.J., Twenge, J.M., 
Nelson, N.M., & Tice, D.M.. (2008). Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: a limited-
resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. J Pers Soc Psycho!, 
94(5), 883-898; Dewall, C.N., Deckman, T., Gailliot, M.T., & Bushman, B.J. (2011). Sweetened 
blood cools hot tempers: physiological self-control and aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 37, 73-
80; DeScioli, P., Christner, J., & Kurzban, R. (2011). The omission strategy. Psychological 
Science, 22(4), 442-446. 
• Invisible risks: Fairchild G, Passamonti L, Hurford G, Hagan CC, von dem Hagen EAH, van Goozen 
SHM, Goodyer IM, Calder AJ: Brain structure abnormalities in early-onset and adolescent-onset 
conduct disorder. Am J Psychiatry 2011; 168:624-633; Gao, Y., Baker, L. A., Raine, Adrian, Wu, 
H., & Bezdjian, S. (2009). Brief Report: Interaction between social class and risky decision-making 
Hauser 
Chapter 4. Wicked in waiting 
142 
EFTA01104049

in children with psychopathic tendencies. Journal of adolescence, 32(2), 409-414; Gao, Y., Raine, 
Adrian, Venables, P. H., Dawson, M. E., & Mednick, S. A. (2010). Association of poor childhood 
fear conditioning and adult crime The American journal of psychiatty, 167(1), 56-60; Glenn, A. L., 
Raine, Adrian, Venables, P. H., & Mednick, S. A. (2007). Early temperamental and 
psychophysiological precursors of adult psychopathic personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 
116(3), 508-518; Isen, J., Raine, A., Baker, L., Dawson, M., Bezdjian, S., & Lozano, D. I. (2010). 
Sex-specific association between psychopathic traits and electrodermal reactivity in children. Journal 
of Abnormal Psychology, 119(I), 216-225; Raine, A, Venables, P., Dalais, C., Mellingen, K., 
Reynolds, C., & Mednick, S. (2001). Early educational and health enrichment at age 3-5 years is 
associated with increased autonomic and central nervous system arousal and orienting at age II 
years: Evidence from the Mauritius Child Health Project. Psychophysiology, 38, 254-266. 
• Sins, slots, and omissions: Abarbanell, L., & Hauser, M.D. (2010). Mayan morality: An exploration of 
permissible harms. Cognition, 115(2), 207-224; Baron, J, & Ritov, I. (2009). Protected values and 
omission effect as deontological judgments. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 50, 133-
167; Baron, J., & Ritov, I. (2004). Omission effect, individual differences, and normality. 
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 94, 74-85; Cushman, F., Knobe, J., & 
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2008). Moral appraisals affect doing/allowing judgments. Cognition, 
308, 281-289; Haidt, J., & Baron, J. (1996). Social roles and the moral judgment of actions and 
omissions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 201-218; DeScioli, P., Christner, J., & 
Kurzban, R. (2011). The omission strategy. Psychological Science, 22(4), 442-446. 
• Bystanders: Banyard, V. L. (2008). Measurement and correlates of prosocial bystander behavior: the 
case of interpersonal violence. Violence Viet, 23(1), 83-97; Darley, J M, & Latane, B. (1968). 
Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. J Pers Soc Psychol, 8(4), 377-
383; Latane, B, & Darley, J M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in 
emergencies. J Pers Soc Psychol, 10(3), 215-221; Melde, C, & Rennison, C.M. (2010). 
Intimidation and street gangs: Understanding the response of victims and bystanders to perceived 
gang violence. Justice Quarterly, 27(5), 619-666; Monroe, K.R. (2008). Cracking the code of 
genocide: The moral psychology of rescuers, bystanders, and nazis during the Holocaust. 
Political Psychology, 29(5), 699-735; Staub, E. (2003). The psychology of bystanders, 
perpetrators, and heroic helpers. In: The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, adults and 
groups help and harm others, NY, Cambridge University Press, pp. 291-324. 
Harmer 
Chapter 4. Wicked in waiting 
143 
EFTA01104050

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 a necessary response to another unique 
difference between humans and other animals: we alone have the ability to inflict great harms on our own 
species and many others. We alone are responsible for creating work for those in the humanitarian sector. 
