ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question of whether evil can be an essential quality of a person's nature, or whether evil is only a description of what a person does. It is possible that a deeply flawed character disorder, such as a malignant narcissist, may behave in an evil way but not be evil at the deepest level of his being. McGinn thinks the capacity for this kind of evil may be a psychologically primitive, hard-wired disposition analogous to altruism, which makes it sound deeply embedded in human nature. Wilson writes that an evil person may be described as "one who intentionally inflicts serious physical harm on another person or persons in pursuit of a personal, ideological or religious goal, and who experiences intense psychological pleasure in doing so". Bloom elieves that babies have an innate, rudimentary moral sense that is subsequently modified by life experiences and cultural values.
