I just wanted to say, this was an interesting question, and I liked the answer of the guest who had the 1%/10%20% breakdown, a few pages back. That is, 1% of the population would be the irredeemable monsters, like Hitler and Stalin, or maybe less uh ambitious people like serial killers, or even just incredibly, deliberately malevolent people who don't necessarily kill, but still cause tremendous suffering; 10% are severely narcissistic people who aren't quite as malignant but still can't or won't change; and 20% are narcissists who boil down to your garden variety asshole.
I think that's probably a fairly accurate assessment, give or take a few percentage points. (Someone out there has probably done a study). Thinking about it, though, I'm still not sure if or how that answers the question of "evil." If we say that the 1% or even the 10% are "evil," that suggests that "evil" is a question of degree; that is, quantity, not quality. I wonder.
There's a lot to unpack here, actually. Going back over some of the earlier responses, it seems like people were in fact answering this as though it were several different questions, which it certainly could be. Among them:
Does "evil" mean something one *is* (i.e. an internal characteristic) or something one *does* (an action)? Or both?
Is evil something you're "born with," something you learn, or something you choose; or some combination? Does it matter? If so, why?
Can people be "partially evil?" Is it possible for evil to change? Or is evil defined by its inability (or unwillingness?) to change?
Is an evil action defined by result, or conscious intention? What about "unconscious intention?" (And here we enter the thorny area of whether people with severe personality disorders have free will, even assuming [I do, anyway] that the rest of us do, more or less).
What does it mean to differentiate "evil" from "sick?"
Ultimately, is the question really, "should we feel compassion for the narcissists (or anyone for that matter) who have harmed us?" Because I think that's a really good question, and worth discussing. But i'm wondering whether the answer hinges on defining the narcissist as "evil" or not.
Scott Peck, who was cited somewhere upthread, had an interesting take on evil, which he equates with what he calls "malignant narcisissm" in "People of the Lie." Personally, I disagree with his conclusions in the latter half of the book, where he veers farther off into a Christian worldview than I'm comfortable with. (Which is yet another potential discussion, I suppose...) But I really liked a lot of what he said about malignant narcissism/narcissists. His take, if I recall correctly, was that yes, there was something that could be defined as evil; and that the evil *is* a sickness; and that it's also, at some level, a choice. He actually boiled it down to certain criteria, which are worth repeating, and if/when I can dig up the book I can post them here. I'm not sure that actually turning those criteria into a formal DSM diagnosis, as Peck suggests ("evil personality disorder") is a really terrific idea, since, as noted here and elsewhere, "evil" is a really loaded term. But for personal purposes, I find them useful in assessing people.
Oh, one more thing: I also think "should we feel compassion" is a separate question from "should we forgive."