We alone are evil. 
We also have an opportunity to begin a new volume of humane history. We have the chance to 
harness our understanding of the past in order to present our children with the gift of knowledge and the 
prospects of a healthier future. We should — no, we must — teach our children what we have learned 
about the causes of corporate corruption, the desire for ethnic cleansing, and the combined forces of 
nature and nurture to create excessive suffering and lifeless flesh. These are topics that should be 
presented early on in education rather than waiting for heady discussions at the university. We owe the 
next generation the best education from our generation. The best education will come from confronting 
history, exposing human nature, and supporting cultural variation while fighting to demolish totalitarian 
regimes that limit or eliminate basic human rights. I write this sentence following on the eve of Egypt's 
inspiring revolution, a revolution led by educated people who refused to allow the dictator Hosni 
Mubarak to ruin their country and their children% future. The people of Egypt, like the people of many 
countries who rallied in the Arab spring of 2011, refused to be eternal victims. This is a lesson that must 
spread to every corner of the globe. It is a lesson of hope. It is a lesson to all evildoers to beware. 
I have taken you on a journey into evil's core, penetrating with scientific evidence and 
explanation. Though we have traveled to distant lands, traversed vast spans of time, and encountered 
wildly different cultures, the key idea is that this richness was generated from a few essential ingredients. 
This is a minimalist approach to a difficult and highly variegated problem. I end our journey by taking 
stock of the essential ideas and reflect on some of the broader implications. 
Retracing our steps 
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 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
144 
EFTA01104051

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 promiscuous brain. 
What does promiscuity buy? In a word: "creativity." It enables regions of the brain that evolved 
for highly specialized functions to intermingle with other regions of the brain to create new ways of 
thinking and new ways of experiencing what we see, hear, touch, taste and feel. A promiscuous brain 
paved the way for awe-inspiring bursts of creativity in art, music, literature and science. A promiscuous 
brain enabled Bach and Bono, Picasso and Pollock, Shakespeare and Shaw, and Descartes and Darwin. A 
promiscuous brain enables 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 by 
accident. 
When our brains allowed us to combine familiar thoughts and feelings to create virgin ideas, it 
enabled us to feel good about doing bad. It enabled us to incur the costs of punishing others while reaping 
the rewards of marching to the moral high ground. It enabled us to solve the problem of large scale 
cooperation with unrelated strangers. This was a fundamental breakthrough in mental life, a spectacular 
benefit, and the target of strong selection. But benefits often carry hidden costs. When punishment 
triggered a honey hit to the brain, violence and reward formed an eternal bond. We now carry the burden 
of a brain that engages in denial in order to satisfy our desires. When these concepts couple, the odds of 
conceiving excessive harms is virtually guaranteed. Sometimes this malicious offspring is intended and 
at other times it is foreseen. Either way, the world has been populated with evildoers in waiting. Either 
way, our world hosts a species that has the creative capacity to financially ruin, mutilate, rape, burn, 
torture, and extinguish millions of lives. Often, this potential is realized. 
My aim in this book has been to explain evil to better understand its origins, not to justify or 
promote it. My aim has been to explain evil to clarify its root cause, to alert others to its early warning 
signs, and to pave the way to a more humane existence. I have suggested that evil, expressed in the form 
of excessive harms, is caused by two ingredients: desire and denial. These are psychological states. On 
their own, they are often inert. When combined, they are often explosive. 
Desires. We all have them, from birth till death, from a desire for perpetual maternal warmth to a 
desire for eternal life. Some of our desires change over the course of our lives while others stay the same. 
