[maxsilver]

> people don't just wake up and decide one day to be irrationally evil with no reason, if you believe that then you are a fool

The problem with this, is that people sometimes really do, objectively, wake up and device to be irrationally evil. It’s not every day, and it’s not every single person — but it does happen routinely.

If you haven’t experienced this wrath yourself, I envy you. But for millions of people, this is their actual, 100% honest truthful lived reality. You can’t rationalize people out of their hate, because most people have no rational basis for their hate.

(see pretty much all racism, sexism, transphobia, etc)

[fragmede]

Do they see it as evil though? They wake up, decide to do what they perceive as good but things are so twisted that their version of good doesn't agree with mine or yours. Some people are evil, see themselves as bad, and continue down that path, absolutely. But that level of malevolence is rare. Far more common is for people to believe that what they're doing is in service of the greater good of their community.

[johnnyanmac]

Humans are not rational animals, they are rationalizing animals.

So in this regard, they probably do deep down see it as evil, but will try to reason a way (often in a hypocritical way) to make it appear good. The msot common method of using this to drive bigotry often comes in the reasons of 1) dehumanizing the subject of hate ("Group X is evil, so they had it coming!") or 2) reinforcing a superiority over the subject of hate ("I worked hard and deserve this. Group X did not but wants the same thing").

Your answer depends on how effective you think propaganda and authority is at shaping the mind to contradict itself. The Stanfor experiment seems to reinforce a notion that a "good" person can justify any evil to themself with a surprisingly little amount of nudging.