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Approximately 3,000 innocent victims died in the 9-11 attacks. As of early 2011, some where between 900,000 to over a million soldiers and civilians have died in Afghanistan and Iraq due to the war. This is excessive. This is no longer revenge. This is senseless brutality. On one reading, Pope Benedict XVI kept his knowledge of pedophilic priests quiet and confidential in order to forgive them and protect the church. But this seemingly benign desire led to a disaster, one that was foreseeable: continued sexual assault on thousands of innocent children and for many, a loss of trust in the church and their moral and spiritual leader. Discoveries by molecular biologists, neuroscientists, and psychologists reveal important individual differences in our capacity to fuel desire, differences that constrain the paths we take from birth until our last breath. Some individuals are more risk-prone, some are impatient, and some gain a greater hit of dopamine in anticipation of reward, thereby doping themselves on the brain’s pharmaceutical offerings. Some are born with a set of genes that diminish the capacity for self-control. These individuals start with lower levels of serotonin. These individuals, if raised by abusive parents, have a higher probability of taking someone’s head off if they are challenged. Some individuals are born with low stress levels. These individuals are more likely to be sensation-seekers, voracious desirers who will stop at nothing less than the spectacular, even if this means the spectacularly violent. None of these biological catalysts operate in a vacuum. All of these biological catalysts feed off of particular environments that we create. Geological and climatic factors create savannahs, oceans, and mountains. We create slums, refugee camps, and totalitarian regimes. We are responsible for creating toxic environments and equally responsible for cleaning them up. How we think about individual responsibility in cases of brain damage, developmental disorders or innate differences in the starting state of our neurochemistry is a different problem, one that I will touch upon in the last section. Denial. We all engage in it, at least some of the time. Like the psychology of desire, our engagement with denial is sometimes benign and often beneficial as a coping mechanism. We dehumanize in order to buffer ourselves from the pain of another’s pain. We self-deceive in the service of boosting self-confidence and self-esteem. When doctors turn their patients into machines that require repair, they have deployed an adaptive mechanism that keeps empathy at bay when it is unnecessary. Good doctors, the ones that we all want, turn empathy back on when their patients awake from surgery, flesh and blood pulsating, thoughts and emotions humming. Bad doctors never turn empathy back on. Evil doctors, such as Carl Clauberg who injected liquid acid in the uterus of Jewish prisoners as part of a Nazi inspired sterilization program, not only lack empathy for their patients, but see them as vermin or parasites that require extermination in the name of science and the preservation of our species. Denial has transformed other human beings into nonhuman forms, from inert objects to wild animals and parasites. Denial has allowed military leaders and airplane pilots to ignore clear signs of trouble, marching thousands to their death. When this happens, moral responsibility checks out. Denial provides individuals and nations with a certified license to maim, rape, burn, mutilate and kill without feeling guilt, shame or remorse. As with desire, the sciences provide a rich offering of evidence to explain how and why we engage in denial, either by means of dehumanizing others or self-deceiving ourselves. Both dehumanization and self-deception have a clear evolutionary logic. Dehumanization is a mechanism that enhances an individual’s competitive edge by making hatred and killing easier. Hatred and killing are the essential and ancient ingredients for defending the in-group and effacing the out-group. Sometimes, soldiers would rather avoid killing the enemy. But when dehumanization of the enemy takes hold in the mind of a soldier or civilian, killing is not only easy, but addictive. The brain’s inhibitory mechanisms, processed by circuitry in the frontal lobes, shut down. Other brain regions involved in working out what people believe and intend, enter into hibernation. With these circuits on leave, so too is our moral conscience. When the mind runs its dehumanization software, abstinence from killing is like withdrawal from a drug. Killing is satisfying. Killing is delicious. Self-deception evolved in the service of deception. By functionally fooling ourselves into believing that we are stronger, wiser, and more competent, we can convince others to go along for the ride, to work for us or work against a fictional enemy. Like dehumanization, this has both adaptive and Hauser Epilogue. Evilightenment 146 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012892