We all desire good health and happiness. We differ, however, in what counts as good health and 
happiness. Many of us experience, at least once in our life, the desire to harm another. Our desire to harm 
ranges from the mundane — uttering a sarcastic comment about someone's looks or telling a racist joke 
—to the horrific —creating corrupt corporate schemes or policies of ethnic cleansing. Sometimes what 
we desire is rather benign, but linked to foreseeable atrocities. Sometimes our desires are toxic, as when 
we plot to extinguish a culturally distinctive group. On one reading, President George W. Bush may well 
have initiated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as retaliatory attacks on terrorists, designed to protect 
American interests and well-being. But he brought much of our nation on board by weaving a web of lies 
and feeding a cowboy mentality of revenge rather than nurturing compassion and understanding. The 
consequences, clearly foreseen at the time, have been excessive. As a nation, we did not pursue an eye-
for-an-eye revenge. We had a different algorithm in mind, on the order of 30,000 eyes for an eye. 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
145 
EFTA01104052

Approximately 3,000 innocent victims died in the 9-11 attacks. As of early 2011, some where between 
900,000 to over a million soldiers and civilians have died in Afghanistan and Iraq due to the war. This is 
excessive. This is no longer revenge. This is senseless brutality. 
On one reading, Pope Benedict XVI kept his knowledge of pedophilic priests quiet and 
confidential in order to forgive them and protect the church. But this seemingly benign desire led to a 
disaster, one that was foreseeable: continued sexual assault on thousands of innocent children and for 
many, a loss of trust in the church and their moral and spiritual leader. 
Discoveries by molecular biologists, neuroscientists, and psychologists reveal important 
individual differences in our capacity to fuel desire, differences that constrain the paths we take from birth 
until our last breath. Some individuals are more risk-prone, some are impatient, and some gain a greater 
hit of dopamine in anticipation of reward, thereby doping themselves on the brain's pharmaceutical 
offerings. Some are born with a set of genes that diminish the capacity for self-control. These individuals 
start with lower levels of serotonin. These individuals, if raised by abusive parents, have a higher 
probability of taking someone's head off if they are challenged. Some individuals are born with low 
stress levels. These individuals are more likely to be sensation-seekers, voracious desirers who will stop 
at nothing less than the spectacular, even if this means the spectacularly violent. None of these biological 
catalysts operate in a vacuum. All of these biological catalysts feed off of particular environments that we 
create. Geological and climatic factors create savannahs, oceans, and mountains. We create slums, 
refugee camps, and totalitarian regimes. We are responsible for creating toxic environments and equally 
responsible for cleaning them up. How we think about individual responsibility in cases of brain damage, 
developmental disorders or innate differences in the starting state of our neurochemistry is a different 
problem, one that I will touch upon in the last section. 
Denial. We all engage in it, at least some of the time. Like the psychology of desire, our 
engagement with denial is sometimes benign and often beneficial as a coping mechanism. We 
dehumanize in order to buffer ourselves from the pain of another's pain. We self-deceive in the service of 
boosting self-confidence and self-esteem. When doctors turn their patients into machines that require 
repair, they have deployed an adaptive mechanism that keeps empathy at bay when it is unnecessary. 
Good doctors, the ones that we all want, turn empathy back on when their patients awake from surgery, 
flesh and blood pulsating, thoughts and emotions humming. Bad doctors never turn empathy back on. 
Evil doctors, such as Carl Clauberg who injected liquid acid in the uterus of Jewish prisoners as part of a 
Nazi inspired sterilization program, not only lack empathy for their patients, but see them as vermin or 
parasites that require extermination in the name of science and the preservation of our species. Denial has 
transformed other human beings into nonhuman forms, from inert objects to wild animals and parasites. 
Denial has allowed military leaders and airplane pilots to ignore clear signs of trouble, marching 
thousands to their death. When this happens, moral responsibility checks out. Denial provides individuals 
and nations with a certified license to maim, rape, burn, mutilate and kill without feeling guilt, shame or 
remorse. 
As with desire, the sciences provide a rich offering of evidence to explain how and why we 
engage in denial, either by means of dehumanizing others or self-deceiving ourselves. Both 
dehumanization and self-deception have a clear evolutionary logic. Dehumanization is a mechanism that 
enhances an individual's competitive edge by making hatred and killing easier. Hatred and killing are the 
essential and ancient ingredients for defending the in-group and effacing the out-group. Sometimes, 
soldiers would rather avoid killing the enemy. But when dehumanization of the enemy takes hold in the 
mind of a soldier or civilian, killing is not only easy, but addictive. The brain's inhibitory mechanisms, 
processed by circuitry in the frontal lobes, shut down. Other brain regions involved in working out what 
people believe and intend, enter into hibernation. With these circuits on leave, so too is our moral 
conscience. When the mind runs its dehumanization software, abstinence from killing is like withdrawal 
from a drug. Killing is satisfying. Killing is delicious. 
