In his latest book, Zero Degrees of Empathy: A new theory of human cruelty, Baron-Cohen, argues that the term evil is unscientific and unhelpful. “Sometimes the term evil is used as a way to stop an inquiry,” Baron-Cohen tells me. “‘This person did it because they’re evil’ – as if that were an explanation.”
That makes such sense to me. I really hated that book by the author of “The Road Less Traveled”, “People of the Lie” where he postulates some people as evil. Interestingly I noted that that author, forget his name right now, lacked empathy in his case studies of so called “evil” people. I think it was a case of him wanting to make his clinical work match some rather hidden fundamentalist doctrines about original sin.