Evil is now getting academic attention. Developing standards and a method for distinguishing between various degrees of evil will aid jurors in deciding what convicted criminals are worthy of the death penalty.
"We don’t want to look at evil. We don’t want to sit with it. We don’t want to wade in it."
"But it’s as if an oncologist looked away from the cause of cancer because they don’t know how to treat it, or a virologist looks away from AIDS because he considers it to be inscrutable. If you can identify evil, then you can go about eliminating it. It’s the first step in any scientific research."
Forensic psychiatrist Michael Weiner aims to help jurors distinguish between the "casually murderous from the truly sadistic" with the later deemed evil enough for the death penalty.
Regardless of race, age, gender, religious belief or political party, 99 percent of all respondents who have taken the survey agree that "actions that cause grotesque suffering," "intent to emotionally traumatize" and "actions that prolong suffering," are depraved and, therefore, worthy of the most severe legal punishment available.
You can help his research if you want to take a15 minute survey at The Depravity Scale. To keep up with depravity and how Weiner is bring method to all that mayhem, you can bookmark his blog.
Posted by Jill Fallon at July 23, 2007 5:38 PM | Permalink