Self-deception evolved in the service of deception. By functionally fooling ourselves into 
believing that we are stronger, wiser, and more competent, we can convince others to go along for the 
ride, to work for us or work against a fictional enemy. Like dehumanization, this has both adaptive and 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
146 
EFTA01104053

maladaptive consequences. Brain imaging studies show that different circuits turn on when we lie about 
long held personal stories as opposed to lies about in-the-moment situations. When we distort reality, 
either omitting information or twisting it to create a false belief, we have to inhibit the way things are to 
create an illusion of the way we wish them to be. In each case, there is conflict between one version of 
reality and another. In each case, the electrical and chemical choreography of the brain recruits its 
braking mechanism, stifling one piece of knowledge in the service of lifting another to the surface of our 
lips. We perfect this capacity over the course of development. Some are born lacking this capacity. 
Others have a system that is out of control, unable to distinguish truths from falsehoods. Somewhere 
along this spectrum are healthy members of society who have the potential to justify themselves and a 
society of willing listeners about the importance of becoming willing executioners, a phrase coined by the 
historian Daniel Goldhagen to describe Germans involved in the Holocaust. 
Desire + Denial. We all carry out this sum easily, often automatically and unconsciously. When 
we are pushed by a desire to eliminate others or to achieve some other goal, we call on denial to justify 
both extraordinary means and exceptional ends. We convince ourselves that we are morally in the right 
and that extermination or manipulation are our only options. We convince ourselves that the other is an 
object or animal, emotionally inert or unrecognizable. We shrink our moral circle, creating a culture of 
indifference. We convince ourselves through self-deception that the other is a threat. When we feel 
threatened, we raise our hackles in self-defense. When self-defense steps forward it recruits violence, 
justified by the belief that fighting back is not only right, but obligatory. Once violence starts, supported 
by a moral imperative, uncontrollable escalation follows, leaving a trail of dead bodies, raped women, and 
abducted children. Desire couples with denial. Once this liaisons forms, it evolves, grows and feeds on 
itself. We have arrived at excessive harms. We have arrived at evil. 
What can we do? How can we harness our understanding of evil to predict when it might occur 
again? Can we reduce future danger? 
Future dangerousness 
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-2I year olds from drinking? 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. 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, now and in the future. We believe 
that a person who committed a heinous crime at the age of 18 is responsible for harming others and is 
likely to do so 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 someone at the age of 17 is still developing and has the 
potential to change. In this sense, we hold them less responsible for their actions. 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
147 
EFTA01104054

Looking out at the tapestry of age-limited situations reveals a rather eclectic pastiche. In many of 
these cases, the cut-off age seems both arbitrary and inappropriate given the statistics. Consider the legal 
driving age. Is it the case that 16 year olds are responsible drivers? 16 years 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, 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 25th birthday? 
There are at least two common answers to the driving age problem, both utilitarian: in farming 
communities, and other environments where children work with their parents, it is essential to have 
children driving as soon as possible; and throughout the country, many parents look fonvard 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. 
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, including my own state of Massachusetts, 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 absolutely the case that a more mature brain 
brings with it 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 makes them more vulnerable to addictions, 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 or groups and hold 
them responsible? When do we punish them to pay for their crimes and fend off future atrocities? 
The law often invokes the notion of future dangerousness as a means of evaluating risk. So too 
does the public and media. The general presumption is that for certain kinds of offences, there is a 
predictably high level of recidivism, of doing the same thing over and over again. But the implication of 
this judgment is that those who are deemed guilty are, in some way, not responsible for their future. Their 
future is determined for them. In fact, it is so determined that the law is willing to make a confident 
wager and send these criminals to prison or to their death. On this view, someone who has already 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
148 
EFTA01104055

repeated a crime is more likely to repeat than someone who has only committed a crime once. On this 
view, those who engage in certain kinds of crimes, such as child molesters and rapists, are more likely to 
repeat because it is "in" their system. Unfortunately, both folk perception and legal analysis of future 
dangerousness are based on weak evidence, unfounded assumptions, or both. 
