But that doesn't do much for me. I've always had trouble imagining new-borns as morally depraved. Deficiencies in a child's family also might foster wickedness. But Jimmy's family didn't seem particularly nasty. Besides, I knew kids who came from real hellish family situations who were kind and considerate.
Some philosophers argue that no one actually chooses evil.
Some of these thinkers maintain that evil simply is the absence of good. Thus, it cannot be chosen. Others muse that people who appear to choose evil are simply pursuing their own interests at the expense of others. Beyond philosophy, in places like our schools for instance, the therapeutic model is ascendant. The problem with all these explanations is that they do no justice to the hideously evil events of just this century much less human history.