What I found most surprising about the reading this week was that right away two points were made about abuse that did not get addressed properly in a military setting. One was that ends justify the means when it comes to making decisions to do evil acts that are legal but not ethical. In other words, when evil acts are considered legal, its mostly because the cost and benefit weighing shows that benefit is more than the cost of not doing it. What surprised me was that it never occurred to me before that when talking about evil there are evil acts where the benefit is more than the cost and that it can be legal. Looking at it more closely it makes sense as certain punishments for those doing – most likely – a much greater evil, could prevent more greater evil acts from happening. Things like the death penalty or killing in war are seen as more acceptable and are actually legal compared to other evils because they are for protection.
The second point was that evaluation of the cause of abuse never looked at how conditions were conducive; the evaluation never looked at people higher in command to see why this was being allowed in one way or the other. This really surprised me because to me it has always been clear that those acting inappropriately either do so because they are in a situation where they can or continue to do so because nothing is happening or in place to stop them. This can translate to evil acts as well and not just inappropriate acts. But what I found in the reading that the justice system is much more concerned with having those who did the act punished than looking at who let this happen, how, and why were these situations conducive of the abuse occurring.
When people think of abuse in a home they may think that conditions in the home were conducive such as another adult in the household not reporting or stopping the abuse in any way, but it often is much more than that. Many countries acknowledge that abuse needs to be stopped not just directly in the home through other people living there (through reports to specific organizations) but also through home visits, programs for children to attend to cope with and prevent abuse from occurring, and resources at school, as well as many other resources countries like Canada have.
During the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, officials of different levels are realizing that shutting down “non-essential” services – although necessary for social distancing to occur – eliminates at home visits, social programs, school, as resources that prevent abuse from occurring. These officials are acknowledging that with this elimination, more children at risk of abuse, and it mainly because these officials can not do much to help the situation not be allowed.
The academic article by Lei, Cai, Brown, and Lu (2019) shows that the resources such as agencies for child abuse, reporting systems, and other institutional care are not present in China and result in a lack of report of child abuse that literature has indicated is occurring. A section of the article highlights how the allowance of family structure to see abuse as part of the culture of family care allows for more abuse to take place and normalizes it. The study aims at showing how introducing a community approach to stopping child abuse will prevent a good amount of child abuse currently happening in China. A challenge found when trying to put in community supports for child abuse was that there was a lack of legal power to ensure the children ended up safe.
This study along with the news article show that community services are necessary in preventing a great number of child abuse cases, and that these community services need to be supported by the justice system, in that people who partake in abuse are legally dealt with in order to bring a stop to the abuse, and that people who are stopping abuse of a child are legally able to take actions to ensure the safety of the child
Lei, J., Cai, T, Brown, L, & Lu, W. (2019). A pilot project using a community approach to support child protection services in China. Child and Youth Services Review, 104.
Psychology of Evil Online Journal 
Hi Madison!
I also thought that it was weird that nobody looked at the higher-ups when persecuting the military personnel from Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo stated that the higher-ups would only be liable if it could be shown that they knew about the abuses, there was a reason to be told about the abuses, and they didn’t put a stop to it. However, I supposed it’s difficult to prove that they knew about the abuses because even all their instructions were so vague that they could be interpreted in different ways. Maybe this did this on purpose so they wouldn’t get caught giving explicit clear instructions or maybe it’s similar to how the Nazis called the extermination of Jews the final solution instead of clearly calling it what it was. In past readings, it was mentioned that they did this to be more okay with the evil acts and make it seem not as severe and frame it in a different way. Maybe the higher-ups unconsciously had similar intentions with their phrasing. What do you think?
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I definitely agree with you! If people with that much power and responsibility failed to give organized order and structure to the prison, then it is very much possible that they knew with the freedom given that abuse and torture could take place. With that much power and responsibility, they should know to think of these things and set order and structure to prevent these things from occurring. Either they knew it could happen, and they are responsible there, or they failed to take into consideration what they should have, and they are responsible there.
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Hey Madison, I really like the point you brought up about the justice system caring more about having the perpetrators punished rather than reflecting on how this could have happened. I think it’s because they know they are partly at fault. By punishing the offenders and not reflecting on how these actions occurred, they don’t have to admit that they did anything wrong themselves. They put the blame solely on the offender instead of looking at how society is partly to blame as well and how they can prevent further cases from happening. Do you think less evil would occur if the justice system payed less attention to the punishment and more so to society?
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Hey Madison!
I agree with your point that by committing an evil act, you could stop a greater evil act from occurring. I think this is why evil is so difficult to define. For example, we condemn someone who murdered their partner for cheating on them, but we reward a police officer for murdering an armed criminal. The act itself is the same – murder. But the situation is different- self defense versus a crime of passion.
Also, just a thought about “non-essential” services being cancelled. I think the definition of non-essential is difficult to determine. For example, my teenage daughter suffers from anxiety and depression and she attends a LGBTQ group every week which greatly helps her depression. I know this is different from your point about social programs that help children cope with parental abuse. But it is still harmful in one view, yet justified in another in order to prevent the spread of a greater harm – COVID-19.
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Hi Colleen! I agree with you that one evil preventing another evil is something that makes evil hard to define. I like that you used the societal view on how people look at self-defence versus crime of passion. Although I do think that both situations could be seen as evil given the nature of the situation (was the person who is being targeted really do something to warrant self-defense of the perpetrator or such a response of passion from the perpetrator).
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Hi Bianca! I do think that the justice system to should pay more attention to society, maybe as much as they put into punishing the individual. The justice system workers could broaden their search into who may have had influence or a hand in evil acts. Whether that be a system of people or individuals that let it happen it should be taken into consideration. I know that there are some laws in place now like that. For example, any law that allows an accessory to a crime to be punished. But it is not enough and needs to be broadened in who it looks at and there needs to be more. Realistically though, I do not know a lot about laws and politics and do not know how much this could actually be applied to the justice system.
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