Can an insane person be evil?
Well, yes, they CAN. But a sane person can also be evil. It's not all inclusive. Not every insane person is evil and vice versa.
What Makes A Person Evil ??
As an agnostic (and intermittent atheist), it's hard to say if "evil" exists because of the religious implications. BUT the one thing that makes me question if there is evil, is the existence of serial killers. To explain: The notion that serial killers are somehow the product of a lousy or abusive background is totally unfounded in the field of psychology. In fact, much of the evidence runs to the contrary: Many sociopaths/serial killers come from seemingly well-adjusted home lives with parents who seem well-adjusted and these criminals often have had a well-adjust childhood. Even so, in the case of trauma, there are many people who endure years of severe trauma and never exhibit sociopathic behavior. So it's difficult or impossible to explain the mystery that is the darkly sadistic actions of sociopaths/serial killers. Serial killers have no sense of sympathy or remorse for anyone and actually get a sexual charge from torturing animals and people for hours. They keep ppl's body parts as momentos. If there's such a thing as evil, I'm willing to believe it is embodied in sociopaths / serial killers. I have worked with them professionally as a counselor and it has been interesting as well as baffling.
What makes a person truly evil? Are they born that way or did their environment make them that way?
Just watch a newborn baby; how happy and innocent they are. And when a baby smiles at you, you cannot help holding your smile. But as the baby grows up, her or his innocent starts to fade, why? Because of their surroundings, because of their situations, because of conditioning or brainwashing. Do you know that the one and only living creatures on this world, that can be conditioned are humans!From your childhood you could be conditioned to believe that, Muslims are terrorists or black people are untouchables or jews are our enemies, you name it! So as the child grows and gets exposed to new environments and people, they changes. So of course your childhood and environmental exposure changes you, either in a good way or in a bad way.And about good and evil - I don't have any intellectual answer for that right now. But one thing I know about it is that, there are both evil and good in people and the ability to differentiate good and evil is what makes us human. Humans are marvelous, they can be above angels or worse than animals.Hope that answers the question!
Is an abusive person, evil?
People are not their actions. To demon-ize somebody for their actions by calling them evil is abusive in itself. There are hundreds of reasons why somebody may consciously choose between morally right and wrong and consistently prefers the latter, then acts irrespective of consequences to himself and to others. Morality is a social construct determined by geography, history and time. A male who fell in love with another man was considered evil not too long ago and still is in some societies. What about people who act in accordance with their religious faith when it directs that you should stone people to death for adultry or the motivations for 911 for example? What about people who are unable to morally reason? Or who have been really poorly parented? What about people who are forced into consciously choosing morally wrong actions through addictions to illegal substances? What about young children that are dragged into prostitution as a means of survival, is prostitution immoral? Are these children evil? What about people who are failed by the systems and laws which are meant to protect them? I am thinking here about the man who's wife was murdered and who's daughter was placed in care and systematically raped, who when the systems and laws failed to punish the offender, systematically targeted him and eventually killed him. Or the Pakistani shopkeeper who after years of violent abuse against himself and his family started a hate campaign against the offender. What about somebody who has acted in any of the ways above as a young teenager then spent the rest of their lives acting in ways which benefit society. Is somebody who has served a jail sentence for their offence always to be labeled evil? What about soldiers? How can killing people be considered evil unless it is during a war in order for your country to get political or economic advantage? Are all soldiers evil? I state again: People are not their actions. To demon-ize somebody for their actions by calling them evil is abusive in itself.
Do evil thoughts make you a bad person if you don't act on them?
Everybody is right from his perspectiveI feel that everybody is right from his perspective atleast at the time of his action. even a murderer feels that he has killed because of some genuine reason. so he might be bad from others point of view but he has justification for his crime. He may realize his crime later on which is a different thing.Repititive Bad action definitely makes us a person bad.If a person is sure that his thoughts are not right and he doesn’t act on them then he is not a bad person. Acting once on them also doesn't makes him bad because there might be some situations & people who have influenced him to do so.But regular doing of that act definitely makes him bad and he gets entrapped in a vicious cycle and addiction too. If we do something wrong unknowingly then it doesn’t makes us a bad a person. But doing even right thing with wrong intentions makes us bad.Dont label anybody as good or bad.We should also accept the fact that nobody is 100% good or 100% bad. We all are humans with unique combination of Strengths & weaknesses. Most of us are perfectly normal with a set of strengths and flaws. Secondly the definition of Virtue & evil is very subjective and it varies from person to person, from society to religion, from country to age etc.Comparison of mind and unused land.Lets compare our mind with a piece of land. If a land is unused then the weeds naturally grows on it. We first need to wipe out them and plant useful flowers, trees etc. later on. Now we need to water them, nurture them, use pesticides etc to get the flowers and fruits.Similarly evil & negative thoughts comes naturally to all. If we don’t do anything then it will keep on growing. So we need to control and wipe them out with meditation, prayer, discipline, exercise, good company etc. Now we should feed our mind with positive thoughts, motivational videos, good books etc.
Can a person do evil if s/he does not know s/he is doing evil?
I would define doing evil as acting with grossly malicious intent.So (to me) you're asking if someone can act with grossly malicious intent without know they're acting with grossly malicious intent.Despite the fact that to have intent in your actions you have to have knowledge of the consequences there are two conditions where you might consider that someone can act with intent without knowledge of the consequences.Firstly, there's self-denial. People sometimes fail to recognise their real motivations in their actions particularly when the outcome hurts someone else. It's easy (and sadly common) for people to act in ways to hurt others but rationalise their actions even to themselves as having different intent.Secondly, there's wilful ignorance. I hold that people can act with such a deliberate disregard for the safety of others that they have a form of intent.For example, target practice with an assault rifle in the direction of a busy road would be an act of evil even if you didn't directly intend to hit someone.I'm saying that gross dereliction of your duty to others can be construed as malice. There's a level of disregard for possible consequences at which someone has a grossly malicious intent in exposing others to ill considered or even unconsidered risks.For example, in the UK we have a crime 'Causing Death by Dangerous Driving'. In the vast majority of cases the driver has no direct malicious intent of the outcome.Racing through a town at high speed at night not giving a damn if you hit someone would be (to my mind) an act of evil.