Consider sexual offenders. Their crime is intentional, frequently repeated, and aimed at innocent 
victims. Given that many sexual offenders repeat their offenses, it has the appearance of inevitability, of 
a process that is highly determined. Because many sexual offenders were abused as children, some 
experts conclude that we should blame their parents. Other experts believe that particular situations either 
promote or support sexual offenders, including the church and medical exam rooms. And yet other 
experts, including the psychiatrist Boris Schiffer, reveal brain differences among pedophiles, including 
especially the areas involved in reward and self-control. Together, these observations suggest that the 
combination of a deviant nature and toxic nurture have led to a more deterministic universe. In this 
universe, sexual offenses are inevitable or so highly probable that we should lock up offenders and post 
their crimes in every county's registry, and if possible, as replacements for flamingo lawn art. 
If this assessment of sexual offenders is right, how should we think about responsibility, blame, 
and punishment. If sexual offenders can't help themselves, how should we assign blame? How should we 
assign an appropriate level and form of punishment, if punishment is even appropriate? Studies of 
recidivism among sexual offenders generate rates as low as 15% and as high as 80%. These studies also 
reveal that recidivism rates differ for incest perpetrators, rapists, and child molesters. These numbers tell 
us that even child molesters don't always repeat their crimes. They also tell us that sexual offences should 
not be lumped, but split apart into their underlying causes and triggers. Like the high odds favoring a 
horse with a distinguished lineage and top rated jockey, there are high odds favoring repeated sexual 
molestation in an individual who was sexually abused as a child and enters the clergy. Does this mean 
that we should all bet on this one horse or forget the race altogether? Does this mean that we should lock 
up the priest before he has an opportunity to enter his parish? No and No. Neither horse racing nor sexual 
molestation are that easily determined. Future success and future dangerousness are probabilistic. They 
represent our best guesses. When the law determines that someone is at high risk of committing a future 
offense, it doesn't really care whether the individual is perfectly healthy or brain damaged. It cares about 
risk. In terms of blame and punishment, however, the law cares about the perpetrator's brain. The law 
cares about a person's capacity to act rationally and independently. It is this capacity that allows us to 
assign responsibility. It is this capacity that drives many theories of blame and punishment, including the 
Australian legal scholar Michael Moore's massive treatise Placing Blame. These are reasons why 
scientific understanding of future dangerousness is important for law and society. 
Armed with these ideas about future dangerousness, we can return to the list of potential evildoers 
that I mentioned in the prologue. This list included individuals who caused relatively minor harms such as 
Reverend Lawrence Murphy and Charles Manson, as well as those who committed much more major 
harms such as Idi Amin and Mao Zedong. Whether we consider these individuals and their acts as evil is 
orthogonal to the fact that each one posed a great risk to society. Each of these individuals would have 
been judged as high risk for causing future danger. Only some of these individuals should have been 
punished if punishment is guided by our understanding of responsibility and blame. Only those 
individuals who can take responsibility for their actions and change should be punished. On this view, all 
of the dictators were rightly blamed and punished. And so too were Jane Toppan, Bernard Madoff, and 
Charles Granger. In contrast, although Lawrence Murphy should have been locked up as opposed to 
exiled to a cottage, both Murphy and Charles Manson are more difficult to assess in terms of 
responsibility, and thus, the appropriateness of punishment. No one would want them walking the streets 
today, free to rape innocent children or create a cult of murderers. But for the law to evolve, we need 
better tools to evaluate the biological underpinnings of diminished capacity. These measures, still in the 
early stages of development, will help refine our understanding of risk, guide our clinical interventions, 
and contribute to the construction of a safer society. 
