Welcome back!
Hi readers! I hope everyone had a good week.
This week we were asked to read the first chapters of a couple of books concerning themselves with evil (The Science of Evil by Simon Baren-Cohen, Evil by Roy Baumeister and The Lucier Effect by Philip Zimbardo). These books all discussed a different aspect of evil, save for the fact that they all used awful, violent and hateful acts to illustrate evil. During our class discussion, we spent quite a bit of time discussing where the onus for an evil act lies. Some of us thought that the social circumstances surrounding an evil act were to blame, while others wanted to blame the individual entirely.
In my opinion, there are TWO sets of circumstances that can set the stage for an evil act. There is either 1) an evil act, 2) an evil intention (or both) and A) an evil social setting, and B) an evil person who should take all of the responsibility (or both). One may commit an act of evil, but may not have the intention to cause harm (i.e. killing someone in a car accident unintentionally), or they can have the intention to hurt someone but fail to do anything. Similarly, someone can find themselves completely responsible for the evil act, or they may just be a victim of social circumstances, or both. For example, the case of Josef Fritzl stuck out to me from the readings. He lived in Austria and kidnapped his daughter, keeping her captive in their basement for 24 years. Throughout this time, he raped her repeatedly and got her pregnant, which resulted in 7 children (Baron-Cohen, 2011). Josef is one of the individuals who committed an evil act with an evil intention. He selfishly wanted someone who he could rape for his own benefit. His acts of kidnapping, imprisonment and rape were thought out and planned, they were not a result of adverse social circumstances. I think that the purest form of evil is someone who takes it upon themselves to commit an evil act with complete intention.
Our class discussion got me thinking a lot about instances where evil acts could be understood and even forgiven. I tend to lean towards forgiving those who committed an evil act without intention, or those who fall victim to evil social circumstances. It is for this reason that I picked a CBC article that covered the case of a women who killed her husband. The only reason why I think that this murder is justifiable is because the husband was physically and mentally abusing his wife.
Debbie Doonanco
I will post the link so you can read the article, however, I will provide a small summary of the case to give my argument some context. The couple, Debbie and Kevin, lived in Alberta at the time of Kevin’s murder. During the weeks and months leading up to the homicide, Kevin was using illicit drugs and was being physically abusive towards Debbie. It culminated on May 25th when Kevin, who was high on drugs, loaded a gun and fired a shot at Debbie. He was threatening to kill her and her parents if she ever reported the abuse, and so in an act of what I can assume is self-defence, Debbie shot Kevin. Debbie was subsequently charged with shooting Kevin twice and then burning his remains.
I don’t condone what Debbie did, but it is easy for me to understand her mentality. Murdering Kevin was an act of defense on behalf of herself and her parents. It is likely that if Kevin had not been abusive, he would still be alive. Debbie found herself in a set of evil social circumstances.
Who do you think is more evil?
Interviews with Women Convicted of Murder: Battered Women Syndrome Revised
In order to help me gauge whether Debbie should be held accountable, I searched for some psychological research that looked at women who kill their intimate partners.
For some context, I learned that women are more likely to be killed by their intimate partner than all other types of assailants combined (Stevens, 1999). This last statistic makes me wonder why women are always warned to run from evil strangers, yet the really evil ones are those that we’re closest with.
The research also states that it’s not uncommon for women convicted of killing their husbands to experience brutal and repeated assaults, failures to escape, exposure to alcohol or drug abuse, and death threats prior to the murder (Stevens, 1999). Common emotional feelings felt by battered wives include depression, terror, isolation, low self-esteem, and helplessness. Convicted wives who are guilty of their husband’s murder explain that they killed their male partners in an attempt to avoid further abuse. In summary, homicide is often used as a last resort mechanism of self-defence to avoid further victimization (Stevens, 1999).
This research illustrated something I saw a lot throughout the readings; people who kill in an act of self-defence. It was clear that in these stories, these individuals would be completely innocent if they found themselves in a different set of circumstances. In his book, Baron-Cohen writes about the rape of Mirindi Euprazi from the Congo. Mirindi’s son was forced to rape her by rebels who were threatening death (Baron-Cohen, 2011). This case is similar to Debbie’s as both of them committed unthinkable acts but were just trying to escape their own demise. Can we truly blame them and call their acts evil?
References
Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The Science of Evil. Philadelphia: Basic Books.
Johnston, J. (2016, October 19). Women on trial for murder had battered wife syndrome, lawyer says. CBC News. Retrived from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/woman-on-trial-for-murder-had-battered-wife-syndrome-lawyer-says-1.3811274
Stevens, D. J. (1999). Interviews with women convicted of murder: Battered women syndrome revisited. International Review of Victimology, 6, 117-135.
Jessica's Evil Psychology 