ABSTRACT
The actor is seen to put a low value on human life as to provide the moral outrage that triggers the label of evil. Evil actions invariably are seen by people as requiring this last sort of punishment; mere wrongdoing does not always elicit this requirement. The social psychological perspective suggests that generally organizations are required to produce sustained evil actions. The specific social forces that alter individuals are those produced in organizations. Most evildoers are produced by a process of socialization into doing evil, a process that makes them capable of doing evil autonomously and independently. Psychologists are, understandably, reluctant to write the "production of torturers" handbook, but social psychologists certainly have the knowledge to do so. The essence of the process involves causing individuals, under pressure, to take small steps along a continuum that ends with evildoing. The individual's morality follows rather than leads.
