The woman wasn't evil. But her actions really are.
It's very easy, too easy, to say that she is evil because what she did was so bad. But that's lazy, and it misses the interesting stuff. How do people get caught up in performing such horrendous acts?
There's a bunch of cognitive stuff going on, and some subtle manipulation. I suspect that something similar is how we end up with app stores full of "free" games that are full of micro-payments and ads. (Instead of the Doom model of a few free levels and a paid for full version).
1) Most of the people probably were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. A technically faulty conviction means legal innocence, but not actual innocence.[1] Everyone deserves due process, obviously, and "probably" isn't good enough to convict someone, but it is something that can help someone like this rationalize their actions. "I'm just helping get a conviction this guy deserves anyway."
2) Like most people involved in the criminal justice system, these are not sympathetic people. Prior convictions, prior jail time, gang affiliation, etc. You can imagine her rationalizing by saying that even if the accused weren't guilty of the specific crimes against them, they were guilty of something.
Obviously I'm not trying to justify the actions of the chemist here. The criminal justice system has due process and protections and those things are important. But the fact of the matter is that most people who are brought through it are not "good people." That's just the nature of the system. The police don't arrest random law-abiding middle class people and pin crimes on them. For people who work in police work and prosecution, it's a constant parade of various degrees of unsympathetic characters. That's the psychological environment in which this chemist was working. And again, without justifying her actions, if you're trying to understand her psychology, that's where you need to start.
The Nietzsche quote is appropriate here: "And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."
[1] This is something I think people have a tough time grappling with. I have friends who do work on wrongful convictions and prisoners rights. It's extremely important, valuable work. But often their work involves defective convictions, not people who are truly innocent (as a matter of actual fact, not as a matter of legal determination).
No. It is simpler than you are making it out to be.
If you say "I did the test that proves it is heroin" and you didn't, and you are smart enough to be a chemist, and you see some poor guy get put in jail, then you are evil.
But she didn't think she was being evil. She somehow persuaded herself that what she was doing was okay.
That's the interesting bit. Why do people go along with things that they know are wrong. She wasn't alone in this, there are a bunch of other people involved too. And it's similar for other frauds and deceptions.
She didn't wake up and think "Fuck it, I'm going to jail thousands of innocent people". So, what was she thinking?
Can we test for that kind of thinking in other people? How do we protect against is?
I think you need to dig a bit deeper than the rationalizations people give for their actions.
There is a difference between a person who genuinely considers what they are doing to be OK, and people who are actually rationlizing things they know deep down to be wrong.
I think your implicit assumption that anyone might have acted like she did, in her position, is wrong. Both a person's innate (not necessarily genetic) moral goodness, and the circumstances a person finds themselves in, play a role in how they are act.
In trying to avoid one kind of simplistic viewpoint, I think you are falling for the opposite one.
I look at her and I think "I would never do anything like that!"
But is that really true or am I just rationalising with the benefit of hindsight?
There was an article on HN about a man running a family business who started defrauding money. It needed the cooperation of other people. Rather than creating any elaborate lies he simply told them, and asked them for help. (I can't remember any more about it, which is making search tricky!). But they all went along. He was a nice guy, and they were helping him, and no-one was really being hurt. Except they were all committing serious criminal offences.
If you go deep enough, some chemical reactions managed her thoughts and behaviors, and negotiated your reaction, as well.
At some point people have to be held accountable and called names like evil. The idea that she can talk herself into believing otherwise is a travesty, mostly because it allowed it to continue.
I think the word evil was invented to describe people exactly like this woman.
I don't think other folk are giving you enough credit here. It's much to easy to think we would never do something without critical thought.
This reminds me a lot of espionage. No one sets out to betray their country, but by gradually making more and more compromises you go from being Uncle Sam to Aldrich Ames.
Maybe she was thinking "the job market for PhDs stinks. I better do this job the way I am expected. And these hoodlums don't deserve to get off on technicalities-- the cops wouldn't collar someone they didn't know was a crook."
She was thinking: "I'm helping justice." I'm sure she was thorughly assured that people she helped to convict are guilty anyways. They just needed cherry on top to convince the judge and/or jury.
In the same way that you can build a reliable system from unreliable components through clever system design, I think you can build an evil system from good but limited people.
I think a lot about the housing bubble, the popping of which has had a terrible human cost. There may be nobody on earth who is willing to say, "Yes, I helped make that happen." But there are an awful lot of borrowers, mortgage brokers, bankers, executives, and investors who are very sure that it wasn't their fault. After all, they were just doing their job or obeying the incentives.
Go check Robert Sheckley's Ticket to Tranai - it had the opposite - utopia created on the basis the human nature is flawed and some creative design. Fun read.
It's not easy to say she is evil; it requires consideration of what is evil, what is an evil person, her particular situation and how it might apply to the definitions.
Concluding a person is evil does not preclude looking at any other angles on the case. So, I don't think it is lazy to consider it.
A question that is simpler to answer is whether or not her behavior matches that of a sociopath.
Of course, if the answer is yes, and I think that it is, then you have to ask what boundaries does a sociopath have to cross to become truly "evil". I'm willing to admit that some sociopaths are not evil, but when a person has 40,000 victims and not only taints evidence but makes up fantastic job titles and passes herself off as an expert witness in court, I think she may have crossed the threshold.
Evil is an ambiguous word. It doesn't look like she did this out of malice. But greed or even fear (of saying no to hot shot prosecutors) - aren't all such reasons equally unwholesome?
Maybe, overcome with self-interest, she didn't view her victims as actual human beings. For example, if someone wanted to cut down a forest to build a strip mall on top of the land, they'd be dooming or displacing the animals (squirrels, insects, etc) that lived there, but most people would be comfortable with that.
Maybe she had dependents to take care of, and she felt that everything she did, she "did it for the family."
Given the fact that she made up impressive job titles for herself, and testified as an expert witness in areas where she did not have expertise, she seems to fit the profile of people who are considered to be "evil".
There is more to this case than the act of tainting samples. There is the collusion of others, and there are the other acts of this chemist. The whole picture is of a person who has gone over to the dark side.
The woman wasn't evil. But her actions really are.
It's very easy, too easy, to say that she is evil because what she did was so bad. But that's lazy, and it misses the interesting stuff. How do people get caught up in performing such horrendous acts?
There's a bunch of cognitive stuff going on, and some subtle manipulation. I suspect that something similar is how we end up with app stores full of "free" games that are full of micro-payments and ads. (Instead of the Doom model of a few free levels and a paid for full version).