As we move forward, we must also recognize the rapidly changing landscape, and the future 
dangerousness of globalization, especially its capacity to breed evildoers. Like authority, conformity, 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
149 
EFTA01104056

dehumanization, and self-deception which each have both beneficial and toxic personalities, so too does 
globalization. Globalization has integrated developing countries into the global economy and allowed 
them to profit from new resources and advances. But globalization has also fragmented these countries 
by giving them access to resources that corrupt, such as arms for guerrilla leaders and rogue armies. What 
has changed in the twenty-first century, perhaps as early as the 1990s, is a new form of war, one that is 
tied to the signature of evil and its expression as excessive harm. No longer are wars confined to state 
borders, restricted to states and their legitimized militaries, financed by governments and tax revenues, 
and focused on combatants. Instead, the new wars of the twenty-first century have entirely porous 
boundaries, are funded by private organizations, run by grass-root groups, and motivated by the use of 
horrific means to achieve equally horrific ends, including torture, rape, mutilation, and the use and abuse 
of civilians, women, children and men alike. As a result, international law is effectively, ineffective. 
Those running these new wars are outside of international law. 
The consequence of the new wars extends beyond the travesties experienced by those living in 
these hot spots to the humanitarian aid workers and journalists who attempt to help the victims. 
Humanitarian aid is often pirated by rogue militias, and journalists are frequently killed or badly injured. 
We must therefore face the sad reality that as we ended the twentieth-century and initiated the twenty-
first, casualties to non-combatant civilians shifted from few to many. We must face the reality that 
combating evil will require new laws and new protections for those who risk their lives to aid victims and 
give voice to their often silent suffering. 
Evil ever after? 
We won't eradicate evil. Why? Because the capacity for evil is rooted in human nature, born of a 
promiscuous mind that enables ideas and feelings to flip between beneficial and toxic. Though we 
institute programs and practices that promote the beneficial, living within every human mind is a toxic 
neighbor, waiting to move in. Adhering to authorities is beneficial in that great leaders are energizing, 
empowering, creative, and a source of guidance into a brighter future. But even great leaders can turn 
toxic, imposing corrosive ideologies and eliminating basic human rights. Conformity is beneficial in that 
we want to live in a society where norms are followed, providing stability and cooperation. But 
conformity is toxic when it leads to blind faith and uncritical thinking. Dehumanization is beneficial in 
allowing us to carry out medical procedures and live with certain kinds of human suffering. But 
dehumanization is toxic when it facilitates ethnic cleansing by shrinking the moral circle, turning 
atrocities into virtuous offerings. Tolerance and pluralism are beneficial in that they lead to respect and 
concern for others' attitudes and desires. But tolerance and pluralism are toxic when they breed apathy 
and a willingness to stand by as passive bystanders. 
My diagnosis of evil is not meant to be defeatist, but realist. It is only through an 
acknowledgment of our biology and the environments it has created —and can create —that we can look 
for solutions to ameliorate the human condition. We are all vulnerable to walking on the wrong side. We 
are fallible. We are also enormously creative, capable of great change. Like no other species, we 
relentlessly seek novelty. No one wants to be like his or her predecessor. Whether it is a new culinary 
tradition, extreme sport, technological innovation, musical genre, or weapon of destruction, our search for 
novelty is an indestructible component of human nature. 
Our journey into the nature of evil has come to an end. Bombarded by the sheer magnitude of 
lives lost or damaged beyond repair, it is natural to deaden our senses and choke our feelings in the hope 
of finding solitude and peace. As painful as a re-awakening is, we must remember the individuals that 
make up these massive atrocities. Reflecting upon the loss of his son who was murdered by the Lord's 
Resistance Army, an 80 year old Ugandan chief summed it up — "We have been forgotten. It's as if we 
don't exist." 
We must never forget. We must never deny our potential to cause horrific pain and suffering 
while finding ways to forgive and express deep compassion. We must never give up on humanity. 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
150 
EFTA01104057

Endnotes: Epilogue 
Recommended Books: 
Glover, J. (2000). Humanity. Yale University Press. 
Grossman, D. (1996). On Killing. New York: Back Bay Books. 
Moore, M.S. (2010). Placing Blame. Oxford University Press. 
Quotes: 
• Human Rights Watch Report, 2010, "The Trail of Death" 
Hauser 
Epilogue. Evilightenment 
151 
EFTA01104058